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\"From the beginning of history, measurement has been interwoven into the human experience, shaping our understanding of nature, personal relationships, and the supernatural. We measure the world to know our past, comprehend the present, and plan the future. Renowned physicist Piero Martin explores how scientific knowledge is built around seven key pillars of measurement: the meter for length; the second for time; the kilogram for mass; the kelvin for temperature; the ampere for electricity; the mole for quantity of substance; and the candela for luminous intensity. Martin examines the history and function of these units and illustrates their applications in rich vignettes on a range of topics--from quarks to black holes, from a glass of wine to space exploration. He delves into not only the all-important numbers but also anecdotes that underline each unit's special quality. At the same time, he explains how each unit contributes to important aspects of science, from classical physics to quantum mechanics, from relativity to chemistry, from cosmology to elementary particle physics, and from medicine to modern technology. Martin eloquently shows how the entire universe can be measured and understood using just seven units.\"--Dust jacket.

In this paper, we take the freedom to paraphrase Stephen Hawking's well-known formula and approach, for a reflection about metrology. In fact, metrology has a past, a present, and a future. The past is marked by a rich series of events, of which we shall highlight only those which resulted in major turns. The impact of the French Revolution is indisputably one of them. The present corresponds to a significant evolution, which is the entry of metrology into the world of quantum physics, with the relevant changes in the International System of units (SI). An apercu of the actual state of the art of metrological technology is given. The future is characterised by a persisting need for a still enhanced metrology, in terms of performance and domain covered. In this respect, soft metrology seems to constitute a promising field for research and development.

This collection offers a new understanding of the epistemology of measurement. The interdisciplinary volume explores how measurements are produced, for example, in astronomy and seismology, in studies of human sexuality and ecology, in brain imaging and intelligence testing. It considers photography as a measurement technology and Henry David Thoreau's poetic measures as closing the gap between mind and world. By focusing on measurements as the hard-won results of conceptual as well as technical operations, the authors of the book no longer presuppose that measurement is always and exclusively a means of representing some feature of a target object or entity. Measurement also provides knowledge about the degree to which things have been standardized or harmonized – it is an indicator of how closely human practices are attuned to each other and the world. 1 Epistemological Dimensions of Measurement Nicola Mößner and Alfred Nordmann PART I Founding Figures 2 Of Compass, Chain, and Sounding Line: Taking Thoreau’s Measure Laura Dassow Walls 3 Operationalism: Old Lessons and New Challenges Hasok Chang PART II Images as Measurements 4 Photo Mensura Patrick Maynard 5 The Media Aesthetics of Brain Imaging in Popular Science Liv Hausken 6 Compressed Sensing – A New Mode of Measurement Thomas Vogt 7 The Altered Image: Composite Figures and Evidential Reasoning with Mechanically Produced Images Laura Perini 8 Visual Data – Reasons to be Relied on? Nicola Mößner 9 Pictorial Evidence: On the Rightness of Pictures Tobias Schöttler PART III Measuring the Immeasurable 10 Measurement in Medicine and Beyond: Quality of Life, Blood Pressure and Time Leah McClimans 11 Measuring Intelligence Effectively: Psychometrics from a Philosophy of Technology Perspective Andreas Kaminski 12 The Klein Sexual Orientation Grid and the Measurement of Human Sexuality Donna J. Drucker 13 The Desert and the Dendrograph: Place, Community and Ecological Instrumentation Emily K. Brock 　 PART IV Calibrating Mind and World 14 Scientific Measurement as Cognitive Integration: The Role of Cognitive Integration in the Growth of Scientific Knowledge Godfrey Guillaumin 15 Measurements in the Engineering Sciences: An Epistemology of Producing Knowledge of Physical Phenomena Mieke Boon 16 Uncertainty and Modeling in Seismology Teru Miyake 17 A Model-Based Epistemology of Measurement Eran Tal Index Nicola Mößner , Junior Fellow at Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald in Germany. She received her M.A. in German Literature and Linguistics at the University of Hamburg and her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Münster. Her thesis is about the epistemology of testimony and the special case of media reports, published as Wissen aus dem Zeugnis anderer – der Sonderfall medialer Berichterstattung (Paderborn: mentis 2010). Currently she works on a research project concerning the epistemic role of visualisations in science. In this context, she edited (together with Dimitri Liebsch) Visualisierung und Erkenntnis – Bildverstehen und Bildverwenden in Natur- und Geisteswissenschaften (Cologne: Herbert von Halem 2012). Her main interests comprise philosophy of science and social epistemology. Alfred Nordmann , professor of Philosophy at the Technische Universität Darmstadt and adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. Nordmann’s interests in the philosophy of science concern the formation and contestation of fields of inquiry such as chemistry and theories of electricity in the 18th century, mechanics, evolutionary biology, and sociology in the 19th century. In particular, he sought to articulate implicit concepts of science and objectivity. In 2000, he embarked on a similar endeavor in regard to nanoscience and converging technologies which has led him to promote and develop a comprehensive philosophy of technoscience. Since the technosciences require new answers to the familiar questions of knowledge and objectivity, theory and evidence, explanation and validation, representation and experimentation, Nordmann is seeking to address these and related questions in his current work.

BackgroundFeline osteoarthritis (OA) is a common cause of long-standing pain and physical dysfunction. Performing a physical examination of a cat is often challenging. There is a need for disease-specific questionnaires or the so-called clinical metrology instruments (CMIs) to facilitate diagnosis and evaluation of treatment of feline OA. The CMI provides the owners an assessment of the cat’s behavioural and lifestyle changes in the home environment. The purpose of the study was to evaluate readability, internal consistency, reliability and discriminatory ability of four CMIs.MethodsThis is a prospective, cross-sectional study with 142 client-owned cats. Feline OA was diagnosed based on medical history, orthopaedic examination and radiography.ResultsThe results indicate that all four instruments have sound readability, internal consistency, are reliable over time and have good discriminatory ability. Preliminary cut-off values with optimal sensitivity and specificity were suggested for each instrument. The osteoarthritic cats showed significant changes in behavioural response to pain during orthopaedic examination, compared with sound cats.ConclusionThe results indicate that all four questionnaires make an important contribution in a clinical setting, and that the cat’s behavioural response to pain during physical examination should be a parameter to take into account as a possible indication of chronic pain.

This paper presents an original study of the metrological characteristics of a series of vessels discovered in the necropolis of Le Moulin (Mailhac, southern France) and dated to the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age. A metrological study of the capacities of these artefacts is presented, based on a protocol of 3D modelling from 2D drawings to calculate the internal volumes of the vessels, and a series of mathematical and statistical analyses. The results make it possible to identify one of the earliest evidence for metrological practices based on capacity in Western Europe.

This paper examines one aspect of the legacy of the Value-Free Ideal in conservation science: the view that measurements and metrics are value-free epistemic tools detached from ideological, ethical, social, and, generally, non-epistemic considerations. Contrary to this view, I will argue that traditional measurement practices entrenched in conservation are in fact permeated with non-epistemic values. I challenge the received view by revealing three non-epistemic assumptions underlying traditional metrics: (1) a human-environment demarcation, (2) the desirability of a people-free landscape, and (3) the exclusion of cultural diversity from biodiversity. I also draw a connection between arguments for retaining traditional metrics to “scientific colonialism,” exemplified by a fortress conservation model. I conclude by advocating for abandoning the myth of the intrinsic value-freedom of measurement practices and embracing metrics aligned with societal and scientific goals.

Isotopic measurements provide valuable information about the origin of greenhouse gases — as carbon dioxide levels increase, there is a corresponding shift towards lighter isotopic composition similar to that of fossil fuels. Detecting such isotopic shifts, however, requires extremely precise measurements, which must also be globally reproducible in order to make reliable policy decisions. This feature article outlines the collective search for the ideal standard for carbon isotope measurements since the 1950s. This tragicomedy of errors, if you wish, has strengthened the reliability of today’s measurements and has taken us from fictional oceans, to toilet seat marbles, and complex mathematical conventions that separate data from reliable results.