High-quality black-and-white photographs of large old machines and tools

[Ed Weldon]

---Quote (Originally by Frank S)---
I wonder if James Burke did a series on the evolution of giant machines came about?
---End Quote---
There's an old saying “if I can measure it I can make it”. As already pointed out, you still need the tools to do the job. That said, how about a video series for today's media on the evolution of mechanical metrology going back to what we know of its role in the building of civilizations? The stories range from measuring the length of a kings foot to measuring the wavelength of light. Somewhere in the middle of that is the story of when, in the time of the first world war, the US navy sent one of its fastest destroyers to Sweden to bring back 4 sets of Johansen's gage blocks. Has such a production already been done? Anyone have a link?

[mklotz]

---Quote (Originally by Frank S)---
I wonder if James Burke did a series on the evolution of giant machines came about?
---End Quote---
There's an old saying “if I can measure it I can make it”. As already pointed out, you still need the tools to do the job. That said, how about a video series for today's media on the evolution of mechanical metrology going back to what we know of its role in the building of civilizations? The stories range from measuring the length of a kings foot to measuring the wavelength of light. Somewhere in the middle of that is the story of when, in the time of the first world war, the US navy sent one of its fastest destroyers to Sweden to bring back 4 sets of Johansen's gage blocks. Has such a production already been done? Anyone have a link?

Don't include the bit about the king's foot. It might encourage some poor benighted nation to use a measuring system based on body parts, grain and other accidents of nature.

[bruce.desertrat]

---Quote (Originally by Frank S)---
I wonder if James Burke did a series on the evolution of giant machines came about?
---End Quote---
There's an old saying “if I can measure it I can make it”. As already pointed out, you still need the tools to do the job. That said, how about a video series for today's media on the evolution of mechanical metrology going back to what we know of its role in the building of civilizations? The stories range from measuring the length of a kings foot to measuring the wavelength of light. Somewhere in the middle of that is the story of when, in the time of the first world war, the US navy sent one of its fastest destroyers to Sweden to bring back 4 sets of Johansen's gage blocks. Has such a production already been done? Anyone have a link?

I don't know if an adaptation of the book has been made, but Simon Winchester wrote an excellent book about it called "The Perfectionists:How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35068671

Highly reccomend it; it's a fascinating story of the advance of modern metrology.