About Measurements

Once upon a time there was a land in which the people gave coin for oranges. The kings watched the sale of oranges, and they believed the sales were bad. They thought that if a man gave coin for orange, the orange should be good. So the kings approached their legislators. They told the legislators to issue a law. Henceforth, all oranges sold in the land should be between 6.5cm and 7.5cm in diameter.

Many of the farmers in the land groaned. The farmers said, “Our trees are small and in poor soil, we can not grow these oranges of diameter. And we do not have the coin for machines to measure these oranges”. So they gave their land for coin to farmers who owned the machines. Then the old farmers trained their daughters and sons to become artists and accountants.

But the people who ran the supermarkets were happy. They said, “We know the diameter of an orange. Now we can use inert gas, and air of ice, to store an orange for months”. In their storehouses they built metal machines, so oranges and other fruits could rest on the shelves. And so they kept oranges for months and years. The consumers who bought the fruit were happy. If the sky was heavy with rain, they could buy an orange, and the orange was a good size. But the oranges in that land were brown, and had no smell, and did not taste of orange. I do not have the time, space, or equipment to measure items.