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

From the cubit to the kilogram, the humble inch to the speed of light, measurement is a powerful tool that humans invented to make sense of the world. In this revelatory work of science and social history, James Vincent dives into its hidden world, taking readers from ancient Egypt, where measuring the annual depth of the Nile was an essential task, to the intellectual origins of the metric system in the French Revolution, and from the surprisingly animated rivalry between metric and imperial, to our current age of the "quantified self." At every turn, Vincent is keenly attuned to the political consequences of measurement, exploring how it has also been used as a tool for oppression and control.

Beyond Measure reveals how measurement is not only deeply entwined with our experience of the world, but also how its history encompasses and shapes the human quest for knowledge.

ISBN-13: 9781324035855

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Norton - W. W. & Company - Inc.

Publication Date: 11-01-2022

Pages: 432

Product Dimensions: 9.00(w) x 6.30(h) x 1.20(d)

James Vincent is a senior reporter for the Verge, the Vox Media site devoted to technology and society. He has also written for the London Review of Books, Financial Times, and Wired. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Why measurement matters

1 The kindling of civilisation 21

The ancient world, the first units of measurement, and their cognitive rewards

2 Measure and the social order 51

The importance of metrology for early states and the fabric of society

3 The proper subject of measurement 81

How the scientific revolution expanded measure's domain

4 The quantifying spirit 113

The disenchantment of the world and the history of hot and cold

5 The metric revolution 147

The radical politics of the metric system and its origin in the French Revolution

6 A grid laid across the world 179

The surveying of land, the colonisation of the US, and the power of abstraction

7 Measuring life and death 207

The invention of statistics and the birth of average

8 The Battle of the Standards 241

Metric vs imperial and metrology's culture war

9 For all times, for all people 275

How metric units transcended physical reality and conquered the world

10 The managed life 307

Measurement's place in modern society and in our understanding of ourselves

Epilogue 339

The measures in the head

Acknowledgements 347

Notes 353

List of Permissions 393

Index 395