“Diogenes in Search of an Honest Man”: The Genesis of the Industrial Inch, the First Global Standard of Length (2009)
This paper discusses the evolution of the metrology of interchangeable manufacture, and the genesis in the 1930s of the industrial inch, the first global standard of length. I argue that standardization of industrial products during the nineteenth century was a major factor in the change from the proprietary metrologies of earlier interchangeable manufacture to public metrologies based on national length standards. This evolution is placed in the context of the different cultures and techniques of American and British mechanical engineering. Internationalization of manufacturing in the early twentieth century then provided impetus for agreement on a single global industrial standard of length. In exploring these developments, I emphasize the importance of the needs of user groups in the construction of effective standards, and the related subjugation of metrological purity to pragmatism and practicality
...MoreDescription On “the genesis in the 1930s of the industrial inch, the first global standard of length.” (from the abstract)
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