The Measure of All Things - the Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that transformed the world
by Alder, Ken
pub by - Free Press (Simon and Schuster), NY - 2002, - isbn - 0-7432-1675-X - - LCCN = 2002070267 - - Contents p.vii - - Dramatis Personae p. ix-x - - Prologue p.1-9 - - Epilogue The Shape of Our World p.347 - - Note on Measures p.351 - -
Note on Sources p. 353 - - Notes p.357 - - Selectd Bibliography p.397 - - acknowledgments p.401 - - Index p. 403-422 - - total book length 422 p.
This non-fiction story begins in the last days of the Ancien Regime of the kings of France, through the beginnings of the Republic, through the Reign of Terror and on into the Republic after the Jacobins. Beside all the problems of measuring by
triangulation the length of France from Dunkerque through Paris to Barcelona, Spain they also had to negotiate the
insanity of the first part of the French Revolution. This is also the time of rapid growth of scientific knowledge especially in France, but also in England and also in United States. There was general interest in having a universal system of
measurement to make commerce easier. One idea had been to use the length of a pendulum which swings at a period of 1 second.
The problem with that is there is a slight diffeence of the length of a 1 second pendulum depending on how far north or south it is.
The two savants who led the expediton North from Dunkerque to Paris was Jean-Baptiste-Joseph-Delambre and the savant
who led the expedition South from Barcelona to Paris was Pierre-Francois-Andre Mechan. (Note. The word savant could be replaced with the more modern word scientist.)
After the Revolution decapitated the royal family, and while Mechan was in Barcelona the Spanish declared war on France. Mechan was under house arrest for about a year, and after hostilities were over he sailed for the Italian coast. He had some doubts about some of the work he did in Bacelona and the thought of the irregular measurements haunted him.
Delambre had his own problems, and as their first paperwork was signed by King Louis they were suspect to the forces of the Republic. The leaders of the Republic also thought that the project was important and issued them passes to do the project. There was a previous survey, but this one was for a much more important reason and to be to much more precision, doing the background work to fix the length of the Meter to one humdred millionth (100,000,000,000) of the circumference of the globe. They were take a very accurate latitude measurement in Dunquerque and also in Barcelona, then measure the exact distance by surveying a running line of triangles between those points on a straight line of longitude, then calculate the exact circumference of the earth.
This Meter was to be the basis of the measure of all things. Volumes to be the cube of the length determined, and weights the weight of a cube of water at its most dense, just above freezing.
Several years passed in the middle of the project while the bloodiest part of the French Revolution played out, then the savants (read scientists) were called to finish the job. Mechan was spooked and had a difficult time finishing his part.
A meeting of savants from many nations (mainland European nations) was held in Paris. After Mechan finally presented his measurements, and Delambre waited for him, all were examined and refined. The great discovery was that the surface of the earth was more irregular than previously known. A measurement was decided upon for the Meter.
What was learned was how to deal with less than perfection, although the surveying done was as close to perfect as a human being with very fine instruments could do. Some measurements were done over 10 years later, which detemmined that the original ones were good.
Later chapters covered the biographies of Mechamp who finally died of malaria when surveying in Spain. Dechaump lived to old age as head of scientific affairs in France. He had been so appointed by Napoleon. The last chapters discussed the eventual use of the Metric system over almost all the world, first by fits and starts, then the system became the standard, with of course one major nation (USA) and 3 smaller nations.
Read this book. It not only covers the main theme, but it also has several very interesting asides.
~ 2019-04-17 ~
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