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Smoot's Ear: The Measure of Humanity
Measures are the subject of this unusual book, in which Robert Tavernor offers a fascinating account of the various measuring systems human beings have devised over two millennia. Tavernor urges us to look beyond the notion that measuring is strictly a scientific activity, divorced from human concerns. Instead, he sets measures and measuring in cultural context and shows how deeply they are connected to human experience and history.
The book explores changing attitudes toward measure, focusing on key moments in art, sculpture, architecture, philosophy, and the development of scientific thought. It encompasses the journey of Western civilization from the construction of the Great Pyramid to the first manned flight to the moon. Beginning with a review of early measuring standards that referred to the feet and inches of ideal bodies, the book then tracks how Enlightenment interest in a truly scientific system of measure led to the creation of the metric system. This “rational” approach to measure in turn has inspired artists, architects, writers, and others to seek a balance that takes the human story into account. Tavernor concludes with a discussion of measure in our own time, when space travel presents to humankind a direct encounter with the unfathomable measure of the universe.
The book explores changing attitudes toward measure, focusing on key moments in art, sculpture, architecture, philosophy, and the development of scientific thought. It encompasses the journey of Western civilization from the construction of the Great Pyramid to the first manned flight to the moon. Beginning with a review of early measuring standards that referred to the feet and inches of ideal bodies, the book then tracks how Enlightenment interest in a truly scientific system of measure led to the creation of the metric system. This “rational” approach to measure in turn has inspired artists, architects, writers, and others to seek a balance that takes the human story into account. Tavernor concludes with a discussion of measure in our own time, when space travel presents to humankind a direct encounter with the unfathomable measure of the universe.
- GenresScience
224 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 4, 2008
"On 14 October 1960 it was agreed to return to a truly 'natural' and scientifically verifiable definition for the metre rod derived from the radiation of the orange-red light emitted by the radioactive krypton-86 isotopre, so that the metre would equal 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the levels 2p10 and 5d5 of the krypton-86 atom. Since 1983 it has been defined more simply as the distance that light travels in a vacuum in the fraction of time of 1/299,792,458 of a second."
June 1, 2008
The beginning and end are good, the middle is a very tangential experience.
February 9, 2013
The title leads one to expect a diversionary tour of the history of the technologies and the debates regarding measurement, and to an extent it is. Sadly, this perfectly serviceable intention is sidelined in favour of a wacky partisan position, in the process making Robert Tavernor the Baigent and Leigh of measurement.
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More here: Smoot's Ear review
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews