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Big Picture Science

Measure For Measure

Big Picture Science

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2024

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Whether in miles or pounds, meters or kilograms, we take daily measure out our lives. But how did these units ever come to be, and why do we want to change them? From light-years to leap seconds, we look at the history of efforts to quantify our lives and why there’s always room for greater precision. Plus, we debate the virtues of staying imperial measurements vs. going metric. Guest: James Vincent - Author of Beyond Measure, the Hidden History of Measurement Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake Originally aired March 24, 2023 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.

0:05.0

At Betway, we've signed Football Royalty, Tieri-on-Rie.

0:10.1

Join us and discover a world of exclusive content, offers and winning moments.

0:14.9

18 plus Tis and Cysencies Apply, Bed the Responsible Way, gamblerware.org.

0:19.7

Trust and safety is becoming a key driver of customer experience,

0:24.5

influencing how users engage, how safe they feel, and ultimately how likely they are to return.

0:30.8

Because I don't know about you, but if I've had too many bad experiences on a platform, I'm definitely not rushing back for more.

0:37.8

This is the intersection we're here to explore today.

0:41.1

Tap to keep listening to how trust and safety redefined CX for brands like TikTok,

0:45.6

trust pilot and more.

0:47.3

A conversation with InTouch CX. When you last weighed something in kilograms, did you detect anything different?

1:03.0

Well, if you're as finely tuned as the standard kilogram itself, you may have noticed it wasn't quite the same.

1:10.0

The kilogram was changed by about 50

1:12.2

micrograms in the last couple of years to keep up with the demands of universal standards

1:17.1

of weight. It may seem finicky until you realize just how much our lives depend on precision

1:23.1

measurement. To give you an idea of how much, well, consider that the call for consistent standards was a public rallying cry in the heated chaos of the French Revolution.

1:33.3

There was this document that was created called the Cailliers de de de'Auliance, the notebook of complaints, that was collected by the sort of revolutionaries to say, okay, what are people really annoyed about?

1:43.3

And measurement

1:44.6

is mentioned there as 14th most frequent objective complaint out of 50 or so. So it is more complained

1:51.8

about than infringements of personal liberties or injustice in the court system. Yet, why do fights

1:58.2

over measurements continue? While the US still works with imperial units, nearly all the rest of the world uses the metric system.

2:06.1

Where have all these strange units come from, and why do we need a kilogram to find to a few dozen parts per million?

...

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