Book Review
The Measure of All Things
By KEN ALDER Reviewed by PEGGY BARNETT
In 1702, two French astronomers, in spite of the fact that France was in the midst of a revolution, set out to measure the world. The history of science lauds the accomplishment of many discoverers and investigators, but this reviewer, for one, had never heard of Jean- Baptiste-Joseph Delambre and Pierre-Francois-Andre Mechain.

Yet their mission was not only important, it was undertaken in very dangerous conditions, complicated by war, freak accidents, and unruly mobs. Their goal was to establish for the world a definitive length of the meter, as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. They would measure the meridian through France to determine this.

The scientists - called savants in that day - wanted to bring about a universal language of measures. To that end, they decided to derive its fundamental unit from the measure of the world itself. The scientists among us can perhaps understand how this worked. I confess that I read this book for the adventure, not hoping to understand how one measures the earth, even with the new instrument that they used, the "repeating circle."

Ken Alder is a history professor who found puzzling references in Delambre's account of their sevenyear effort. A bicyclist, he decided to trace the journey that each man took, working in opposite directions, to complete the measurements. He also researched the life story of each man. The result is an account which reads like a novel.

The need for an international unit of measurement became increasingly important as trade increased. Yet at the time of the Revolution, each French community had its own standard for length, weight, and volume. As it turned out, they continued to be unwilling to change, even when government insisted. Any attempt to substitute a new kind of measurement was read as a threat to a social balance developed over hundreds of years.

The Measure of All Things is full of interesting sidelights - why America rejected the meter; what the Revolutionary calendar was like, and why it failed; the attempt at a decimal clock; a ceremony that dated back to the Celts, who sacrificed their eldest travelers at rivers too wide for them to cross.

Meanwhile, Delambre and Mechain were fighting the weather, the people who thought they were spies, hunger, lack of funds, the terrain. Finally, after great tribulation, and with great accuracy, they could present their findings at the first international scientific conference.

The creators of the metric system wanted to create a new kind of citizen, one who would be rational and consistent. However, as Delambre and Mechain could attest, "even modern impersonal measures are the product of human ingenuity, human passion, and the choices of particular people in particular times and places."

This book is available in the Mary Willis Library.

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