The Measure of the World
"Measures matter.” This underlying theme in Professor Ken Alder’s prize-winning book The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World (2002) also informs his essay presented here as “The Measure of the World.” Professor Alder has chosen something we all take for granted, the meter, and, in a tale that combines scientific curiosity, derring-do, and incipient madness, shows how its length was established in the eighteenth century. I look at it as the quintessential reason why we should take nothing for granted, and also why the Smithsonian Libraries’ strong collections in the history of science and technology, wherein these kinds of stories lie, also matter.
The Smithsonian Libraries is proud to present Professor Alder’s essay as the thirteenth annual Dibner Library Lecture, a series begun in 1991 on varied topics and themes, all sharing a common element of using the rich resources of the Libraries’ Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology. In this case, Professor Alder, the Milton H. Wilson Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University, points to the value of a manuscript letter in the Dibner Library’s collection that helped him to recreate the voyage of the French astronomer Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre, who, with his partner FrançoisAndré Méchain, was responsible for performing the work that led to establishing the length of the meter. Delambre ’s lettermight not have been available to Professor Alder, had it not been acquired by Bern Dibner (1897–1988), the individual responsible for bringing together the remarkable collection of books now housed in the library that bears his name.
Bern Dibner was an electrical engineer, book collector and philanthropist who donated 10,000 rare scientific and technological books and manuscripts from his Burndy Library to the Smithsonian Institution on the occasion of the United States Bicentennial celebration in 1976. The Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology, the Smithsonian’s first environmentally controlled and staffed rare book facility, formed the basis of an active special collections program that has resulted in holdings of more than 40,000 rare books and manuscripts. The Library contains many major scientific works dating from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth centuries in engineering, transportation, chemistry, mathematics, physics, electricity, and astronomy. The Dibner Fund supports a variety of programs designed to share the riches and value of the Library with the general public and to bring students and scholars to use its collections.
We thank The Dibner Fund for its generous support of the Dibner Library Lecture series and its publications.
Nancy E. Gwinn, Director Smithsonian Institution Libraries April 2004
