Whatever Happened to the Metric System? PDF Download
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Author: John Bemelmans Marciano
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 160819941X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 418
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Book Description
The intriguing tale of why the United States has never adopted the metric system, and what that says about us. The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to behold with its esoteric, inconsistent standards: twelve inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, sixteen ounces in a pound, one hundred pennies to the dollar. For something as elemental as counting and estimating the world around us, it seems like a confusing tool to use. So how did we end up with it? Most of the rest of the world is on the metric system, and for a time in the 1970s America appeared ready to make the switch. Yet it never happened, and the reasons for that get to the root of who we think we are, just as the measurements are woven into the ways we think. John Marciano chronicles the origins of measurement systems, the kaleidoscopic array of standards throughout Europe and the thirteen American colonies, the combination of intellect and circumstance that resulted in the metric system's creation in France in the wake of the French Revolution, and America's stubborn adherence to the hybrid United States Customary System ever since. As much as it is a tale of quarters and tenths, it is a human drama, replete with great inventors, visionary presidents, obsessive activists, and science-loving technocrats. Anyone who reads this inquisitive, engaging story will never read Robert Frost's line “miles to go before I sleep” or eat a foot-long sub again without wondering, Whatever happened to the metric system?
Author: John Bemelmans Marciano
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 160819941X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Get Book Here
Book Description
The intriguing tale of why the United States has never adopted the metric system, and what that says about us. The American standard system of measurement is a unique and odd thing to behold with its esoteric, inconsistent standards: twelve inches in a foot, three feet in a yard, sixteen ounces in a pound, one hundred pennies to the dollar. For something as elemental as counting and estimating the world around us, it seems like a confusing tool to use. So how did we end up with it? Most of the rest of the world is on the metric system, and for a time in the 1970s America appeared ready to make the switch. Yet it never happened, and the reasons for that get to the root of who we think we are, just as the measurements are woven into the ways we think. John Marciano chronicles the origins of measurement systems, the kaleidoscopic array of standards throughout Europe and the thirteen American colonies, the combination of intellect and circumstance that resulted in the metric system's creation in France in the wake of the French Revolution, and America's stubborn adherence to the hybrid United States Customary System ever since. As much as it is a tale of quarters and tenths, it is a human drama, replete with great inventors, visionary presidents, obsessive activists, and science-loving technocrats. Anyone who reads this inquisitive, engaging story will never read Robert Frost's line “miles to go before I sleep” or eat a foot-long sub again without wondering, Whatever happened to the metric system?
Author: François Cardarelli
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1447100034
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 869
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Book Description
Mankind has a fascination with measurement. Down the centuries we have produced a plethora of incompatible and duplicatory systems for measuring everything from the width of an Egyptian pyramid to the concentration of radioactivity near a nuclear reactor and the value of the fine structure constant. With the introduction first of the metric system and of its successor the Système International d'Unités (SI), the scientific community has established a standard method of measurement based on only seven core units. The Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures converts the huge variety of units from all over the world in every period of recorded history into units of the SI. Featuring: - An A - Z of conversion tables for over 10,000 units of measurements. - Tables of the fundamental constants of nature with their units. - Listings of professional societies, and national standardization bodies for easy reference. - An extensive bibliography detailing further reading on the multifarious aspects of measurement and its units. This huge work is simply a "must have" for any reference library frequented by scientists of any discipline or by those with historical interests in units of measurement such as archaeologists.
Author: Ken Alder
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074324902X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 452
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Book Description
In June 1792, amidst the chaos of the French Revolution, two intrepid astronomers set out in opposite directions on an extraordinary journey. Starting in Paris, Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre would make his way north to Dunkirk, while Pierre-François-André Méchain voyaged south to Barcelona. Their mission was to measure the world, and their findings would help define the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance between the pole and the equator—a standard that would be used “for all people, for all time.” The Measure of All Things is the astonishing tale of one of history’s greatest scientific adventures. Yet behind the public triumph of the metric system lies a secret error, one that is perpetuated in every subsequent definition of the meter. As acclaimed historian and novelist Ken Alder discovered through his research, there were only two people on the planet who knew the full extent of this error: Delambre and Méchain themselves. By turns a science history, detective tale, and human drama, The Measure of All Things describes a quest that succeeded as it failed—and continues to enlighten and inspire to this day.
Author: Andro Linklater
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0452284597
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
In 1790, America was in enormous debt, having depleted what little money and supplies the country had during its victorious fight for independence. Before the nation's greatest asset, the land west of the Ohio River, could be sold it had to be measured out and mapped. And before that could be done, a uniform set of measurements had to be chosen for the new republic out of the morass of roughly 100,000 different units that were in use in daily life. Measuring America tells the fascinating story of how we ultimately gained the American Customary System—the last traditional system in the world—and how one man's surveying chain indelibly imprinted its dimensions on the land, on cities, and on our culture from coast to coast.
Author: Alex Hebra
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801870729
Category : Weights and measures
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Will draw readers interested in recreational math. Hebra emphasizes how quantities are defined and derived from basic units, and converted from one system to another... Good fun for the numerically minded.Booklist
Author: National Institute of Standards and Technology (U.S.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Metric system
Languages : en
Pages : 10
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Book Description
Author: Ronald Edward Zupko
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871691682
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 572
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Book Description
The complexity of medieval & modern pre-metric weights & measures (W&M) in Britain presents an obstacle to scholarly research on Western European econ. history. The problem is: the approx. dimensions of many non-standardized measuring units, used by both the Crown & the regional & local markets, varied from time to time & from place to place; & the dimensions even of standard W&M used in any period are poorly understood. This book will clarify the confusion & bring a new focus to the field of metrology & a new understanding of the units. It includes: tables for rapid identification of all ruling English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh sovereigns; current English Imperial, Amer. Customary, & metric units; & the basic equiv. for these W&M; & A Dict. of Brit. W&M.
Author: United States. National Bureau of Standards
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Metric system
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
Author: Lewis Van Hagen Judson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Calibration
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
Author: Francois Cardarelli
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1447108051
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
Expanded, revised and updated here, this detailed guide is truly unique, giving accurate metric equivalents and conversion factors for no fewer than 10,000 scientific units with detailed descriptions of over 2,000. It covers the whole spectrum of science, technology and medicine, and deals with US, British, conventional metric, historic and SI units. The pocket-sized format and slot-in user guide bookmark makes it handy and user-friendly, a great time-saver, and a perfect addition to any research department, engineers , scientists or students library.
