Measurement - part 2 1 Software Measurement Measurement Theory.
History of measurement (1)
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Transcript of History of measurement (1)
Warm-Up Activity: Measuring Ourselves
Using your own body, determine:
•How many hands tall are you?
•How many finger-widths tall is your head?
•How many finger-widths is it from your elbow to the tip of your finger?
Compare your results with your neighbors.
A Concise and Abbreviated History of Measurement
Units of measurement based on the human body
Diagram of Yup’ik (Alaska Native) units of length
Relief carving of Ancient Greek measurement using hand span and foot
Diagram of Egyptian definitions of cubit and palm
image credit: Jerry Lipka et al
photo credit: Xavier de Jauréguiberry
The Smoot
The Harvard Bridge between Boston and Cambridge, MA. The Harvard Bridge is 364.4 Smoots in length, plus or minus an ear.
Oliver Smoot being used to measure the Harvard Bridge in 1958.
photo credit: Denimadept creative commons photo credit: MIT museum via Dave Schumaker
With trade and taxation came the need for standardized units
Standard weights for measuring gold dust used by the Asante of Ghana
photo credit: Claudia Zaslavsky
Standardized weights from the Indus river valley
photo credit: John Hill creative commons
photo credit: Andrew Robinson
A bronze ruler from the Han dynasty in China
Systems of measurement commonly used in the US:
The English or Imperial System
image credit: Ian Whitelaw
photo credit: Andrew RobinsonThe early English inch was defined as the length of three barleycorns laid end-to-end King George the III of England’s
standard weights from 1773.
Systems of measurement commonly used in the US:
The Metric System
Since 1983, the meter has been defined as the distance that light travels in 1 299,792458th of a second
Commemorative stamp showing the French Republic measuring one quarter of the earth’s circumference – the original idea behind the meter
Systems of measurement commonly used in the US:
More about the metric system
The Canadian Standard Kilogram. The kilogram is the only unit in the metric system defined by an actual object.
photo credit: Harry Turner, National Reseach Council of Canada
The nickel has a mass of 5 grams
A cube of water with sides each 1 cm has a mass of 1 gram
1 cm
1 cm
1 cm
Bibliography
Lipka, Jerry, Tod Shockey and Barbara Adams. “Bridging Yup’ik Ways of Measuring to Western Mathematics” in Learning and Teaching Measurement: 2003 Yearbook. Ed. Douglas Clements and George Bright. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc, Reston, VA. 2003
Robinson, Andrew. The Story of Measurement. Thames and Hudson Ltd, London, UK. 2007
Tavernor, Robert. Smoot’s Ear: The Measure of Humanity. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 2007
Whitelaw, Ian. A Measure of All Things: the story of man and measurement. Quid publishing, Hove, England. 2007
Zaslavsky, Claudia. Africa Counts: Number and Pattern in African Culture. Prindle, Weber, and Schmidt Inc, Boston, MA. 1973