Robert P. Crease

World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement

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The epic story of the invention of a global network of weights, scales, and instruments for measurement.

Millions of transactions each day depend on a reliable network of weights and measures. This network has been called a greater invention than the steam engine, comparable only to the development of the printing press.
Robert P. Crease traces the evolution of this international system from the use of flutes to measure distance in the dynasties of ancient China and figurines to weigh gold in West Africa to the creation of the French metric and British imperial systems. The former prevailed, with the United States one of three holdout nations. Into this captivating history Crease weaves stories of colorful individuals, including Thomas Jefferson, an advocate of the metric system, and American philosopher Charles S. Peirce, the first to tie the meter to the wavelength of light. Tracing the dynamic struggle for ultimate precision, World in the Balance demonstrates that measurement is both stranger and more integral to our lives than we ever suspected.
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392 printed pages
Original publication
2011
Publication year
2011
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Quotes

  • b8453453735has quoted3 years ago
    Adams considered the metric system “a new power, offered to man, incomparably greater than that which he has acquired by the new agency which he has given to steam. It is in design the greatest invention of human ingenuity since that of printing
  • b8453453735has quoted3 years ago
    Still, it tied a standard—the yard—to a natural phenomenon, the seconds pendulum, so that in case the existing standard were destroyed, it could be re-created
  • b8453453735has quoted3 years ago
    The basic names—meter, liter (a cubic decimeter), and gram (defined as the weight of a cubic centimeter of pure water at the temperature of melting ice)—would be used to build a comprehensive nomenclature, with prefixes to denominate ten, hundred, and thousand, and tenth, hundredth, and thousandth
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