What is Metric time?
'''Metric time''' is a way of measuring how long a period of [[time]] is using the [[metric system]]. The metric system uses the [[second]] as a main unit of time. There are periods of time that are based on the second but shorter. They are named with [[SI prefix|metric prefixes]]. Some of these are kiloseconds and milliseconds. Other units of time, like the [[minute]], [[hour]], and [[day]], are accepted for use with the [[SI|modern metric system]], but are not part of it. == History == The metric system was first used in [[France]] in [[1795]]. It had units for length, area, dry volume, liquid capacity, weight or mass, and even amounts of money, but not for time. [[Decimal time]] of day had been first used in France two years earlier, but was set aside at the same time the metric system was started and did not follow the metric pattern of a base unit and prefixed units. James Clerk Maxwell and Elihu Thomson (through the [[British Association for the Advancement of Science]] - BAAS) came up with the [[centimetre–gram–second system of units]] (cgs) in 1874. The ephemeris second (1/86400 of a mean solar day) was made one of the original base units of the modern metric system, or International System of Units ([[SI]]), at the 10th [[Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures|General Conference on Weights and Measures]] (CGPM) in [[1954]]. The SI second was later made even more exact. It was made into the time of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation from the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the [[caesium]]-133 atom. == Other units == People have had ideas for other base units of metric time (other than the second). On March 28, 1794, Joseph Louis Lagrange, the president of the commission which developed the [[metric system]], wrote a report to the commission. His report suggested the names ''déci-jour'' and ''centi-jour'' ([[deci]]day and [[centi]]day in English).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=JlsoAAAAMAAJ Procès-verbaux du Comité d'instruction publique de la Convention n