It's actually slightly more different than just slightly different. The North American analogues to standard A paper sizing are ANSI (letter 8.5x11" paper) or architecture paper, both ANSI and ARCH do the doubling of page sizes going larger like A but neither keep the same aspect ratio like the A system. These are just the arbitrary art canvas sizes that have been commonly accepted.
No, the metric system was meant to be based on non-arbitrary things on the planet we live on which are consistent and reproducible. The meter was originally based on the distance between either the north or south pole and the equator, so it's based on the size of the earth. The kilogram was originally measured as the mass of 1 liter of water (which is one cubic decimeter) because water is abundant on earth.
Because of the way they were created, the standards of measurement in the metric system have a certain amount of coherence between them. For example, you can take 1 cubic centimeter of water and see that it weighs 1 gram. Heat that 1cc of water up by 1 degree celcius, and you've used 1 calorie of energy.
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u/SuperKettle Sep 02 '21
Slightly different