Thousands of years ago, people used different ways to measure things. Some people used the s{#blank#}1{#/blank#}of their king s foot or hand to measure things. After the king died, they used the new king's foot or hand, and so on. However, it was i{#blank#}2{#/blank#}for people to tell the exact size of a thing. In 1584, the Dutch(荷兰的) engineer Simon Steven started to think about a set of measures, The measures used the number ten. H{#blank#}3{#/blank#}, it was just an idea. No one was interested in his idea at that time.

    About two hundred years later, the French scientists created a n{#blank#}4{#/blank#}system of units, using Simon Steven's idea. Around this time, the French scientists w{#blank#}5{#/blank#}out the length of a metre and began to use metres to measure length. They decided to c{#blank#}6{#/blank#}a hundredth of a metre a centimetre and a thousand metres a kilometre.