Why Is a Foot Twelve Inches? - Robert Crease

Americans are proud of their history of independence and bucking their colonial dependence on the European powers that once influenced the country. But lately, the nation has taken a step back toward reliance on France. Robert Crease, author of World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement, tells Boyd that there is no physical foot to measure all feet by. In fact, the foot exists only in relation to the metric system's meter. And the metric system is a French invention.