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The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Taking a Mile: The Politics of Measurement

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We refer to measurements almost constantly – but are we truly aware of the power they hold? And why do we accept these rigid measurements of time and space? Ahir Shah speaks to James Vincent about his book Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement, which looks at how we came to define dimensions.  “We still have a flexible approach to measuring time.”  “You get a lot of measurements that are taken from the human body for example.”  “Over time central authorities take the control to define units of measurement.” “If we couldn’t measure, we couldn’t trade, we couldn’t build cities and we couldn’t do scientific research.”  https://www.patreon.com/bunkercast Written and presented by Ahir Shah. Lead Producer: Jacob Jarvis. Producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Assistant Producer: Elina Ganatra. Audio production by Jade Bailey. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved

0:05.5

photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.

0:11.8

Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?

0:13.0

I loved going to college.

0:14.0

It's good you can retrain and do something.

0:16.0

Yeah, yeah.

0:17.0

Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.

0:22.0

Phoenix Group is the UK's largest long-term savings and retirement business.

0:28.0

Search Phoenix Group living longer.

0:30.0

Pets brings so much joy.

0:32.0

From those happy greetings at the door to the warm cuddles on the sofa

0:36.7

so give a little love back with dental life from Purina a range of delicious chues made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets, teeth and gums, essential for their overall well-being and a happy, healthy life. They give you plenty of smiles so

0:55.3

look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Hello and welcome to the bunker with me Ahir Shah. Today, measurement. Measuring and quantifying the world is something we do on a daily basis.

1:17.0

Perhaps you're listening to this very podcast while measuring out ingredients for dinner, in grams and milliliters if you're normal, or in cups if you're a war criminal.

1:26.0

Measurement is so ubiquitous that we rarely consider its history, but what is that history and how does what and how we choose to measure affect our lives and our societies.

1:37.0

Joining me to discuss this is tech journalist James Vincent, whose new book Beyond Measure, is a revelatory and vibrant history of

1:45.6

measurement that provides a fresh perspective on the entirety of the physical world.

1:50.2

So hopefully we can cover all of that in a short conversation.

1:52.8

James, welcome to the bunker.

1:54.8

Fantastic to be here here.

1:56.2

Thank you for having me.

1:57.2

Yeah, no, I want to talk about the entire material plane, if that's possible today.

...

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