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Length
Length is the most necessary measurement in everyday life, and units of length in
many countries still reflect humanity's first elementary methods.
The inch is a thumb. The foot speaks for itself. The yard relates closely to a human
pace, but also derives from two cubits (the measure of the forearm). The mile is in
origin the Roman mille passus - a 'thousand paces', approximating to a mile
because the Romans define a pace as two steps, bringing the walker back to the
same foot. With measurements such as these, it is easy to explain how far away the
next village is and to work out whether an object will get through a doorway.
For the complex measuring problems of civilization - surveying land to register
property rights, or selling a commodity by length - a more precise unit is required.
The solution is a rod or bar, of an exact length, kept in a central public place. From
this 'standard' other identical rods can be copied and distributed through the
community. In Egypt and Mesopotamia these standards are kept in temples. The
basic unit of length in both civilizations is the cubit, based on a forearm measured
from elbow to tip of middle finger. When a length such as this is standardized, it is
usually the king's dimension which is first taken as the norm.
Weight
For measurements of weight, the human body provides no such easy
approximations as for length. But nature steps in. Grains of wheat are reasonably
standard in size. Weight can be expressed with some degree of accuracy in terms of
a number of grains - a measure still used by jewellers.
As with measurements of length, a lump of metal can be kept in the temples as an
official standard for a given number of grains. Copies of this can be cast and
weighed in the balance for perfect accuracy. But it is easier to deceive a customer
about weight, and metal can all too easily be removed to distort the scales. An
inspectorate of weights and measures is from the start a practical necessity, and
has remained so.
Volume
Among the requirements of traders or tax collectors, a reliable standard of volume
is the hardest to achieve. Nature provides some very rough averages, such as
goatskins. Baskets, sacks or pottery jars can be made to approximately consistent
sizes, sufficient perhaps for many everyday transactions.
But where the exact amount of any commodity needs to be known, weight is the
measure more likely to be relied upon than volume.
Time
Time, a central theme in modern life, has for most of human history been thought of in
very imprecise terms.
The day and the week are easily recognized and recorded - though an accurate
calendar for the year is hard to achieve. The forenoon is easily distinguishable from
the afternoon, provided the sun is shining, and the position of the sun in the
landscape can reveal roughly how much of the day has passed. By contrast the
smaller parcels of time - hours, minutes and seconds - have until recent centuries
been both unmeasurable and unneeded
Sundial and water clock: from the 2nd millennium BC
The movement of the sun through the sky makes possible a simple estimate of
time, from the length and position of a shadow cast by a vertical stick. (It also
makes possible more elaborate calculations, as in the attempt of Erathosthenes to
measure the world - see Erathosthenes and the camels). If marks are made where
the sun's shadow falls, the time of day can be recorded in a consistent manner.
The result is the sundial. An Egyptian example survives from about 800 BC, but the
principle is certainly familiar to astronomers very much earlier. However it is difficult
to measure time precisely on a sundial, because the sun's path throug the sky
changes with the seasons. Early attempts at precision in time-keeping rely on a
different principle.
The water clock, known from a Greek word as the clepsydra, attempts to measure
time by the amount of water which drips from a tank. This would be a reliable form
of clock if the flow of water could be perfectly controlled. In practice it cannot. The
clepsydra has an honourable history from perhaps 1400 BC in Egypt, through
Greece and Rome and the Arab civlizations and China, and even up to the 16th
century in Europe. But it is more of a toy than a timepiece.
The hourglass, using sand on the same principle, has an even longer career. It is a
standard feature on 18th-century pulpits in Britain, ensuring a sermon of sufficient
length. In a reduced form it can still be found timing an egg.
Hero's dioptra: 1st century AD
One of the surviving books of Hero of Alexandria, entitled On the Dioptra, describes
a sophisticated technique which he has developed for the surveying of land. Plotting
the relative position of features in a landscape, essential for any accurate map, is a
more complex task than simply measuring distances.
It is necessary to discover accurate angles in both the horizontal and vertical
planes. To make this possible a surveying instrument must somehow maintain both
planes consistently in different places, so as to take readings of the deviation in
each plane between one location and another.
This is what Hero achieves with the instrument mentioned in his title, the dioptra meaning, approximately, the 'spyhole' through which the surveyor looks when
pinpointing the target in order to read the angles.
Hero adapts, for this new and dificult task, an instrument long used by Greek
astronomers (such as Hipparchus) for measuring the angle of stars in the sky. It is
evident from his description that the dioptra differs from the modern theodolite in
only two important respects. It lacks the added convenience of two inventions not
available to Hero - the compass and the telescope.
The hour: 14th century
Until the arrival of clockwork, in the 14th century AD, an hour is a variable concept.
It is a practical division of the day into 12 segments (12 being the most convenient
number for dividing into fractions, since it is divisible by 2, 3 and 4). For the same
reason 60, divisble by 2, 3, 4 and 5, has been a larger framework of measurement
ever since Babylonian times.
The traditional concept of the hour, as one twelfth of the time between dawn and
dusk, is useful in terms of everyday timekeeping. Approximate appointments are
easily made, at times which are easily sensed. Noon is always the sixth hour. Half
way through the afternoon is the ninth hour - famous to Christians as the time of the
death of Jesus on the Cross.
The trouble with the traditional hour is that it differs in length from day to day. And a
daytime hour is different from one in the night (also divided into twelve equal
hours). A clock cannot reflect this variation, but it can offer something more useful.
It can provide every day something which occurs naturally only twice a year, at the
spring and autumn equinox, when the 12 hours of day and the 12 hours of night are
the same length.
In the 14th century, coinciding with the first practical clocks, the meaning of an hour
gradually changes. It becomes a specific amount of time, one twenty-fourth of a full
solar cycle from dawn to dawn. And the day is now thought of as 24 hours, though it
still features on clock faces as two twelves.
Minutes and seconds: 14th - 16th century
Even the first clocks can measure periods less than an hour, but soon striking the
quarter-hours seems insufficient. With the arrival of dials for the faces of clocks, in
the 14th century, something like a minute is required. The Middle Ages, by a
tortuous route from Babylon, inherit a scale of scientific measurement based on 60.
In medieval Latin the unit of one sixtieth is pars minuta prima ('first very small
part'), and a sixtieth of that is pars minute secunda ('second very small part'). Thus,
on a principle 3000 years old, minutes and seconds find their way into time.
Minutes are mentioned from the 14th century, but clocks are not precise enough for
anyone to bother about seconds until two centuries later.
Barometer and atmospheric pressure: 1643-1646
Like many significant discoveries, the principle of the barometer is observed by
accident. Evangelista Torricelli, assistant to Galileo at the end of his life, is
interested in why it is more difficult to pump water from a well in which the water
lies far below ground level. He suspects that the reason may be the weight of the
extra column of air above the water, and he devises a way of testing this theory.
He fills a glass tube with mercury. Submerging it in a bath of mercury, and raising
the sealed end to a vertical position, he finds that the mercury slips a little way
down the tube. He reasons that the weight of air on the mercury in the bath is
supporting the weight of the column of mercury in the tube.
If this is true, then the space in the glass tube above the mercury column must be a
vacuum. This plunges him into instant controversy with traditionalists, wedded to
the ancient theory - going as far back as Aristotle - that 'nature abhors a vacuum'.
But it also encourages von Guericke, in the next decade, to develop the vacuum
pump.
The concept of variable atmospheric pressure occurs to Torricelli when he notices, in
1643, that the height of his column of mercury sometimes varies slightly from its
normal level, which is 760 mm above the mercury level in the bath. Observation
suggests that these variations relate closely to changes in the weather. The
barometer is born.
With the concept thus established that air has weight, Torricelli is able to predict
that there must be less atmospheric pressure at higher altitudes. It is not hard to
imagine an experiment which would test this, but the fame for proving the point in
1646 attaches to Blaise Pascal - though it is not even he who carries out the
research.
There remains the problem of how to calibrate the thermometer to show degrees of
temperature. The only practical method is to choose two temperatures which can be
independently established, mark them on the thermometer and divide the
intervening length of tube into a number of equal degrees.
In 1701 Newton has proposed the freezing point of water for the bottom of the scale
and the temperature of the human body for the top end. Fahrenheit, accustomed to
Holland's cold winters, wants to include temperatures below the freezing point of
water. He therefore accepts blood temperature for the top of his scale but adopts
the freezing point of salt water for the lower extreme.
Measurement is conventionally done in multiples of 2, 3 and 4, so Fahrenheit splits
his scale into 12 sections, each of them divided into 8 equal parts. This gives him a
total of 96 degrees, zero being the freezing point of brine and 96 (in his somewhat
inaccurate reading) the average temperature of human blood. With his
thermometer calibrated on these two points, Fahrenheit can take a reading for the
freezing point (32) and boiling point (212) of water.
The terms are demanding. To win the prize a chronometer (a solemnly scientific
term for a clock, first used in a document of this year) must be sufficiently accurate
to calculate longitude within thirty nautical miles at the end of a journey to the West
Indies. This means that in rough seas, damp salty conditions and sudden changes of
temperature the instrument must lose or gain not more than three seconds a day a level of accuracy unmatched at this time by the best clocks in the calmest London
drawing rooms.
The challenge appeals to John Harrison, at the time of the announcement a 21-yearold Lincolnshire carpenter with an interest in clocks. It is nearly sixty years before
he wins the money. Luckily he lives long enough to collect it.
By 1735 Harrison has built the first chronometer which he believes approaches the
necessary standard. Over the next quarter-century he replaces it with three
improved models before formally undergoing the government's test. His innovations
include bearings which reduce friction, weighted balances interconnected by coiled
springs to minimize the effects of movement, and the use of two metals in the
balance spring to cope with expansion and contraction caused by changes of
temperature.
Harrison's first 'sea clock', in 1735, weighs 72 pounds and is 3 feet in all dimensions.
His fourth, in 1759, is more like a watch - circular and 5 inches in diameter. It is this
machine which undergoes the sea trials.
Harrison is now sixty-seven, so his son takes the chronometer on its test journey to
Jamaica in 1761. It is five seconds slow at the end of the voyage. The government
argues that this may be a fluke and offers Harrison only 2500. After further trials,
and the successful building of a Harrison chronometer by another craftsman (at the
huge cost of 450), the inventor is finally paid the full prize money in 1773.
He has proved in 1761 what is possible, but his chronometer is an elaborate and
expensive way of achieving the purpose. It is in France, where a large prize is also
on offer from the Acadmie des Sciences, that the practical chronometer of the
future is developed.
The French trial, open to all comers, takes place in 1766 on a voyage from Le Havre
in a specially commissioned yacht, the Aurore. The only chronometer ready for the
test is designed by Pierre Le Roy. At the end of forty-six days, his machine is
accurate to within eight seconds.
Le Roy's timepiece is larger than Harrison's final model, but it is very much easier to
construct. It provides the pattern of the future. With further modifications from
various sources over the next two decades, the marine chronometer in its lasting
form emerges before the end of the 18th century. Using it in combination with the
sextant, explorers travelling the world's oceans can now bring back accurate
information of immense value to the makers of maps and charts.
Sextant: 1731-1757
The 18th-century search for a way of discovering longitude is accompanied by
refinements in the ancient method of establishing latitude. This has been possible
since the 2nd century BC by means of the astrolabe. From the beginning of the
European voyages in the 15th century practical improvements have been made to
the astrolabe - mainly by providing more convenient calibrated arcs on which the
user can read the number of degrees of the sun or a star above the horizon.
The size of these arcs is defined in relation to the full circle. A quadrant (a quarter of
the circle) shows 90, a sextant 60 and an octant 45.
The use of such arcs in conjunction with the traditional astrolabe is evident
from a text of 1555 about voyaging to the West Indies. The author talks of 'quadrant
and astrolabe, instruments of astronomy'.
The important development during the 18th century is the application of optical
devices (mirrors and lenses) to the task of working out angles above the horizon.
Slightly differing solutions, by instrument makers in Europe and America, compete
during the early decades of the century. The one which prevails - largely because it
is more convenient at sea - is designed as an octant in 1731 by John Hadley, an
established English maker of reflecting telescopes.
Hadley's instrument, like others designed by his contemporary rivals, uses mirrors
to bring any two points into alignment in the observer's sight-line. For the navigator
these two points will usually be the sun and the horizon. To read the angle of the
sun, the observer looks through the octant's eyepiece at the horizon and then turns
an adjusting knob until the reflected orb of the sun (through a darkened glass) is
brought down to the same level.
The double reflection means that the actual angle of the sun above the horizon is
twice that on the octant's arc of 45%. So Hadley's instrument can read angles up to
90%.
Early man soon learned that joining forces with other people by living in communities
was a way to keep safe. By pooling resources, such as their strength to do heavy jobs
and their weapons, they could get more food, as well as wood for fires and for
building,
which
they
could
share
But to get jobs done most effectively and to make sure that
goods were shared fairly, tools were needed. Some of the first mathematical tools man
developed where to help them measure. They had to measure the passing of time, find
ways to divide up pieces of land, develop a system to help keep track of the number of
animals they owned and ways to measure grain so that they could exchange goods
with each other.
Another early way of measuring that was developed was to find the heights of trees.
People needed to know if the wood would be large enough to use as strong beams for
supporting a building, or to make a boat, maybe even to act as a roller for moving
large stones for buildings.
is still important to measure tall trees - which are in fact the largest and oldest living
organisms. Did you know that the tallest tree in the world is in Redwood National
Park in California? It's as tall as a 30 storey building! That's about 360 feet!!
Some of the early ways of measuring the height of tall structures are still in use today.
They require very little equipment and can be used out in forests where special
equipment is hard to come by. Why not try some of these methods for yourself? If you
try more than one way you can then compare your results to discover if the answers
you get are close - they should be. After all, the building or tree doesn't change its
height because you change your measurement method! You might be surprised just
how accurate you can be.
Native Americans had a very interesting and unusual way of seeing how high a tree
was. They would bend over and look through their legs!
They would walk far enough from the tree to a find a place where they were just able
to see the top of the tree (from their upside down position). The distance from this
place to the base of the tree was approximately the height of the tree.
Does it work? Actually it does and the reason is rather simple. For a normal, fit and
healthy adult (one who can bend over in such a way), the angle that is formed as they
look through their legs is approximately 45 degrees. The angle between the tree trunk
and the ground is fairly close to 90 degrees and, using what you know about the
angles and sides of a triangle you can work out the height of the tree. The height of the
tree and the distance from the tree to the person is about equal. Therefore, knowing
the distance to the tree gives you a good idea about the height of the tree. It certainly
saves having to carry heavy surveying equipment around.
Loggers are people who cut down trees. They learned a great deal from people who
lived in forests for generations, like the Native Americans. They might be cutting
down trees that are over a certain height and it is important that they have an easy way
to estimate which of the trees around them are to be cut.
Assignment in Math
( History Of
Measurement )