Measure for Measure: Putting Numbers to the World Around Us

Where am I? What do I weigh? How fast am I going? What time is it? How much has it rained? How far is it to the store? We ask these questions, and many more, on a daily basis. Most of the time we take the answers for granted. But what did people do before we had exact standards for weights and measurements? And what difference does standardization make to us?

As far back as 3000 BC, people devised early measurements based on practical activities. The stadion (the distance run without getting out of breath about 200m), the furlong ("a furrow long," or the distance a horse can pull a plough without stopping for a rest) and the acre (the amount of land two yoked oxen can plough in one day) could easily vary from one village to another, but they had the advantage that they were easy to understand and easy to approximately reproduce.

It became evident, though, that weights and measurements needed to be standardized, not only for scientific and business reasons, but to prevent fraud. Depending on the "skill" of the person doing the measuring, the actual quantity could differ considerably. For this reason, governments stepped in to standardize measuring procedures.

Today, a person can get his or her blood pressure taken, bake a cake, drive a car, fly on a plane, monitor rainfall, mail a letter, or check the time - all with the assurance that the weight or measurement is accurate and uniform.

Welcome to Measure for Measure, where you will see many ordinary - and not-so-ordinary - devices that calibrate our world. We hope the exhibit will give you a better appreciation for the importance of these devices, and of measurement itself, in our daily lives.

A Brief History of Measurements

Introduction

Way back before there were clocks....before there were yardsticks.....before there were weight scales....people needed to measure things. But not very much! Back then, there were only two times: night and day. And there were very few numbers required as reputed to the simple-living South Sea Islanders, there are: One.......two......three.....many! Why bother keeping track when the head of the household the tribal chief told everybody what to do, when to do it, and how much to do before quitting. However, with the advent of structured society, we suddenly found a greater personal interest in when do we quit work for the day? ; How many vegetables or fruit do I get? ; How much of this land is mine? Our Measure by Measure... exhibit shows some of the many devices that we have invented to satisfy this need for always more accurate measuring methods.

Weights and Measurements in Ancient Times

Body measurements probably provided the most convenient bases for early linear measurements; early weight units may have derived casually from the use of certain containers or from calculations of what a person or animal could lift or haul.

The Egyptian cubit is generally recognized to have been the most widespread unit of linear measurement in the ancient world. It came into use around 3000 BC and was based on the length of the arm from the elbow to the extended finger tips. The accuracy of the cubit is confirmed by the dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The earliest known weight is possibly the Babylonian mina, which in one surviving form weighed about 23 ounces.

In the first millennium BC, commercial domination of the Mediterranean passed into the hands of the Greeks and then the Romans. A basic Greek unit of length was the finger; 16 fingers equaled one foot. The Romans subdivided the foot into 12 inches.

Completely separate from Mediterranean-European history is that of ancient China; yet the Chinese system exhibits all the principal characteristics of the West.

A noteworthy characteristic of the Chinese system, and one that represented a substantial advantage over other systems, was its predilection for decimal notation, as demonstrated by foot rulers dating back as far as the sixth century BC.