Pure gold, my Sunday lay ahead with no pressing commitments…. and what better start than good coffee alongside pastries in sufficient size to alert the diabetes police. This is the time my brain gets to defrag, even occasionally managing its level of a Newton moment (akin to looking at the famed apple tree).
Kilogram measurement, the metric measure normalised as a physical object (called International Prototype Kilogram IPK), is kept in Sevres, France (a replica is in Britain’s National Physical Laboratory) and it is the last SI unit (Systems of Unit) that is defined by an artefact rather than physical constant. So far, so good? Take the original IPK and six copy IPKs, then leave for 125 years. What do you get? A reaction, not dissimilar to leaving me with a plate of Danish pastry. The caged kilogram is no longer the same; it, and its clones, increase in mass.
And, where there is change, there is disruption and where there is disruption, there is opportunity.
By redefining the IPK, theoretically, everyone in the world of science will have access to (if I understand correctly) uncertainty.
The article managed to explain how the change – to something which sounds like performance motor engine oil (Plancks’ universal quantam constant) – would benefit all the other SI units on the outside looking in; they’ll be certain to join the party of scientists, calibration laboratories, pharmaceutical companies and electrical engineers who’ll have something to celebrate. It also managed, with a swift scientific phrase or two, to take me back to the workings of business: Two ‘methods’ need to agree… at a level to be confident in the results…the moment there is a single point of failure in the system…there isn’t another one. Additional ‘management speak’ endorsed my thinking: ‘define the Volt…elementary charge will have zero uncertainty’.
Deservedly famed for his observations on weight, motion, gravity, the cosmos (and being a fantasy dinner party guest), Newton was distinctly aware of change and applied opportunity arising from it to his working life. At a time when the weight of minted money had fallen to half the legal standard, fakes were a-plenty, silver from coins was worth more in Europe than the coins, so those coins were being melted down and their metal shipped abroad, with the proceeds used to buy more coins.
England’s silver currency was in crisis. The economy was in crisis. ‘Who ya gonna call ?’ The man with a mind that could redefine the way we think about our solar system – that’s who. Newton became Warden of the Royal Mint and turned detective on the massive counterfeiting operations to thousands of pounds, England’s silver was to have re-coinage.
One particular successful counterfeiter had a plan, which, activated, would be sufficient to bring down the currency. He was in a powerful position, so a pamphlet was prepared and, inferring Newton as incompetent, he declared to Parliament that the mint had within it ‘villains’ (you can almost hear the boo! hissing!). The counterfeiter should be permitted to demonstrate his claim, to provide a new counter-proof method of making money (for if anyone knew the workings, he surely did). What he hadn’t expected was that he’d be working with the Warden, who was a meticulous record keeper, keeper of accurate accounts and had methodically started at the bottom of a pile of suspects and worked his way through the gangs (his criminal detection expenses 1696 – 1699 reach over £626 – somewhere in the region of four times the national averageannual salary for the time). Newton, possibly the greatest mind ever, had, similar to the seasoned entrepreneur, experience of having his ideas quashed. He understood what he was up against and probably, (being a superb scientist) made a mean cup of coffee to add some adrenalin to his genius.
The two ‘methods’ needed to agree. Certain he was confident in the results, because if there was a single point of failure in the system, he wouldn’t have another opportunity. Finance was to meet science. He acted upon the opportunity that change (no pun intended) had given him. The counterfeiter was taken to the gallows. Newton secured the lucrative position of Master of the Mint.
If I didn’t know I only manage to confuse myself, I’d try to finish by noting history repeats itself hence the only constant is change. The problem is that the devil is on one shoulder and angel on the other, both are slugging out the argument that shaming and blaming is counterproductive…. all while I’m reading financial news and eating pastries (plural!).
