H ISTORY OF M EASUREMENT Nakayla Nelson Engineering && Design Mr. Gjoka

A CCORDING TO ARCHEOLOGICAL RECORDS, WHICH CIVILIZATIONS WERE THE FIRST TO RECORD MEASUREMENTS ? The first civilizations to record measurements were the Egyptians. They used levels and sun-dials in the construction of huge stone temples and monuments, such as the pyramids.

A ROUND THE TIME OF THE R OMAN E MPIRE THE TERMS INCH, FOOT, AND YARD WERE REFINED. W HAT WAS THE LENGTH OF A FOOT BASED ON ? Around the roman time a foot was based on the number 12. As today 12 inches equal one foot. Not much has changed since then.

F OR WHAT REASON DID THE F RENCH A CADEMY OF S CIENCE CREATE THE METRIC SYSTEM ? Having different, incompatible systems made scientific and commercial information difficult to use and exchange. During the 20th Century, many of the metric measurements were adopted worldwide, although countries such as the US still use English units in non-scientific applications.

W HAT WAS THE T REATY OF THE M ETER (M AY 20, 1875)? The Convention of the Metre (Convention du Mètre) is a treaty that created the International Bureau of Weights and Measures,an intergovernmental organization. It would preserve the new prototype metre and kilogram standards, distribute national metric prototypes, and maintain comparisons between them and non-metric measurement standards.

H OW WAS THE LENGTH OF A STANDARD METER DEFINED IN THE YEAR 1791? In the 18th century it was felt that a standard unit of length was needed. The French Academy of Sciences decided in 1791 that the meter would be defined by the dimensions of the planet earth. The metre would be a unit of length such that Earth's meridian line was equal to ten million meters. Over the following years measurements of the meridian line that passes through Paris were attempted, so that a standard meter could be cast in metal.

H OW WAS THE LENGTH OF A STANDARD METER REDEFINED IN THE YEAR 1983? The metre was redefined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/ of a second. Before that it was defined as equal to 1,650, wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum.

W HAT WAS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE M ETRIC A CT OF 1866? A significant thing was they recognized the metric system as a legal system of measurement in the United States. The United States found the metric system reliable enough to be used in the U.S.

) W HAT WERE SOME EARLY TOOLS FOR MEASUREMENT ? foot (length of your foot) span digit cubit (length of your forearm) yard seeds (for measuring volume) stones (for measuring weight or height )

W HAT MAJOR ENGINEERING BLUNDERS WERE RESULTS OF FAULTY MEASUREMENT ? The Great Kersten Blunder. The Vigor space probe was sent towards Venus, but because of the computer programming error installed on it had a converting program for millimeters to inches, but it divided by 24.5 instead of This error caused it to miss Venus completely and was sent hurling into space. Over 2 billion dollars of technology was lost because of one simple error.