Beyond Measure

By James Vincent

Measurement isn't an inherent feature of the world—it's a human invention. In Beyond Measure, James Vincent traces the fascinating history of measurement.

Why does the land in middle America look checkered when viewed from a plane? When does water actually boil—when bubbles first appear or when they form a continuous stream? How did the metric system come into being, and why did it face resistance? How has measurement come to dominate our lives?

Vincent explores these intriguing questions and more.

The Nile and the Birth of Measurement

The story of measurement begins with the Nile River, one of the most stable and predictable rivers in the world. The Nile's seasonal floods, which inundated the floodplains from June to September, allowed people to plan their agriculture around its predictable patterns. To measure the water levels, the Egyptians built massive Nilometers—tall towers sunk deep into the ground. These measurements determined the economy for the entire year until the next flood.

Stable rivers like the Nile were essential for early civilizations. The Egyptians also pioneered the measurement of time, with other forms of measurement, such as length and weight, developing gradually.

The Evolution of Standards

Length was standardized using body parts, such as the length of an arm or the distance between the thumb and little finger. As for weight, millet grains were used as they were rare and uniform in size, making them ideal for consistent weight standards.

However, temperature remained difficult to measure for centuries. Before thermometers, there was no reliable way to standardize and repeat temperature measurements. Galileo invented the first thermoscope, which showed temperature changes by the movement of water in a bulb, though it didn't indicate how much the temperature changed.

Later, Daniel Fahrenheit improved on this idea, creating a thermometer where water freezes at 32°F and boils at 212°F. But why did he choose 180 degrees (15×12) between freezing and boiling? Why is a day divided into 24 hours, a foot 12 inches, or a gallon 128 fluid ounces? What's the significance of base-12 and base-16 in our traditional systems?

The Logic of Base-12

Base-12 and base-16 units are easier to divide—12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4, or 6, and 16 by 2, 4, or 8. This made calculations simpler without needing decimal points, making base-12 and base-16 more intuitive for everyday use.

This makes it easier to divide a foot into halves, thirds and quarters and one-sixths with basic calculations. You don't need to deal with decimal points like in base-10. That is the reason why almost every single traditional, non-metric unit uses base-12 or base-16, including time.

A carpenter with basic education is far more likely to succeed in base-12 units than base-10 units because of simple math without having to use a calculator. That's the reason why they continue to use base-12 units irrespective of what the wider society uses.

The Metric Revolution

So, why did base-10 systems like the metric system emerge? The French elites during the French Revolution pushed for it, arguing that it was more "natural" since humans have ten fingers. They introduced new units like the meter, kilogram, and Celsius, based on arbitrary measurements. For example, a meter was defined as one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the equator along a meridian through Paris, and a kilogram was the mass of a liter of water at 0°C.

Initially, these new units were rejected as too arbitrary, but Napoleon later enforced them. Over time, they tied these definitions to physical objects, and later to universal constants when they realized physical objects could vary.

The French even tried to redesign the calendar with ten months and ten-day weeks, but it failed because a ten-day workweek was too long.

Other Measurement Systems

The book also explores other measurement systems, such as:

• America's Public Land Survey System, where Jefferson divided public lands into 1-square-mile parcels, creating the checkered pattern you see from planes over middle America
• Britain's "Beating the Bounds" tradition, where village leaders annually walked the boundaries of properties to reaffirm them and teach the next generation
• Gunter's Chain, which was the standard measuring tool for centuries, now memorialized in the length of a cricket pitch
• NIST, America's National Institute of Standards and Technology, which sets standards that facilitate commerce worldwide

The Modern World

Vincent concludes with a discussion on how statistics and data have taken on a life of their own in today's world, where metrics drive many aspects of life. We live in an age where everything is measured, quantified, and optimized—for better and worse.