Air Particle Measurement

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. 35 black-and-white illustrations

Amazon Sales Rank: #473534 in Books Published on: 2011-10-24 Original language: English Number of items: 1 Dimensions: 9.57" h x 1.06" w x 6.46" l, 1.34 pounds Binding: Hardcover 317 pages

Review “A colorful tale of global conquest driven by kings, revolutionaries, polyglots and privateers.” (Science News )“[A] fascinating book.” (New Scientist )“By any measure, this book is a delight.” (Natural History )“Takes the seemingly mundane questions we unthinkingly ask dozens of times a day and reveals them to be thrillingly profound.” (Richard Panek, author of The 4% Universe ) Review Takes the seemingly mundane questions we unthinkingly ask dozens of times a day and reveals them to be thrillingly profound. --Richard Panek, author of "The 4% Universe" About the Author Robert P. Crease writes the "Critical Point" column for Physics World. He is the chairman of the Philosophy Department at Stony Brook University and lives in New York City. He is the author of, among other books, The Prism and the Pendulum, The Great Equations and World in the Balance.

Most helpful customer reviews 7 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Measuring the Measurements By R. Hardy Your friend catches a fish that gets him bragging rights; it was over eighteen inches long, and he has the picture to prove it, his fish right alongside a ruler. But how do you know he didn't use one of those fisherman's gag rulers that are shrunk, making the fish look bigger? Or if he used a regular ruler, how do you know it was in line with other regular twelve-inch rulers? What are the odds that he took that ruler from one that had been carefully calibrated to a standard foot? What is a standard foot? The enigmas involved in measuring are among the subjects in _World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement_ (W. W. Norton) by Robert P. Crease. Crease writes the "Critical Point" column for _Physics World_, and some of the chapters here are from those columns, which means that digressive chapters might not deal specifically with world measurement standards. It doesn't matter; this is a sweeping history of how humans measure things, and since Crease is also the chairman of a philosophy department, it is about the meaning of measurement and its place in human thinking. It is a fascinating story, and all the more so because it is full of optimism. The international community of metrologists (experts in measuring) have spent centuries working on the problem of universal measurement standards, and have cooperated pretty well, and further cooperation seems assured.In the past, every country, and even particular regions within countries, had idiosyncratic systems of measurement. The search for absolutes forms the main part of Crease's book. It was in the 17th and 18th centuries that it became clear that it would be handy to have one standard measuring system. The best proposal was by French scientists at the end of the 18th century. They wanted it to be universal, but they hooked it to the meridian that came south from the North Pole, took in Paris, and went to the equator. One ten-millionth of this distance was to be a meter. There were problems with the system, beyond the considerable ones of other cultures being slow to convert to it. There had been errors in measuring that meridian through Paris, so that the meter rod reverentially stored in the Archives was short. As early as 1827, scientists were fretting over the inexactitude and ephemerality of such rods. If a comet struck the Earth, they said, the axis of rotation or the shape of the Earth might be changed, and so the meridian measurement could not go back to a universal standard. It made no practical difference, as long as everyone was using the same meter rod, but rods may not last forever. In 1834 in London, the House of Lords was set on fire, along with the rods that were the standards for imperial measure; there were then no official standard lengths to turn to. There was no reason this could not happen to the meter rod in the Archives. Much of Crease's book has to do with tying the meter to a natural standard (it is defined now as a particular number of wavelengths of a particular kind of light). The unit of mass, the kilogram, has yet to be given a natural standard, and this is troubling. Right now, there is the "real" kilogram weight stored with the utmost care in Sèvres, but for reasons no one really understands, it seems to be getting lighter compared to the weights that are its official copies. If metrologists can tie it to Planck's Constant, the kilogram, too, will no longer be vulnerable to the vicissitudes which can afflict any physical object.The funniest chapter here is about American resistance to the metric system. That we still use feet and miles is no joking matter, but in the 1880s there was a wacky American anti-metric movement which was "born in Ohio and exhibited the classic signs of American antireform movements: xenophobia, rabid rhetoric, fabrication of `facts,' reimagining history,