Chapter 18 Summary and Reflection

     Chapter 18 is called "Tools of Ridiculous Precision" and "ridiculous precision" it is. Kean starts the chapter by talking about the precision-crazy people at the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Measures). These people are responsible for knowing for long a second is, etc. Then Kean goes on to talk about the International Prototype Kilogram. This kilogram is the model for every kilogram everywhere. It's a two-inch wide 90% platinum cylinder who mass is exactly 1.00000000..... kilogram. As if that weren't crazy, that kilogram has more protection than the President of the United States (slight exaggeration). The scientists in Paris and around the world are obsessed with trying to keep the kilogram from losing a single atom, although I think that's impossible.

     Kean then talks about a metal rod in Paris that measures exactly 1.0000.....meter. This distance was calculated to be the distance any light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The author also mentions that cesium atomic clocks are the world's official measurement of time. This way of telling time replaced the centuries old way of telling time by the stars and planets. We have lost our connections to the Romans and Greeks in exchange for a more precise way of telling time. I don't know which is better. Then comes the craze of the alpha. Before the alpha equaled 1/136, but apparently that was wrong and the measurement was updated to 1/137.0359. These people are almost unhealthily obsessed with precision.

     This chapter was almost as interesting as it was amusing. I found it hilarious that people had actually worked the precision of the measurements. How many hours, days, months, years of your life do you have to give up in order to be the one who can successfully say that you've measured exactly how long is a second. That idea is just crazy and mind-blowing to me and it's something I will definitely tell my friends.