HISTORICAL METROLOGY IN A NUTSHELL (original) (raw)
Related papers
2023
CALL FOR PAPERS (DEADLINE: 01/07/2023). FINAL SCHEDULE: 15/07/2023 EVENT: 16-17/11/2023 LOCATION: Spanish Metrology Center (Madrid) Submission: title, 300 words abstract, 5 keywords to metrologiahistorica@gmail.com Free registration. At the conclusion of the conference, presenters will be invited to submit their contributions to a collective monograph, which will be published in 2024 with a high-impact publisher/at a high-impact journal] (Q1-Q2 in the SPI ranking. Submissions will undergo a blind peer review process prior to publication. Half a century after the publication of "Measures and Men" (Witold Kula, 1970), the teachings of this eminent Polish professor have not been forgotten. As Kula himself had warned, in order to open up to new horizons historical metrology had to overcome the narrowmindedness of simply translating and metrically equating old measures. And this is indeed what happened. Based on this premise, we propose the 1st Congress of Applied Historical Metrology. New Perspectives of Research. Its aim is to present current research that showcases the progress made by the discipline in recent years. SESSIONS: Session 1. Measures as an attribute of power. Discipline and repression. Session 2. Measures, numbers, and economic history. Trade, markets, and currency. Session 3. Metrology and social history. Behaviors, conflicts, and resistances. Session 4. Metrology and cultural history. Measuring and comparing. Counting and calculating. Visit to the Museum of Weights and Measures of the Spanish Metrology Center (CEM)
2024
CALL FOR PAPERS (DEADLINE: 01/07/2023). FINAL SCHEDULE: 15/07/2023 EVENT: 16-17/11/2023 LOCATION: Spanish Metrology Center (Madrid) Submission: title, 300 words abstract, 5 keywords to metrologiahistorica@gmail.com Free registration. At the conclusion of the conference, presenters will be invited to submit their contributions to a collective monograph, which will be published in 2024 with a high-impact publisher/at a high-impact journal] (Q1-Q2 in the SPI ranking. Submissions will undergo a blind peer review process prior to publication. ABSTRACT: Half a century after the publication of "Measures and Men" (Witold Kula, 1970), the teachings of this eminent Polish professor have not been forgotten. As Kula himself had warned, in order to open up to new horizons historical metrology had to overcome the narrowmindedness of simply translating and metrically equating old measures. And this is indeed what happened. Based on this premise, we propose the 1st Congress of Applied Historical Metrology. New Perspectives of Research. Its aim is to present current research that showcases the progress made by the discipline in recent years. SESSIONS: Session 1. Measures as an attribute of power. Discipline and repression. Session 2. Measures, numbers, and economic history. Trade, markets, and currency. Session 3. Metrology and social history. Behaviors, conflicts, and resistances. Session 4. Metrology and cultural history. Measuring and comparing. Counting and calculating. Visit to the Museum of Weights and Measures of the Spanish Metrology Center (CEM)
Ms4; An exploration into the beginnings of metrology
Ancient man started measuring items and phenomena which is evidenced by artifacts found in the landscape. This is not a definitive paper but a beginning for anyone who requires to trace mans abilities through his actions with a tape measure.
It is thirty years since the discovery of the Rogozen Treasure, and I well recall examining the weights of the vessels, and coming to the conclusion that the total weight of the 165 pieces was equivalent to 3600 Persian sigloi; in other words, that they amounted to a couple of sacks of bullion on their way to being recycled. Here, though, I should like to place the hoard within the context of the study of ancient metrology, which for me began some forty years ago. It was when Andrew Oliver Jr was collecting material for the exhibition Silver for the Gods that took place in 1977 that I was impressed by how he carefully recorded the weights of the silver vessels he was studying. He was mindful of a dictum of Dietrich von Bothmer that “weights were usually rendered in units of a commonly used coin”. He assumed that the Attic drachma would be the prevalent coin, but did not get very far, for few of the objects in question made for apparently significant figures in drachmas. It was some years later that a chance remark made by the late David Lewis at a conference in 1985 to the effect that “some peculiar weights” of gold vessels on the Athenian Acropolis might be explained in terms of darics, caused me to look again at the material in Silver for the Gods and I discovered that many of the weights were expressed in terms of Persian monetary units. I also looked at irregular weights in temple inventories, and found much the same pattern. The siglos standard was far more widespread than the Attic drachma, which is not surprising when one takes into account the small size of the world controlled by the Athenians compared with the immensity of the Persian empire. Some silver did conform to the Attic standard, however; notably the gold-figure silver vessels from Duvanli: a kantharos weighed 250 drachmas, and a phiale 100. And others too, some in unexpected contexts: for example a group of silver vessels “from Erzincan” in the British Museum appear to weigh respectively 100, 150 and 50 Attic drachmas. The weights of some vessels are intractable, such as the gold-figure and will only have made sense as part of sets. I shall provide examples of different kinds of metrological practice, and show how, and how not, to make the relevant calculations.
Ms2; Follow the Barleycorn: The beginnings of Metrology
Practically everything we do in life requires measurement which derives from Metrology. In cartography we use all forms of mathematics and geometry to form measurements for virtually every action we take, particularly scale and proportion. Where they cam from ia a fascinating historical journey which indicates just how adept our forefathers were when faced with necessity.
A brief history of metrology: past, present, and future
International Journal of Metrology and Quality Engineering
In this paper, we take the freedom to paraphrase Stephen Hawking's well-known formula and approach, for a reflection about metrology. In fact, metrology has a past, a present, and a future. The past is marked by a rich series of events, of which we shall highlight only those which resulted in major turns. The impact of the French Revolution is indisputably one of them. The present corresponds to a significant evolution, which is the entry of metrology into the world of quantum physics, with the relevant changes in the International System of units (SI). An apercu of the actual state of the art of metrological technology is given. The future is characterised by a persisting need for a still enhanced metrology, in terms of performance and domain covered. In this respect, soft metrology seems to constitute a promising field for research and development.
2002
Tens of billions of Euro of sales depend world wide each year directly on measurement instruments and techniques. The appropriate laboratory research provides the measurement bedrock upon which modern society stands. Pocket cellular telephones, air bags, heat-seeking missiles, fax machines, video game playersthese products require length measurements many times smaller than the eye can see, as well as precision measurements of voltage, frequency, velocity, pressure, radiation, and temperature. Laboratory research continually improves how these basic quantities are measured, a process that is inseparable from each government's constitutional responsibility for maintaining the nation's weights and measures. Since 1970 we see increasing importance of computer aided measurement techniques as a means to control industrial manufacturing and the quality of all kinds of products. At the same time precision engineering developed as important trend in instrumentation and metrology....
ORIGINS OF METROLOGY: AN INTERPRETATION OF THE 360-DEGREE CIRCLE AND THE ROYAL CUBIT
Origins of Metrology - An Interpretation of the circle and the Royal Cubit, 2024
laboratories investigate the options discussed in my work. The archaeological evidence has been available to society for a long time, but it just has not been interpreted correctly yet. And, difficult as it might seem to believe, there are many scholars, me included, who believe that the change to a metric measurement system following the French Revolution was a great mistake for science. The original metrological systems in-place at the time were the result of sophisticated methods and scientific capabilities that were not given the credit deserved and were allowed to fall away. Yet the ancient designs carry a (partially hidden) wealth of information that should be studied in more detail with modern scientific attitudes and capabilities. This is simply what I have done. I hope you find the content of the article stimulating, and feel free to contact me at my email address if you wish to discuss anything, or to provide a better explanation for the origin of the 360-degree circle.
Historical metrology and media studies
2023
Metrology is the scientific study of measurement and is concerned with the definition of various units of measurement (e.g., capacity, length, weight), the realization and application of such units, and legal aspects of weights and measures. It has its roots in the French Revolution’s goal of standardizing measures through the formation of the decimal-based metric system. It follows that the subdiscipline of historical metrology deals with the immense diversity of past (pre-metrical) systems of measurement. According to Witold Kula in Measures and Men, metrological systems include, in addition to the material measures themselves, “systems of counting, instruments of counting, methods of using these instruments (…), the different methods of measuring…, and conflicting social interests” (94). Given that measures were used for paying feudal rents and tithes, and for quantifying commodities at the market, pre-metric measures were an “attribute of power” and “at the center of bitter class struggle” (98). In other words, pre-metric measures were practical expressions of social relations of production. Measures have, however, received little sustained attention in media studies. This paper positions historical metrology within media studies and posits measures as core economic media. To do this, the paper will develop two primary arguments. First, it will discuss pre-metric measures using Innis’ concept of media bias, positioning these measures as expression of an oral society’s mnemotechnic strategy for transmitting through time the “mathematics of the common people” (Kula, 27) (e.g., those tied to a non-decimal number system such as duo-decimal or vigesimal). Second, the paper discusses measures as essential economic media supporting the reproduction of feudal and capitalist modes of production. In the former, they act as media of redistribution, and in the latter they act as media of commodification. As such, measures are media of exploitation and class struggle, as well as essential media for processing commodities. Commodity exchange requires commercial techniques of equivalency (counting, measuring, and weighing); to measure or weigh a commodity is a necessary condition for a commodity to be expressed in monetary terms. In other words, even before qualitatively different use-values are abstracted into general human labour by the very act of exchange, they have already been reduced to a single common property, like volume, length, or weight. Yet the development of measures has also been a unique site of class struggle because no pre-metric measures were identical and were therefore often arbitrary or asymmetrical in application: the bushel the feudal lord used to collect rent could be larger than the one their peasant tenants were used to, and at the market the peasants may find that the merchant used a smaller bushel. Metrification did away with such personal abuses of power and commercial swindling in favour of an impersonal and exact system of weights and measures, (especially when subsumed into consumer packaging) which accelerated and expanded the circulation of commodities. The paper will conclude by briefly suggesting that (historical) metrology can be used to correct media studies’ over-emphasis on writing and literacy in favour of (ethno)mathematics, number systems, and numeracy.