Measure for Measure: The Story of Imperial, Metric, and Other Units
By Alex Hebra.
Description
From the cubit used by Noah to build the ark to the angstrom in spectroscopy, units of measure have been integral to science and engineering. Throughout history, countless systems of measurement have been devised and then discarded as more precise and more logical systems have come along. While most of the world has adopted the metric system, the United States―with the curious exception of soda bottles―adheres to the imperial system, even though the country has officially been a metric nation since 1893, when Thomas Corwin Mendenhall declared metric prototypes the country's "funda...
ISBN(s)
0801870720, 9780801870729
