Cover Image

Defining and measuring nature : the make of all things /

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Williams, Jeffrey H. (Jeffrey Huw), 1943- (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: San Rafael [California] (40 Oak Drive, San Rafael, CA, 94903, USA) : Morgan & Claypool Publishers, [2014]
Series:IOP concise physics.
Subjects:
Metric system > History.
Mensuration and systems of measurement.
Weights and measures > History.
Measurement > History.
SCIENCE / Weights & Measures.
Online Access:Connect to the full text of this electronic book
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Measurement in antiquity
  • Man is the measure of all things
  • Seeds and cosmic forces
  • The Bronze-Age
  • The Roman Empire
  • Further reading
  • Measurement in the early modern period
  • 'Measured by the king's iron rod'
  • Measuring the world
  • Measurement in the Modern World
  • La Révolution Française
  • Defining the size of the world
  • The metric survey
  • Envy, money, terror and the metric system
  • The endgame
  • Further reading
  • Falling out of favour with the metric system
  • Creating the language that is science
  • Dividing apples with oranges to make ... something different
  • The consequences of mixing units
  • Derived units
  • A final comment on the value of a quantity
  • What was not in the original metric system?
  • Energy, work and power
  • Electricity
  • Measurement in the age of scientific certainty
  • The Convention du Mètre
  • The CGPM, the CIPM and the BIPM
  • A true universal language?
  • Even scientists cannot always agree on units
  • 20th century refinements in measurement
  • Two peoples separated by a common system of weights and measures
  • The base units of the Système international des unités
  • Metre
  • Kilogram
  • Second
  • Atomic time
  • Ampere
  • Kelvin
  • Candela
  • Mole
  • Final comments on Ionizing radiation
  • Further reading
  • For this is science
  • Units of measurement must evolve, because science evolves
  • The constants of nature
  • Re-inventing the Système international des unités : towards a Quantum-SI
  • Is the kilogram getting lighter...or heavier?
  • The 'smoking gun'
  • The how and the why of redefinition
  • The devil is in the detail
  • 'Who will explain the explanations?'
  • Further reading
  • Dialects of the single language of science
  • Final thoughts on the evolution of units of measurement.