Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants

by James Vincent

A New Yorker Best Book of 2022

A vibrant account of how measurement has invisibly shaped our world, from ancient civilizations to the modern day. From the cubit to the kilogram, the humble inch to the speed of light, measurement is a powerful tool that humans invented to make sense of the world. In this revelatory work of science and social history, James Vincent dives into its hidden world, taking readers from ancient Egypt, where measuring the annual depth of the Nile was an essential task, to the intellectual origins of the metric system in the French Revolution, and from the surprisingly animated rivalry between metric and imperial, to our current age of the “quantified self.” At every turn, Vincent is keenly attuned to the political consequences of measurement, exploring how it has also been used as a tool for oppression and control. Beyond Measure reveals how measurement is not only deeply entwined with our experience of the world, but also how its history encompasses and shapes the human quest for knowledge. 20 black-and-white illustrations

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, History, Technology, Mathematics, Physics, Audiobook

432 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2022

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

This is in that subgenre of non fiction that takes a deep dive into a specific subject. These, in my experience, tend to divide into "sounds boring, is absolutely fascinating" (The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, Semicolon: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark, Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age), "sounds boring, kind of is" (An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark!), and the most depressing, "sounds fascinating, is not" (What's in a Surname?: A Journey from Abercrombie to Zwicker).

Regrettably, this one fell into the last category for me. The writing was pretty heavy going for the most part except for some outbreaks of journalese: it just felt fairly bogged down in the subject. and it is an interesting subject: how we define measurements and agree them and pick our starting points, the development of measuring tools, how the act of measuring changes the way we look at things. But it felt rather glumly factual to me all the way through. I didn't once feel compelled to buttonhole my husband and tell him about this really interesting thing I just read, which is my measurement of a good non-fic.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although not all science is quantitative, most fundamental science is - and measurement is, in effect, the foundation of quantitative science. In this engaging exploration, James Vincent looks into both the historical origins of measurement and the development of standards, including the way that they have changed over the centuries. For those who regard metres and kilograms an evil imposition of the EU, he gives the heretical view that the introduction of the metric system in France was 'the single most significant event in the history of measurement' - and it's hard to imagine any scientist would argue with this.

What's clever about Vincent's approach is that he combines the TV documentary style of visiting places and talking to people (arguably not strictly necessary for the topic, but making it more engaging) with far more depth than a TV show can ever cover. So, for example, to bring us into the early days of measurement in the Nile delta, he starts us off in a car with a professor of Eygyptology from the American University in Cairo, who we discover 'addresses everyone she talks to [on the phone] as "sweetie" or "habibi"' which she explains is not because she's on friendly terms with all these people but because she can't remember anyone's name. This kind of little personal detail that can make a popular science title accessible to readers who don't often dip into a science book.

Vincent goes on to cover topics such as temperature, the metric system, land measurement (the origin of the word geometry), statistics and the place of measurement in modern society. Politics and sociological impact come into this to a, perhaps, surprising extent. I've already hinted at the culture clash between metric and Imperial units - something that has left the UK in a state of weird compromise, while the US outside of science still pretty much ignores metric units (with occasional problematic outcomes). However, from early on Vincent highlights that the scientific need for measurement isn't met with delight by everyone - noting the criticism, for example, of Newton for supposedly ignoring the beauty of nature by only focussing on metrics. This is a claim that has been easily refuted by pointing out that with science we can still appreciate the beauty, but get far more out of what we observe as well... but Vincent shows us other impacts of measurement that (particularly historically) have had negative impact when those measurements were misinterpreted and misused to political ends.

If I'm honest, I'm probably not the ideal target for Vincent's approach, in that I find most TV science documentaries unwatchable because of the journalistic, interview-oriented style - but having said that I can cope with this when there's as much detail underlying it, as Vincent is able to provide. I did, however, almost give up after reading the introduction, which is distinctly stodgy. Reading 'Measurement is the root of all tectonic arts' made me wonder if the book was going to be painfully pretentious - but thankfully, this seems primarily an issue limited to the introduction.

All in all, I can confidently say this is a book that measures up extremely well to expectations.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It went way beyond a dry discussion of meters and kilograms. There is a considerable and fascinating discussion of the historical and political implications of measurement. The book was a pleasure to read and I found it hard to put down. The writing style is conversational, with some clever wording and puns. This book is well worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and Faber and Faber for the advance reader copy.

[Shain Verow · Rating 5 out of 5]

For starters, I’m a professional measurement nerd, as I work for NIST, which is a major player the latter part of this book. So I’m very biased.

That said, this was really fun! The story of humanity seeking to impose artificial order into the natural world is the soul of measurement. Even from the earliest measurement tools, they were all ultimately created to help people impose their will over nature in one way or another, and it has taken quite the variety of shapes and methods over the millennia.

The development of measurement from the physical body part based standards, to relative standards, to physical standards, to our current mathematical absolute standards all share the common characteristic that they are, at their heart, arbitrary. At some point, we just decide to say “This is a unit!” and then we develop justifications for it.

Modern units are especially fascinating, as we have found ways to measure, standardize, and analyze almost every conceivable detail of everything we can, from quantums of energy, to intelligence, to peanut butter. There’s benefits and hazards to measuring, something useful is gained but also, going back to Plato, something aesthetic is also perhaps lost. Then there’s the very real ways that different measurements have been created and utilized to reinforce societal behaviors, such as slavery, colonialism, and Taylorism.

All in all, for a book of very approachable length, this is a great survey of the history of measurement, and it might even make readers think about how the world around them is quantified a little differently.

[AltLovesBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Measurement is a tool that reinforces what we find important in life, what awe think is worth paying attention to. The question, then, of who gets to make those choices is of the utmost importance."

This book was a struggle for me. At no point did I feel drawn into the history and science of measurement, and normally I'm all about taken-for-granted concept books like this. There's clearly something here, and it's very well researched, it just felt tedious and maybe not what I was looking for in my non-fiction today.

Rather than a discussion of numbers, this book deep dives into the history and meaning behind why we measure things to begin with. I really did appreciate the look at who developed measurements and why, and why we bother measuring things in the first place. It's important to know who's doling out the food according to what measurement, because historical you might be getting screwed and don't realize it.

This exhaustive deep dive, though, was just that for me--exhausting. Maybe this just wasn't the concept book for me, I don't know. Props to the author for the extensive research.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free ecopy in exchange for an honest review.

[mylogicisfuzzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Beyond Measure, James Vincent has achieved something quite tricky, that is created a most enjoyable read about measuring things. His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious as he delves deep into the history of defining and standardising various measurements, weight, length/ distance, temperature and so on, and the people (not all scientists) who did so. He also looks at the current obsession with return to imperial units and the need to continuously measure ourselves, the Quantified Self movement – how we sleep, what we eat, how many steps we take daily. It doesn’t surprise that the latter, with ’10,000 steps a day’ slogan was originally a marketing campaign with no science to back it.

Beyond Measure takes in politics, sociology, eugenics (particularly chilling) as well as science and history of metrology. An impressive read, highly recommended.

My thanks to Faber & Faber and Netgalley for the opportunity to read Beyond Measure.

[Emil O. W. Kirkegaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall has some interesting content. It has several obnoxious woke parts, such as about Galton and IQ in general. History of thermometers, and the decimal system was interesting. It somehow missed the debate on the longitude measurement, though someone else wrote a book length history of that.

[Nicholas Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has some weight. Decent length

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed this a lot. :)

Similar to "The Code Book" in that it delves deep into something we don't often think about but that affects everything around us.

*Not recommended for impatient readers.*

[Urey Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants
by
James Vincent



There are two aspects to this book – the histories of various weights and measures from ancient times to now, their underlying derivations and implementations, is fascinating – fun, engaging and educational, a delight to read. But then the author engages in digressions, interspersed throughout the book, and at considerable lengths in which he presumes to examine deeper meanings and greater consequences of the evolution and utilization of sundry weights and measures in an ethical/societal/cultural context... it quickly becomes tedious, and tendentious. There is an entire chapter on eugenics and its undeniable sins, after a brief narrative of measures to assess intelligence (the IQ tests).

Surveying standards and tools segues into a disquisition on American racism and white supremacy disowning native American cultures from their lands, as if there was something historically unique about conquerors displacing and diminishing those they have conquered. That is not to say or even imply that there were not great wrongs done, but it is folly to suggest such things were unique to a specific (American) experience. History tells us that conquerors (Romans, Celts, Spanish conquistadors, Macedonians, ancient Egyptians, Nazi Germans and Imperial Japanese, the Soviet Union, assorted native American tribes vis-à-vis other native American tribes... to list just some examples) take the land, displace the people and practices, and otherwise subordinate those they conquered. The American Indian (speaking generically) did not lose lands because of the surveying practices of the advancing white population. They lost land because they lost the war... and notably, it took 4-5 hundred years for that result to come about. Surveying merely came after. Such are the vicissitudes of history, throughout history. Perhaps the author could suggest what should have happened?

The author devotes several chapters to the international undertaking to mandate metric measurements, centering much attention upon the seemingly shameful resistance to it that is thwarting universal implementation in American and British societies. He thus minimizes the (to me) disturbing dangers of centralized governmental mandates, briefly glossing over such deplorable actual excesses as being practiced in Communist China. While acknowledging that metric measures are in wide-spread use throughout the US and the UK where appropriate or necessary (science and research, international trade, military alliances), and the co-existent continued use of traditional measures (gallons, feet, yards, miles, pints, etc.) with little or no societal costs, he deplores those resisting metric requirements as right-wing, ignorant, nationalist anarchists resisting the new world order. It’s ridiculous.

So roughly half of this book is wonderful, five stars for the history and derivations of assorted ancient, modern, arcane weights, measures and practices – and roughly half, if not more, is argumentative suppositions and tendentious intellectualizing about deeper meanings and consequences of various ways these weights and measures and practices have been used, earning perhaps two stars. So, on balance, since the negatives slightly outweigh the positives, the measure of this book (see what I did there?) is 3 stars.

[Kara Babcock · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, has it really been eight years since I read The Measure of All Things , by Ken Adler? It doesn’t feel that long. Referenced in Beyond Measure, that book satisfied my curiosity regarding the origins of the metre. I love history of science. In this book, James Vincent takes the story wider and further, investigating the origins of measurement and metrology (the science of measurement). It’s nerdy as all get out, but if that is your jam, then you’re in for a good time.

As with most such books, this one follows a loosely chronological structure. Starting in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, Vincent traces some of the earliest evidence of consistent units of measurement. He links units to their uses. Some of these are obvious—like facilitating trade—but as the book progresses, he addresses less obvious, less comfortable historical facts, such as metrology’s connections to colonization and eugenics. The book concludes where it starts, with Vincent’s journey to Paris to attend the celebration of the official redefinition of the kilogram and retirement of Le Grand K. In this way, the book lives up to its subtle of The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants.

We take our existing measurements for granted. By “we” I mean everyone currently alive; however, I should especially carve out millennials like myself who grew up long after metricization (here in Canada), decimalization in places like the UK, etc. (Though, to be real for a moment, Canada’s commitment culturally to the metric system has always been suspect: I still bake in Fahrenheit, talk about my height in feet and inches, and quantify my weight in pounds, at least informally.) I’ve never in my lifetime gone through a serious upheaval or change in standards of measurement. So it can be a little tough to imagine, and for some even to conceive, that such shifts must have occurred in history. There was a time before the metre. There was a time before real measurement. Yeah. Wow.

The earliest parts of this book are also helpful in belying the stereotype that ancient cultures were unsophisticated. Vincent testifies to the impressive work Egyptians put into measuring the depth of the Nile, constructing entire stone structures for this purpose. The feats of engineering these civilizations went to just to measure things properly, even if these measurements were often linked to religion, are marvelous. In contrast, as soon as Vincent transitions into talking about the absolute free-for-all that was medieval England, all I can do is shake my head. Britain, what were you even doing with your life? Things get better with the Enlightenment, of course, though the chaotic birth of the metric system amid the French Revolution and Napoleonic era remains a wild tale.

For me, the last chapters were the most fulfilling and interesting. Vincent discusses how land survey was vital to the American colonization of Indigenous lands, and of course a land survey needs reliable, standard measurements. This part of the book reminded me a bit of How to Hide an Empire : I greatly appreciate books about colonialism that focus on the immense bureaucracies set up to support it. Often we discuss colonialism as a philosophy or force in the world, but it’s important too that we remember it’s a system, created by humans and executed not just by armies but by everyday employees (like myself, as a teacher) just doing what their policies and procedures lay out for them.

Similarly, I don’t know if I was aware that Galton, father of eugenics, also invented regression! I knew of the connections around eugenics, race science, and the obsession with measurement as a way of understanding human fitness at the end of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, Vincent admirably illustrates why the statistical techniques Galton developed were so seductive and seemed to support the terrible idea of eugenics. It’s a compelling parable about the dangers of following science where one thinks it leads without stopping to interrogate the human biases that lead an investigator down that path.

Finally, Vincent ponders how the elevation of metrology to a science so exacting as to rely on quantum mechanics for its definitions might have also made it less knowable as a result. For the majority of history, he points out, the quest has been to make it easier for anyone to independently verify a measurement standard. The original intention of defining the metre relative to dimensions of the Earth was so that someone else could, theoretically, verify the metre’s length through their own measuring and calculating. Now one needs atomic clocks and other instruments, not to mention a firm grasp of subatomic particle theory, in order to do that. To be clear, Vincent isn’t trying to criticize or condemn the modern metre. If anything, this level of precision is beyond commendable. But I think it’s an interesting and useful observation nonetheless.

All in all, Beyond Measure’s thesis is that humanity’s quest for more precise, more consistent measurement has often been a boon to our societies, but it has also always been exploited as a tool for political wrangling and control. Measurement is not an objective activity. This is ironic given our tendency to view quantitative variables are more reliable than qualitative ones. However, this book firmly establishes that metrology has always altered its flow in response to the politics of the day. Like any broad survey of history, it cannot do any of these topics justice—that’s what more narrowly scoped books are for—but it presents its broad ideas clearly. I learned a lot.

Originally posted on Kara.Reviews.

[Alasdair · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's pretty good! Don't think it'll win over anyone who isn't at least a little bit interested in the subject going in though. Tends towards breadth rather than depth. The earlier chapters on ancient/medieval measurement resemble a sort of miscellany, exploring a range of aspects of measurement, perhaps most interestingly the elasticity of land measurement in Medieval Europe. The later chapters especially touch on measurement's relation to things like land rights, eugenics, and surveillance capitalism, but act more as a summaries of more specific works on these subjects.

Good to find out that Francis Galton, as well as being the father of eugenics, was a horrid little creep, who in his own memoirs talks about creating a 'beauty map' of Britain by classifying the women he observed on the street as 'attractive, indifferent, or repellent', and used a sextant to covertly measure the dimensions of Khoisan women from afar. Disgusting little man.

And on a more cheery aside, I love when a book includes quotes with old English/Scots spelling, in this case a 12th century Scottish law dictating that an inch is not simply any old thumb’s width, but an average of “the thowmys of iii men, that is to say a mekill man, and a man of messurabel statur, and of a lytell man”.

[Zack Subin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This (social and physical) science history blended technical details about the increasing precision and abstraction of our standard measurements with the social changes resulting from and driving the development of these capabilities. I loved reading about the focus on grain markets from Egypt to early modern Europe, and the efforts to gradually decouple the metric system from physical artifacts. The role of the French revolution ideology in creating the metric system (even extending to an aborted decimalization of time) and of land surveying in forcibly colonizing the US were new stories to me.

The range was sometimes uneven. In the successive chapters on surveying and statistics, the author ended on the note of their historical use for oppressive purposes, including the use of [flawed] statistical methods for eugenics. It would have been nice to see how statistics has also increasingly been used to measure and identify mitigations for oppression as well: e.g., examining disparate impacts from COVID-19, unequal air pollution burdens as a legacy of redlining and environmental racism, and the effects of one's zip code on one's life outcomes.

[teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book about the history of measurement was surprisingly a lot more interesting than I (a non-non-fiction reader) would have expected. The philosophy of measurement is much the same as the philosophy of anything that we create to better conceive of the world around us. However his personal biases were very clear throughout the book, and I would’ve appreciated a more objective approach in certain sections

[Alicia Farmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sure I will retain none of the information in this book, but it was interesting to read. Each section is like its own New Yorker article, with profiles of people and cultural or historical asides.

[James Basoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant. Lightly humorous, and provokes many thoughts on how we measure everything in our modern world, for better or for worse.

[Santiago Ortiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really more about units than measure.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started strong and ended weak. There was "hidden history of measurement" that was interesting. Some was about measurement per se and some was about standardization of measurement. Then, especially in the last chapter it devolved to nothing like rigor of measurement nor standardization to almost a diatribe on modern society.

[Patti C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now that I have read it, I find myself deeply considering how measurement is wrapped around my daily life, and how we use measurements to solve everyday problems. It really is in every part of our life and now I can’t unsee it. I found this book to be surprisingly relevant in so many ways.

[Rachael Prest · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, joyful and eye opening. It made me want to step outside the daily confines of my life, dictated by algorithms and data, and reclaim my joy in the unquantifiable.

[Brad Angle · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of philosophizing that had some interesting ideas, but I didn't learn a whole lot. Pretty dry.

[Tiago Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you read the bits about measurements and standards (or lack thereof) in Seeing Like a State and thought, "wow, I wish there was a whole book about that?" Well, this is it! Seeing Like a State is even mentioned. I'm glad James C. Scott got to live to see his work so appreciated (RIP).

The book reads like a meandering collection of stories and musings about measurement. It more or less chronologically follows the invention and uses of ancient metrics all the way to the 2019 revision of the international system of units that finally made the kilogram a function of physical constants. It's a fascinating read, going into measurement's benefits, politics, and controversies. Units were until very recently preferred for things like ease of dividing by common numbers (e.g. sexagesimal systems), or approximations to labor (e.g. "a day's work" of farming for measuring area).

The book drones a bit on the political component of measure at the end. Regardless, it's very fun to read about how entrepreneurial the state often had to be to popularize its preferred system of measurements. The French and their metric mandate make for a good story.

[Andrew Breza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A detailed and surprisingly entertaining account of the history, controversy, and importance of measurement.

[Carter Stokes · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5
Such a nerdy topic and boy did I love it. Such a fascinating book filled with rich context. I no longer will take measurement for granted

[Vince McManus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of very colorful stories about the human history of measuring things. Presented enthusiastically, I was quite engaged by most of it. A good read!

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really good (and fun) book tracing the fundamental history of metrology - how are widely available and useful weights and measures got to be what they are and how basic weights and measures have evolved over time. The author is a science writer who has managed to accumulate a huge body of knowledge (unmeasurable?) about weights, measures, and standards. Where do these come from? Who first decided to use or figure out one measure or another? Why did some persist and others fall by the wayside? Take the foot, for example. It is intuitively clear as a basic measure of length, but whose foot is to be used? Is there some average foot? …or is it more like an average foot?This may seem trivial, I know, but remember the next time you are arguing with your partner about how many “steps” one has taken during the day as determined by your Fitbit. Still.a foot is a foot, right? Well we could use the meter instead, but there is more than a little controversy about that as well - I don’t want to give away any spoilers. What about weights? Some of the most interesting material for me comes early in the book in chapters about measures that are variable by individuals (how much land could one work effectively, which would depend on lots of factors) or the broader topic of how land is mapped out and parceled out for ownership. If one considers the importance of the basic systems of land management and ownership for motivating settlement, then the mechanics of measuring land parcels are anything but trivial. Who knew? Mr. Vincent is also well aware of the political and economic dimensions attached to standards of weights and measures - as well as to standards taken more generally. The importance of standards in facilitating commerce, wealth transfers, and just about any macro level societal characteristic becomes clear as soon as it is considered. This book is very much about the basic dimensions that go into how life is organized and managed. Vincent touches on some of this regarding business management later in the book, where he considers Henry Ford and Frederick Taylor, but he trods upon well examined ground and the more general applicability of his ideas is what makes the book so valuable.

It is almost certain that most readers will find a large number juicy tidbits about everything from the metric system to the acre to the furlong to the kilogram that they were unaware of before reading Vincent’s book. There is an entire genre emerging about various measures time, space, and human activity, down to the lowly week as the basic method for grouping days. “Beyond Measure” is a fine contribution to this literature.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid history of metrological exploration (no, not meteorological); the author deftly takes you on a grande tour as far as measuring through the ages goes, would've been 5 stars if more attention was drawn to the downside of the act of excessive measuring; the detrimental phenomenon of metric fixation; for more on this be sure to check out The Tyranny of Metrics.

[Sarah Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book blew my mind. I love data viz and lately have been wondering where this culture of extreme measurement started. This book answered so many of my questions, from “why do we have the meter and foot?” to “how has measurements changed over time,m?” to most importantly, “How is measurement connected to power?” I feel like I underlined about half of the book.

[Elsbeth Kwant]

The history of measurement - started with the 'Nilometer' beautiful idea. Lots of lovely examples. I think I hardly do it justice, but it is quite a time ago I read it. Loved the sentence: The question he never answers is how the precision of numbers is supposed to match the complexity of language as a tool for self-exploration.

[Sole]

Se va poniendo más y más atrapante a medida que se acerca a nuestra época. Las reflexiones finales me gustaron mucho.