Author(s): Warwick Cairns

Popular Science

A serious, but seriously funny book about measuring things. Readers will find out: - Why an old Wellington boot is as important an instrument of spacial awareness as was ever invented? - Why the size of a space shuttle's fuel tanks has more to do with the proportions of a horse's rump than rocket science? - How much water it takes to drown you. - How much you can hold in one hand while doing something else. All essential principles that explain how humans have balanced and judged the world since the dawn of time. In part a case for the continued use of traditional British measures, this book also celebrates the richness and commonality of systems from around the world, and how they were formed by the one guiding principle of measurement no one ever mentions: that most of us have better things to think about.