"The Measure of Earth – Two men who measured the world amidst a revolution" tells the heroic and chaotic origin story of the meter. In the midst of the French Revolution, the government decided to standardize measurements by defining the meter as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. To find this number, two astronomers, Jean-Baptiste Delambre and Pierre Méchain, had to physically measure the meridian arc from Dunkirk to Barcelona.
Science writer Thomas Hale chronicles their seven-year odyssey. They were arrested as spies, their equipment was smashed by mobs, and they climbed church towers while wars raged below. The book also reveals the secret "error" in their calculations that Méchain hid until his death—meaning the meter is technically "wrong."
"The Measure of Earth" is a thrilling adventure of science vs. anarchy. It shows how the universal language of measurement was forged in the fires of political terror and human fallibility.
