I’ve worked in the field of metrology for over 40 years, and I love this field of science. During these many years, I realized that instruments have become an often invisible but always present part of our lives and, if we learn to use them correctly, they can improve our lives, while, on the contrary, if we trust them more than we should, they can easily ruin our lives. For this reason, I like to explore also the philosophical implications of metrology and how it can help justice to render fair decisions and I love to share my passion with other people.
I wrote
Forensic Metrology: An Introduction to the Fundamentals of Metrology for Judges, Lawyers and Forensic Scientists
I love this book because it poses questions that go beyond the traditional concept of measurement as a mere technical activity performed with instruments. Measurements are a way to gain knowledge. I like the approach of this book about measuring (that is, knowing) non-physical quantities such as competence, quality, etc., and assessing how reliable the obtained result is.
When reading this book, we truly understand how cross-disciplinary metrology is and how many philosophical questions it poses, probably more difficult to answer than mere technological ones.
As a metrologist, I found these questions quite intriguing, and I’m confident that philosophy-passionate people can find it intriguing as well.
Joseph Keithley is known as the founder of Keithley Instruments, Inc., one of the most renowned manufacturers of measuring instruments. This book reveals him as a brilliant writer, and I love how it carries the readers away by disclosing facts that are mostly unknown.
Electromagnetism is thought to be a recent discovery that has dramatically changed our lives. We use electrical equipment in every moment, but we ignore that the first experiments with electricity go back to 5 centuries BC and that without good instruments, electromagnetism could have never developed.
I love how this book digs into the pioneering work of our ancestors and, above all, the 19th and 20th-century scientists who built instruments that are as much artworks as technical tools.
"Joseph F. Keithley, a modern pioneer of instrumentation, brings you a fascinating history of electrical measurement from the ancient Greeks to the inventors of the early twentieth century. Written in a direct and fluent style, the book illuminates the lives of the most significant inventors in the field, including George Simon Ohm, Andre Marie Ampere, and Jean Baptiste Fourier. Chapter by chapter, meet the inventors in their youth and discover the origins of their lifelong pursuits of electrical measurement. Not only will you find highlights of important technological contributions, you will also learn about the tribulations and excitement that accompany…
This book is a collection of contributions from different authors on modern measurements, and I love it because it covers the basis of a very technical subject in a rather simple way so that non-specialists can also find a comprehensible answer to their curiosity on instruments, such as multimeters and oscilloscopes, they have probably seen many times without really knowing why they were used.
I also love the way the explained fundamental concepts are applied to real-life applications that have a significant impact on our lives: by reading this book, for instance, I could understand how the reliability of devices we normally use, from our washing machine to our cars, is measured.
This book is a collection of chapters linked together by a logical framework aimed at exploring the modern role of the measurement science in both the technically most advanced applications and in everyday life
Provides a unique methodological approach to understanding modern measurements
Important methods and devices are presented in a synthetic and easy-to-understand way
Includes end-of-chapter exercises and solutions
When I introduce measurements to my students, I talk about “an exciting adventure across centuries.” I love this book because it tells the long history of measurement, starting from prehistory and arriving at our days as if it were a true, fantastic adventure humankind has lived since the beginning of its existence.
This is not a technical book, nor a book of history, in a strict sense. It is written by a journalist as an adventure novel, telling the story of a fantastic journey across generations to build our present knowledge.
I read it as a novel, eager to discover the next adventure, always discovering players and facts I ignored.
From the cubit to the kilogram, the humble inch to the speed of light, measurement is a powerful tool that humans invented to make sense of the world. In this revelatory work of science and social history, James Vincent dives into its hidden world, taking readers from ancient Egypt, where measuring the annual depth of the Nile was an essential task, to the intellectual origins of the metric system in the French Revolution, and from the surprisingly animated rivalry between metric and imperial, to our current age of the "quantified self." At every turn, Vincent is keenly attuned to the…
Scientific evidence has greatly contributed to identifying the perpetrators of many crimes. However, the bad use of science has also contributed to perpetrating many miscarriages of justice. This book clarifies the limits of the validity of scientific evidence and presents an illuminating series of case studies in which these limits could be identified by the correct use of metrology. The book explains how metrology can quantify the reliability of scientific evidence, thus contributing to appropriate decision-making.
With the aid of the presented case studies, this book shows how legal decisions should be made in the presence of doubt., in areas such as DUI and DNA profiling. Forensic Metrology will be of value to lawyers, judges, engineers, and others with an interest in the subject.
