Publishers Weekly
05/29/2023
Martin, a physics professor at the University of Padua, makes his English-language debut with this stimulating exploration of the nature of measurement from prehistory to the present. He digs into the history of seven units: the ampere (electric current), the candela (“luminous intensity”), the kelvin (temperature), the kilogram (mass), the meter (length), the mole (“base unit of amount of substance”), and the second (time). On measuring distance, Martin observes that ancient Egyptians used standard lengths of rope to determine precise boundaries for land claims (ensuring administrators knew whom to tax) and that French Revolution-era egalitarians introduced the meter as a universal constant to replace local measurement systems that “often favored the few who managed them.” Among other fascinating tidbits, Martin notes that one of the first calendars is thought to be a 10,000-year-old rock bearing 28 notches representing the days in a lunar month and that Qin Shi Huang, “the first emperor of unified China,” led one of the earliest efforts to establish a centralized and uniform system of weights. The examination of the historical forces that produced the seven measurements is incisive and the bounty of trivia enlightens. It’s a revealing chronicle of how humans quantify the world. (June)
From the Publisher
Incisive. . . . The bounty of trivia enlightens. . . . A revealing chronicle of how humans quantify the world.”—Publishers Weekly“An Italian experimental physicist looks at seven means of gauging where we are in the world, from the meter to the second. . . . Entertaining popular science and a literate tale of why things are as they are.”—Kirkus Reviews“Martin weaves in the pyramids of Egypt, the Beatles of Liverpool, and much more in an engaging story (translated by Gregory Conti) of the units we measure the world against.”—Mechanical Engineering“Piero Martin’s delightful book interleaves the science of seven units of measurement with the human stories of their development. Each vignette is a delicious morsel—I ate them all in one sitting.”—Steven Cowley, director, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory“If you’ve ever wondered why humans feel compelled to quantify the world and how these measures have profoundly shaped our understanding of our place in the Universe, then this dazzling book is the one to read.”—Priyamvada Natarajan, Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor of Astronomy & Physics and author of Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos“Seven Measures is a magnificent book that is both enjoyable and important. With each page turned, I learned something I did not know.”—Joseph Mazur, author of The Clock Mirage: Our Myth of Measured Time
Kirkus Reviews
2023-03-07
An Italian experimental physicist looks at seven means of gauging where we are in the world, from the meter to the second.
Some measurements are movable, such as the length of the sunlit day at various times of year, and some are variable, such as the width of a hand or the length of a bolt of cloth. “Nature,” writes Martin, “obviously, works perfectly well even without measurements.” Human society, not so much, and developing standard systems of measurement carries a component of social justice, “a universal system, the same for everybody.” That was easier said than done, of course: Developing the systems of measurement of which Martin writes, including the liter and hectare, first required a decimal metric system, with the usual inexactitudes until, within recent memory, the meter was finally measured “based on universal physical constants,” an example of Einsteinian relativity in action—“a meter is defined…as the distance traveled by light in a fraction of a second equal to 1/299,792,458.” Similarly, as Martin writes, the second used to be 1/86,400th of a terrestrial day, a measure that did not account for changes in the rate of Earth’s rotation. The author’s account is scientifically rich but also lightly worn. He connects the development of accurate standards of temperature to beer-making, for example—and who would have known that James Prescott Joule, for whom a unit of temperature is named, was a brewer? “Are you ready for a big number? A really big number?” Martin writes teasingly of the mole, a measure of substance that connects it to mass, relativity in action once again. It doesn’t take much scientific background to follow Martin’s narrative, though it helps when he gets into the more arcane corners, such as the measurement of visible light. Still, it’s good fun overall.
Entertaining popular science and a literate tale of why things are as they are.
