Plus or Minus One Ear
Steven Shapin: Weights and Measures, 30 August 2012
World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement
by Robert Crease.
Norton, 317 pp., £18.99, October 2011,978 0 393 07298 3 Show More
by Robert Crease.
Norton, 317 pp., £18.99, October 2011,
“... an MIT fraternity had the idea of initiating new members by making them measure a bridge over the Charles River connecting the Cambridge campus with Boston. Crossing the bridge was often a wet, windy and unpleasant business and it was thought that students returning at night from downtown would like to know, by visible marks and with some precision, how far ... ”
