S03 - E08 - Jan 13, 2019
The Measurement Systems
A Brief History
- How we figure out the size of something by using standard units
- Like most things, traveled east to west
- Humans resorted to body parts early on
- Egyptian cubit the most pervasive for length measurements
- Developed around 3000 BCE
- length of the arm from the elbow to the extended fingertips
- All cubit sticks measured against the royal master cubit carved from black granite
- Babylonian mina one of the oldest weight measurements
- These then adopted by Greeks and Romans
- Base Greek unit was the finger
- Medieval Europe inherits these measurements
- Numerous kings tried to impose uniformity and failed
- See an explosion of different measurement variations based area people lived
- Expanding trade forced standardization both within countries and between them to guarantee measurement disagreements didn’t happen
Rise of Imperial and Metric
- The English system (imperial)
- Measures and weights so abused that the Magna Carta even has a clause about regulation
- 1824 - Weights and Measures Act
- Previously only a few standardizations had been decreed
- Edward II (1324) defined the inch as 3 barleycorns
- Henry I (1130) decreed that 1 yard is the distance from the tip of his nose to the end of his outstretched thumb
- Queen Elizabeth I (1575) altered the mile to 5280 feet so it became 8 furlongs (1 furlong = 220 yards)
- This act standardized measurements across all countries ruled under the British empire
- Plaques were posted in public areas for people to make sure their measuring devices were accurate
- Utilizes the foot (length), the second (time), and the pound (mass)
- The French system (metric)
- French Revolution (1789–1799)
- French Academy of Sciences asked to “deduce an invariable standard for all the measures and all the weights”
- Create the metric system
- Two principles during creation
- Based on scientific observation
- Use a decimal or base 10 system
- Adopted 7 April 1795
- Didn’t become mandatory across France until 1840
- 1875
- Other countries recognize the superiority of the measurement system
- Sign the Treaty of the Metre
- This treaty also created three different governing bodies tasked with overseeing any changes to the metric system
- 35 countries use this system officially
- The International System of Units
- One problem with metric system
- As science has progressed, it found the measurements upon which the metric system was based to not be as accurate as they needed to be
- New definitions were called for
- One of the governing bodies created the International System of Units (SI for short)
- Utilizes the meter (length), the second (time), the kilogram (mass)
The US
- The United States Customary System
- As the metric system evolved into the SI, so, too, did the imperial system give birth to the US Customary System
- Washington tells Congress the states need a standardized measurement system
- Jefferson fought for the metric system, but the English system permeated everything
- John Quincy Adams wanted it adopted but stated it would never be adopted by the states until “the example of its benefits, long and practically enjoyed, shall acquire that ascendancy over the opinions of other nations which gives motion to the springs and direction to the wheels of the power.”
- Measurement war is on
- International Institute for Preserving and Perfecting Weights and Measures
- Champions of the customary system
- Believed the metric system to be athiestic
- Publish The International Standard and fill it with anti-metric propaganda, including a song
- “Then down with every ‘metric’ scheme
Taught by the foreign school
We’ll worship still our Father’s God!
And keep our Father’s ‘rule’!
A perfect inch, a perfect pint,
The Anglo’s honest pound,
Shall hold their place upon this earth,
Till time’s last trump shall sound!
- Metric system is legal to use in the US
- Metric Conversion Act of 1975
- Makes metric system the preferred unit of measurement for trade and commerce in the US
- Still only voluntary, however
- US currently one of three countries (Liberia, Burma) that has not formally adopted metric system
- There have been pushes to mandate the metric system
- Hawaii and Oregon both tried to do so for their own states
- Both attempts failed
References