Hi Jim Thanks for your thoughtful response. Glad to see we agree on the most important things!
I have not read Ken Alders book but will look out for it. There are no few certainties in the history of metrology - but you pose a couple of questions that deserve answers and I am quite happy to post my opinions on them. 1) Why do we regularly find a plethora of units? (France pre 1790 was terrible - but Islam post 800 AD was even worse - there are many more examples.) The basic problem seems to me that it is easy to set up a fixed metrological system by decree - but hard to maintain it. [we can be pretty sure of fixed metrological systems recorded as far back as a guy called Shulgi (Sumer c 2100 BC) And its no coincidence in my opinion that Shulgi's pound weighed cca 500 grams - the post revolutionary metric pound was 500 grams and 16 oz English troy is cca 497 grams]. The problem (imo) is that the information is privileged (as you imply) and there is money to be made by keeping it to yourself. In essence in the longer term central government officials mostly try to maintain standards and local government officials tend to cut deals with local businessmen and vary the standards. Prior to the industrial age central government was small and communications slow and keeping control of corruption away from the centre of the empire was only possible when chance threw up a strong willed, powerful and energetic emperor (Darius, Akbar, Charlemaigne etc) It is not, I think, just a coincidence that a plethora of weight standards grew up in France at a time when the French state and its theory of absolute monarchy were in terminal decline. Nor that Arab weights went off the rails as the Caliphate lost its grip on peripheral territories. 2) American customary weights The American pound is the English Avoirdupois pound. It almost certainly came to Britain from Florence in the 14th century when the English crown tried to put its financial affairs into the hands of international bankers from Lombardy (it is actually a binary pound weighing exactly 128 gold florins.). Both the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Oxford English Dictionary give what is almost certainly a false account of this affair. I have almost no knowledge of early US events and would be pleased to get comment from others. As best I recall the US ton is a bit less then the English ton. I kind of suspect this came about at a time when the US was exporting raw materials and England exported finished goods and so the US made money on a short weight ton at export. I kind of suspect this happened at a time when England was loosing or had lost its political grip on the US. But these are just guesses - if the facts are known I'd be pleased to get advice. best wishes rob (Robert Tye, York, UK) ----- Original Message ----- From: Jim Elwell To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 3:01 PM Subject: [USMA:31822] Re: "UK measures"/FFU's At 5 Jan 05, 03:23 AM, ewc wrote: Jim Elwell wrote: << American units evolved from British units during a period when there was very little agreement as to what an inch was, or what an ounce was, and the fact that they developed a bit differently in the USA over the 200 to 300 years before things really started to standardise has nothing to do with "wanting to be different.">> could however very reasonably be called the Homer Simpson version of history and is a long way from accurate. As I understand it Newton published his results in French Paris livres rather than English Troy or Avoirdupois pounds because he wanted to reach a bigger audience. All these separate measures were well understood, adequately accurate to his purposes, and had been rather stable for several centuries prior to his birth. Newton was also (like me) fascinated by the mathematical genius involved in matters to do with historical measure. Numerous comments: (1) I don't claim to be a measurement historian. I was simply hypothesizing as to why some British and American units with the same name have slightly different values. (2) I was doing that because I most assuredly do NOT believe it has anything to do with "Americans just want to be different." (3) However, you have not entirely convinced me that I was wrong. While units might have been well defined amongst the scientific crowd, that was an extraordinarily small portion of the population, and there was little information flow between them and, say, merchants and farmers in rural America in the 1600s and 1700s. My thinking on this is based on The Measure of All things (Ken Alder, 2003), where he discusses the plethora of measures used in France, and how it was common to see the same unit defined differently from one village to the next. Since "The Measure . . ." was done in the late 1700s (1792 - 1799), it is quite reasonable to presume there was a similar cacophony of units in use in the USA, particularly given that people in the USA had emigrated from a number of different European countries. (4) Let me point out that you "homered" my thesis, but failed to provide any other explanation as to why American and British units differ. SI is a widely accepted international standard that is very practical (and in consequence rather dull). There are good arguments for supporting it. Although the posting you responded to did not reflect it, I am certainly a staunch and active supporter of the metric system. But I don't believe it should be forced onto anyone. If it truly is a better system, it will supplant other systems in time. Having read postings to this list for a few months now I find the campaign for metrification often seems to get mixed up with separate matters to do with historical dumbing down, and also with rather authoritarian attitudes to legislation. Speaking personally - my fears of both dumbing down and authoritarianism are far greater than my love of metrification. My thoughts often drift back to what Orwell was saying in '1984' when I read some of the posts. We are in total agreement on this. Sorry if this gives offence - that isn't my intention - its just an honest response to what I read. No offense taken, at least by me! Jim Elwell Jim Elwell, CAMS Electrical Engineer Industrial manufacturing manager Salt Lake City, Utah, USA www.qsicorp.com
