The Romans standardized many things
to create cohesion and unity including language, education, and
government. But one aspect of daily life
that may easily be overlooked was the institution of a common measuring system. In order to function well economically as a
thriving empire, consumers needed to understand that buying a pound of goods
from sources hundreds of miles away was equivalent to buying the same amount in
their home town. Not only did they need
a lingua franca for general communication, they also needed to know that words
of measurement meant the same thing wherever you went. Weight, length, volume, and area, were all
standardized across the civilization.
While many of our measurements differ from the Romans, a few, such as the mile and the ounce, are very similar to their ancient counterparts. Even more importantly, we inherited the very idea of common dimension specifications across large groups of people. From the cookie recipes conjured up on the other side of the country to the volume of water in the apartment complex swimming pool, common measurements that many different kinds of people accept strongly influence many aspects of my day-to-day life.
That phenomenon is especially easy
to see in the sciences, where the metric system unifies very specific thoughts
and ideas across the globe. In my own
field, psychology, precise reaction times or neuron activity would be much
harder to share with an international audience without standardized
measurements. Even more importantly, the
metric system provides a common foundation for education in the sciences so
that more everyday people understand clearly what scientific results mean and how
they relate to their own life. That
creates a more knowledgeable public who can hold the scientific community
accountable for their claims. So the
next time you bake a cake, run an experiment, or wonder why the mile that
you're running couldn't be just a few feet shorter, thank the Romans.
"Road," no changes made, by Moyan Brenn. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode
"Road," no changes made, by Moyan Brenn. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode
I have never truly appreciated a standardized unit system for measurement. However, its obvious how important it's been while looking at the development of scientific theories. Einstein (German), for example, finalized his general theory of relativity with help from Lorentz (Dutch), Michaleson (American), and Poincare (French).
ReplyDeleteA lack of a standardized system of measurement would severely impede all sorts of progression, especially in the scientific field! The fact that we've clung to some of the same measurements that the Romans used goes to show how crucial it is to have, especially in a growing society.
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