World in the balance the historic quest for a universal system of measurement user review kirkus a look at how weights and measures evolved over the ages and their importance as a social. World in the balance the historic quest for an absolute system of measurement kindle edition by crease robert p download it once and read it on your kindle device pc phones or tablets use features like bookmarks note taking and highlighting while reading world in the balance the historic quest for an absolute system of measurement. World in the balance sheds a great deal of light on how various cultures chinese african et cetera underwent metrication a must read for anyone interested in the international system the eleventh cgpm confrence gnrale des poids et mesures general conference on weights and measures in 1960 faced the question of what to call this new reorganization and extension of measures the . World in the balance the historic quest for an absolute system of measurement robert p crease 40 1 rating 1299 1299 publisher description the epic story of the invention of a global network of weights scales and instruments for measurement millions of transactions each day depend on a reliable network of weights and measures this network has been called a greater invention . World in the balance the historic quest for an absolute system of measurement henceforth world in the balance or the book by robert crease is an interesting if a bit peculiar book i mean by peculiar that it talks about metrology but it does so in a more popular fashion than might be expected