Humanity loves to quantify things. Measurement is a way of exerting order over an essentially chaotic environment. From the earliest days, we have sought ways to nail down just how big, or long, or tall, or fast, etc., something is. It’s a subject capable both of being fascinating and of being deadly dull.
So on that day in the dollar store when I found my copy of A Measure of All Things: the Story of Man and Measurement, by Ian Whitelaw, I was hopeful that I’d found a book and an author that took dry data and presented it in an appealing way. I was also worried that I’d found a book and an author that took dry data and dried it out more.
A quick perusal of the dust jacket gave me hope: Whitelaw is also the author of a book called Habitus Disgustica: The Encyclopedia of Annoying, Rude, and Disgusting Behavior. I admired the minimalist simplicity of the cover design and dove right in.
Several hours later, all I could say was, “Why, oh why didn’t the dollar store have a copy of Habitus Disgustica on the shelf instead?”
Nibbling on a Ruler
Don’t get me wrong. A Measure of All Things is far from an awful book. On the contrary, Whitelaw has assembled a collection of measurement-related information that can be genuinely interesting. He begins with some background, examining some historical systems of measurement and continuing with a discussion of current systems, paying special attention to the rise of the metric system (and its failure to catch on in the U.S.
Subsequent chapters examine measurements of length; area; volume and capacity; mass; temperature; time; speed; force and pressure; and energy and power. The final chapter serves as a sort of grab-bag, examining such miscellany as the heat of chili peppers, typography, ring sizes, and more.
Along the way, Whitelaw gives us some history, a smattering of explanation of how a given measurement is calculated, definitions of terminology, and an assortment of helpful diagrams. Most sections of the book give pride of place to the ways things are quantified by the Système International, or SI (the global system of measuring pretty much everything, which has its roots in the metric system but expands on it).
How to Measure This Book: By Its Breadth, Or By Its Depth?
After reading A Measure of all Things, I was left with a feeling of wistfulness for the book that it could have been. The book that it is has its rewards, to be sure — I’ll keep it on my shelf for those times when I need some piece of the information it contains — but Whitelaw has missed a golden chance to make the world of measurement entertaining instead of just informative. We’re rarely told why a given measurement is called what it’s called, for example. Bottles of champagne that are larger than standard have a series of colorful names, many of them Biblical (e.g., the “Nebuchadnezzar,” which is a bottle that holds 15 liters of champagne, or the equivalent of 20 standard bottles); A Measure of All Things lists the names and their capacities, but doesn’t tell us how those names came to be used. A missed opportunity, and one among several.
Moreover, the book feels a bit padded. Illustrations abound, some of them useful and necessary, but many of them superfluous (do we really need an illustration of a rectangle to show us the layout of an acre, for example?) In the end, it’s a useful book, but one that just doesn’t quite measure up.
Worth a buck?
Yes, if only as a reference tool.
Worth full price?
Sadly, I don’t really think so. The missed opportunity stings too much. Fortunately, it’s easily findable at a deep discount.
Who would like this book:
Data geeks, guys looking for new ways to measure… things… to make them sound bigger, laymen with scientist friends whose cocktail conversation they’re struggling to understand
How to get it:
Widely available online.
