One hundred and forty-five years ago today, on May 20, 1875, delegates from 17 nations to the Metre Convention in Paris signed the Treaty of the Metre, which established the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). This organization standardized many of the measurements that we now take for granted and ushered in an unprecedented age of interoperability and international cooperation which, despite war, economic deprivation, and pandemics in the intervening years, remains in place today.

Those are the facts, and they are of absolute importance to quality assurance, metrology, and industry overall. But the larger meaning of this event, and World Metrology Day (which we celebrate on the 20th of May every year) go beyond the technical aspects, important as they are. What started in the City of Light nearly a century-and-a-half ago continues to bond international humanity together. In the age of COVID-19, when we are all socially distancing, understanding the nature of those bonds is perhaps more necessary now than ever before.

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