EP149 – The Measure of All Things- Standards
Get to match high standards and expectations, as Albert Einstein said, “In the end, everything is about numbers.” #AdvancedqualityPrograms #TheQualityGuy #Standards
Only three countries still don’t use the metric system: Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States. However, Liberia and Myanmar are changing. The U.S. uses both the old and new ways to measure, with one foot defined as equal to 0.3048 meters.
In the 1700s, a time known as the Age of Reason, there was a lot of confusion, especially in France. They had over 250,000 different ways to measure things! Smart people needed a single, easy-to-use measurement based on what nature could provide.
So it was decided to create what would be known as the meter, which would be the distance of one ten-millionth from the North Pole to the equator. But it was easier said than done. They didn’t have anything to compare and assess that exact distance, so they sent people to measure between Dunkirk and Barcelona. These cities should be on the same line going north and south, or at least that was the assumption. Two scientists, Delambre and Mechain, were assigned to do the work. Delambre measured north, and Mechain went south.
This should have taken them one year but in reality took seven because there was a war in Europe. People involved in these conflicts thought the scientists were spies and tried to hurt them. Fortunately, they didn’t, and the scientists finished measuring. Then they built a metal stick that was to become one meter long to represent their assumed calculation; however, it was a little too short.
Some people even said that they could have just made a stick and called it a meter without going through all the trouble. Even with some mistakes, this metal stick reference became the first official meter for the whole world. And even though it’s not exactly one ten-millionth of the Earth, that metal stick is the start of the metric system we use today. It has evolved, and now this reference stick is controlled using lengths of light that don’t change, but it is widely accepted and used as the international reference to measure distance.
This shows us how important it is to have agreed-upon ways to measure things and that is The Role and Importance of Standards
Standards are rules that tell us how to make things reliable, safe, compatible, and useful. They are used for all kinds of things and behaviors, like products, services, environmental management, daily use to measure how we use energy and water, and even to evaluate how we practice and succeed at sports.
Kinds of Standards
Experts for each discipline and activity define and create standards all the time to make sure they are up-to-date and we can continue to evaluate, communicate, and even behave. There are three main types:
International Standards: These are for the whole world and made by groups like ISO, IEC, ITU, and even the metric system.
Regional Standards: These are for certain areas, like the European Union, North America, the Pacific countries, etc.
National Standards: These are defined for one country and made by that country’s experts. They can be new ideas or copies of international or regional standards.
Laws are Standards
Usually, people follow standards because they want to compare, measure, or relate something. But sometimes, governments need to make sure that behaviors are aligned for the safety of everyone, like for example what is to be observed while driving a car, so they make the standard into laws. When that happens, everyone has to follow the standard whether they like it or not. That is one of the reasons for using the expression “it is normal”… it means it meets the standard, behaves according to the reference, and not only statistically.
Overall, a standard is something we use to compare with. The better and more specific the standard, the better the results by using them. For that reason, an athlete who has high standard expectations is led to high results. The athlete is comparing the expectations to the result.
Just as the world needed to define the standard metric system to work and communicate, we should define our standards to ensure our results match high standards and expectations.
“Without standards, there is no progress.” – Henry Ford