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

by James Vincent

The word ‘precision’ itself comes from the Latin praecisio, meaning ‘to cut off’,

Ishango Bone, a baboon fibula between 18,000 and 20,000 years old, and the Wolf Bone, older still at roughly 33,000

‘When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it,’ said Thomson, ‘but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of Science.’7

cubit (the length from the elbow to the fingertip)

fathom (the span of your outstretched arms).

peninkulma, which was originally measured as the distance at which a dog’s bark could be heard13

Irish unit of the collop, for example, was defined as the amount of land needed to graze a single cow.

cubit is equal to the distance from elbow to fingertip (the English name is derived from the Latin cubitum, meaning ‘elbow’)

the ‘common cubit’ of six palms,