Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants

by James Vincent

The most common of these arguments is the perceived appropriateness of imperial units. They are measures that have developed slowly over time and have become shaped, like a familiar tool, to the user’s grip. Practically speaking, the biggest difference is that these measures are not decimalised. In decimal systems one relies on multiples of 10, making it easy to convert between units and calculate with large numbers. But US customary measures and British imperial measures use either 12 or 16 as their base (for example, 12 inches in a foot and 16 ounces in a pound), which is easier for dividing things into thirds and quarters. It’s this feature that makes these systems more appropriate to market bartering and other quick calculations. Think of it like slicing up a pizza. You can quickly divide it into quarters or eighths, but how would you cut it into ten slices? As well as the lack of decimalisation, anti-metric campaigners argued then, as now, that imperial measures are superior because they correspond to the human body. Our bodies are our first template for units of measurements – accessible, proportional, and consistent – and in nineteenth-century America and Britain, anyone who wanted to know how long an inch, foot, or span was could estimate from the width of their thumb, the length of their foot, and the spread of their arms. Such measures weren’t precise, but they were always at hand. It’s hard to quite imagine the utility these units provided more than a century ag...