To the unmeasurable
Scientists are busy constructing an electronic way to measure kilograms, displacing the official kilogram now located in a Paris vault. It’s the standard by which all others are measured. The official measure for meter is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second.
These people have not spent alot of time in any zen (or grandmother’s) kitchen.
Here’s to all the amazing things in life that can’t be measured.
October 16th, 2005 10:58
Illustrates our culture’s obsession with precision.
October 16th, 2005 16:30
Is there no art or elegance to the measure of a thing?
October 17th, 2005 07:17
Well, that kind of precision is useful if you’re sending a rover to Mars for instance, but you can’t quantify the peace of making oatmeal raisin cookies on a clear fall day.
October 17th, 2005 20:18
This reminds me of when NASA explained the lost of their multi-million Orbiter to Mars by saying that it was dues to metric versus English measurement systems.
October 17th, 2005 20:24
I guess the lesson here is that when measurement is absolutely critical, it had better be right. Otherwise, proceeding by feel works best.
October 18th, 2005 01:09
This inspired me to write about Nana.