Measure for measure: the story of imperial, metric, and other units
Editorial JOHNS HOPKINS U.P.
Mainland Spain
- Publisher JOHNS HOPKINS U.P.
- ISBN13 9780801870729
- ISBN10 0801870720
- Type Book
- Pages 215
- Published 2003
- Language English
- Bookbinding Cloth
Measure for measure: the story of imperial, metric, and other units
Editorial JOHNS HOPKINS U.P.
Mainland Spain
Book Details
In Measure for Measure, Alex Hebra offers an engaging and instructive history of measurement systems from ancient times to the present, exploring how and why such units as the stadium, the span, and the parsec first came about. Tracing civilization's various efforts to calculate distance, volume, mass, energy, and time, he explains how units of measurement are applied in such fields as mechanical engineering, physics, optics, and astronomy. In particular, Hebra focuses on the development of the metric system, arguing that even the United States will eventually join the worldwide metric community. Deeply informed and imaginatively told, Measure for Measure chronicles humanity's imperfect search for the perfect system with which to quantify reality.