First Emperor showed the way - 2000 years ago
I recently had the pleasure of visiting the splendid (Chinese) First Emperor exhibition at the British Museum. Apart from the terracotta warriors, what impressed me the most was the way that Qin Shihuangdi imposed standardisation on his vast empire - including, of course, weights and measures.
Qin Shihuangdi unified China by conquest in 221 BC. One of his first acts was to decree that only standard weights and measures were to be used throughout the empire. The bronze weight illustrated below is inscribed as follows: “In the 26th year [of his reign the king of Qin] united the princes of the [individual] states; the people enjoyed peace, and he was proclaimed emperor [huangdi]. He issued an edict that all weights are to be standardised. Where they are not uniform, or where there are any doubts, let them be standardised and classified.”
(Acknowledgements to the Trustees of the British Museum)
Also of interest is the measuring cup illustrated below. Its capacity is a “half dou”, which was the most popular size in use. Strangely enough, it is almost exactly equivalent to one litre. Obviously, this must be sheer coincidence, but it does give the lie to the British imperialists’ claim that the pint is “natural”, whereas the litre is not.
(Acknowledgements to the Trustees of the British Museum)
Here in Britain the first recorded attempt to standardise weights and measures can be found in Magna Carta (1215), but it was not until 1824 that imperial measures were standardised by the first Weights and Measures Act. Unfortunately, our current crop of politicians lack the perception or the political courage (or both) to acknowledge that a single system of weights and measures is a basic requirement of a modern society. Hence we have, to quote another Chinese leader*, “one country, two systems”.
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*the late Deng Xiaoping, referring to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
April 14th, 2008 at 22:25
It is significant that the imperial “system” as defined in 1824 is superior to the mish-mash of units we ended up with in the latter half of the 20th century. There was at least an integral relationship between linear and volumetric or so-called liquid measure, namely that a cubic foot was 50 pints or 1000 fluid ounces.
Since the 1963 weights and measures act the pint is defined as (exactly) 568.261485 ml and the inch exactly 25.4 mm which makes the cubic foot 49.830663065261232687624430503151 … pints.
One would have hoped that the disregard shown for any coherence in imperial measures was at least in deference to the far more logical and coherent metric system that would replace it. Since this is has not been done properly we have been left with the worst of all possible worlds.
April 16th, 2008 at 22:16
The litre does seem to be around the right size for a ‘natural’ unit. Interestingly it was never part of the original metric system - the ‘correct’ measure was the cubic metre or Stere. The litre, more or less equal to the old British (and current American) quart of 32 ounces, was the old French Pinte reintroduced as the Litre when Napoleon abolished the metric system.
On the subject of Chinese measures, it’s interesting to note that the Chinese have introduced a half-kilogramme ‘metric pound’ or Gongjin - again, a ‘natural’, convenient size missing in the strict SI version.
If all this sounds geeky and obscure, that’s not the half (or 0.5) of it: in fact I’ve written a whole book on the subject, About the Size of It, published by Macmillan. You can read excerpts on my website.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:59
The 500g Chinese jin, or catty, was not ‘introduced’ to replace something that was ‘missing’ from SI. It was part of a redefinition of all the old Chinese measurements in terms of rational metric values.
Warwick, I assume from your comment that you regard the kilogram as being not ‘natural’, but that the 454g avoirdupois pound and 500g Chinese jin somehow are. What are the minimum and maximum values that you use to define whether a measurement unit is ‘natural’? Would the old 605g Chinese jin fall into this definition too?
Are lines, inches, hands, links, feet, yards, rods, chains, furlongs, miles and leagues ALL ‘natural’ units?
April 19th, 2008 at 13:49
Martin,
In some people’s view, natural means human scale. In the absence of devices to measure, the foot becomes a unit of length, as does the hand, elbow and thumb.
The pound, I believe, developed from what the average person could hold in their hand. If a trader in the ancient days did not have a scale, and someone wanted two pounds of something, that meant two of whatever they could grab with their hands.
The kilogram is not considered natural because it isn’t something you can easily grab at one time with your hand.