The Measure Of All Things
by Ken Alder
The Free Press $145
WRITING GOOD scientific history is difficult. But Ken Alder bridges the gap between fact and entertainment brilliantly in this often witty expose of an intriguing scandal that throws doubt on the veracity of one of the fundamental cornerstones of measurement: the metre.
It is a tale of political, social and economic intrigue set against the dramatic backdrop of revolutionary France. When, in the dying days of the French monarchy in 1792, two scientists were dispatched from Paris by the Academy of Sciences to gather data to determine the exact length of a true metre, their journey of seven years was to be one of self-discovery as they battled pride and ego as much as doubting colleagues and suspicious compatriots.
Their mission was to measure the world. The method they used sought to confirm and legitimise the work of an earlier expedition by recording the exact length of the meridian from Dunkerque to Barcelona. From this their task was to establish a new measure, the metre, as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator.