Measurement systems and their meaning

Measurement is the action of measuring, that is, determined by means of instruments or by means of a previous relation or formula a result within the chosen parameters. Measurement is used to determine the magnitudes of an object in relation to another object that serves as a standard.

Measurement systems and their meaning
Systems of measurement and their significance. Image by Bernabe Colohua from Pixabay

For thousands of years, man has felt the need to know the magnitude of things, and to determine it he began to develop measurement systems that were initially anthropometric, i.e., based on the measurements of the human body (hence the names such as an inch or foot).

The Romans measured distances in steps, an idea that is still preserved in the children's game known as stop, in which the distance between partners is determined by steps, but these can be small, medium, or large and vary, also, according to the length of the legs; the Greeks determined distances based on the measurement of a stadium. As can be inferred, these systems of measurement were arbitrary, that is to say, they depended on the discretion or will of a person or a people and for the same reason, they were not understood or accepted by others.

Along with the development of humanity, the systems of measurement were also perfected and went from being arbitrary to being conventional, i.e., the result of an agreement or pact between persons, entities, or countries. In the 18th century, France was the first country to adopt the Decimal Metric System, so-called because the units of measurement are powers of ten and one of them has been taken as the main one.

The systems of measurement are sometimes referred to solely by means of digits, such as the CGS, which is a system whose fundamental magnitudes are length, mass, and time and whose units are, respectively, the centimeter, the gram, and the second; on the other hand, the MKS is a system based on the meter, the kilogram and the second, from which the International System of Units derives, in which six basic units of measurement have been adopted for: length, mass, time, electric current intensity, temperature, and luminous intensity. The following is the origin of the words related to the measurement systems mentioned above.

Measure

A measure is a result of measuring an unknown quantity using as a parameter a known quantity of the same magnitude that will be chosen as the unit. For example: "The table is ninety centimeters long and forty centimeters wide".

Unit

So, a unit of measurement is the standardized quantity of a certain physical magnitude, therefore, to avoid mistakes or bad measurements, the International Committee of Weights and Measures established seven fundamental magnitudes and their corresponding standards to measure them, these are length, mass, time, electrical intensity, temperature, the quantity of substance and luminous intensity.

Magnitude

Magnitude is everything that can be measured, that can be represented by a number and that can be studied in the experimental sciences (which are those that observe, measure, represent, obtain laws, etc.). To study a movement we must know its position, velocity, time, etc. All these concepts are magnitudes. For each magnitude, we define a unit. Through the process of measurement, we assign values (numbers) to these units. The measurement is that number together with the unit.

Anthropometric

Anthropometric is the name given to everything related to Anthropometry, which is a part of Anthropology that studies the proportion of human body parts. Anthropometry is a technique that allows us to analyze the body composition and proportionality of each person to know how this affects their performance. The central elements of anthropometry are height, weight, body circumferences, and skinfold thickness. Knowing these elements we can make a division of the body following a 4-component model: muscle mass, fat mass, bone mass, and residual mass.

Inch

An inch is an anthropometric unit of measurement; that is, related to the human body. It is equivalent to the width of the first phalanx of the thumb and was widely used in many countries around the world. For example, the inch in Castile measured 23.22 millimeters, and the English inch is 25.4 millimeters. This means that one inch can be equated to 2.54 centimeters. To convert from inches to centimeters, multiply the value in inches by 2.54 and the result is the same length in centimeters.

Stadium

The stadium was a Greek unit of length, which took as its standard the length of the stadium of Olympia, which was equivalent to 174.125 meters. As was customary in antiquity, there was no single measurement for the stadium. It was the place where many of the sporting events of the ancient Olympic Games were held. For the ancient Greeks, the stadium was a sacred place, since it was where the sporting activities dedicated to the god Zeus was held. The stadium had a capacity of 50,000 spectators.

Length

The length determines the distance between two points, or in other words, length is the amount of space between two points. For example, the distance from one end of the table to the other. Length is a fundamental physical quantity (in that it cannot be defined in terms of other measurable quantities) created to measure the distance between two points, i.e. to measure one dimension (when the length to be measured is in the second dimension it is called width). Length can designate different notions, depending on the specific field, but always in the sense of a flat, linear distance.

Meter

The meter is the unit of length of the International System of Units. Currently, this unit is the basis for all types of measurements and also serves to define a wide range of multiples and submultiples to cover different orders of magnitude (kilometer, centimeter, millimeter, micrometer, etc.). Throughout history there have been different official ways of defining the meter. The metro was introduced in France in 1798, just after the French Revolution. It was initially defined as one ten-millionth of the line connecting the north pole to the equator, passing through Paris.

Mass

Mass is the amount of matter or substance possessed by a body or material object. gravity that occurs in all bodies. Mass is independent of the position and state of motion of bodies. It is a universal property of bodies. All objects possess a mass, whether they are in a solid, liquid or gaseous state. The more atoms there are in a body, the greater its mass. Already Newton, for whom weight and inertia were independent properties of matter, proposed that both qualities are proportional to the amount of matter, which he called "mass".

Kilogram

The kilogram is currently defined as the mass of the international prototype of the kilogram, which is a platinum-iridium cylinder kept in Paris. The kilogram is the reference quantity for quantities derived from mass such as density, force, pressure, energy, power and others. The kilogram is a unit of measurement that serves as a constant reference for universal measuring instruments. The kilogram, whose symbol is kg, is one of the 7 basic units of measurement defined by the International System of Units (SI).

Time

Time is the duration of a period, where objects or people are subject to change. It usually determines an epoch, an hour, a day or a week, where different things can happen. The word time derives from the Latin tempus. The word time has different meanings depending on the field. According to science, it is the physical magnitude where facts and events happen. Its unit of measurement is the hour, as well as minutes, seconds, days and weeks.

Minute

One minute equals 60 seconds and one hour equals 3600 seconds. The sexagesimal system is used to measure times (hours, minutes and seconds) and angles (degrees, minutes and seconds). In this system, 60 units of an order form one unit. The term minute is also used to determine a unit of measurement but at the astronomical level, it represents the angle obtained by the rotational motion of the earth obtained in one minute of time.