The Sizesaurus: Making Measures Fit for Human Consumption

Charles R. Crawford, formerly an associate professor of computer science
at York University, is a computer-programming consultant.

The first part of this well-written reference work presents essays on
numbers and how they are both used and misused. The second part contains
an alphabetical list (with definitions) of units of measurement, and a
list of terms that come up in the context of measurement (e.g.,
illumination, parts per, and Richter scale). The essays range from the
humorous to the near-serious. One proposes the use of the Big Mac as a
universal measure of size and weight. Another begins as a history of
measuring and ends as a compendium of complaints about the metric
system.

Journalist Stephen Strauss is able to draw on his experience as a
science writer for The Globe and Mail. Unfortunately, he also has a
journalist’s ingrained cynicism and never quite decides whether The
Sizesaurus is a plain-language explanation of numbers or a sendup of the
experts who use them. To paraphrase the mathematician Richard Hamming,
the object of measurement is not numbers, but insight or control. This
book contains much technical information, but often Strauss lets his
sense of the comedy of numbers get in the way of providing the reader
with some insights.