Faber
WE TAKE the certainty of measurements for granted, but their story is as complicated and changeable as any other part of human culture. Journalist James Vincent makes this clear in his new book, which explores the history of calculating things.
Beyond Measure is a pacy romp through time and space, moving from ancient Egyptians with their body-centric measuring systems to present-day scientists seeking to standardise measurement. But it isn鈥檛 just the stories of the rule-makers: measurement has been as much about dispute as diktat, and Vincent explains how important the standardisation of weights and measures was and is for all of us.
He starts with familiar stories about how measurement has changed 鈥� from decimalisation to the trouble with Le Grand K, the 133-year-old kilogram cylinder in a vault within the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in S猫vres, France, which had a nasty habit of losing weight.
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Then we learn about small objects with a big impact, such as the strickle, a stick used to smooth off the top of a grain container to create a reliable, fair measure. But we also get a bird鈥檚 eye view: a chapter on why the US has its famous grid system of roads is particularly enlightening.
Vincent tells a story of a world constantly in flux, of tested measurements we assumed had been around forever popping up more recently than we thought, while other superannuated means of measuring just stick around.
We also meet traditionalists, holding out against what is often seen as the natural evolution of weights and measures. Vincent goes on a guerrilla mission with the Active Resistance to Metrication (ARM), a British campaign group hoping to retain imperial units, as they alter road signs in Thaxted, south-east England.
ARM may seem extreme, but wars have been fought over how we measure things. For example, the book highlights how conflict over measurements was a key part of the French Revolution.
Yet Vincent also shows that the more things change, the more they stay the same. We think we are better than our predecessors at accounting for and enforcing the reliability of a metre, kilogram or day. But as Vincent writes, we frequently betray that claim to precision: 鈥淲e explain to a friend that the next pub is just a five-minute bike ride away, or that the beach is just an hour鈥檚 drive.鈥� More recently, we have estimated walks in podcast lengths, or flights in the number of movies crammed in.
So why do we keep hold of such personal measures? It is here that Vincent is at his most lucid 鈥� and where the book鈥檚 point becomes clear. 鈥淭hey transfer information from an objective realm of distance to a subjective one of experience,鈥� he writes. 鈥淭hey allow us to contextualise the world around us, and make sense of it.鈥�
