You should read The Perfectionists it's all about the history of precision measurement, telling stories centered around the 'leaps' (now able to measure to .1", now able to... etc.) and how it impacted the world.
Measurement - ISBN-10: 0674284380
Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea - ISBN-10: 0140296476
They list an ISBN-10 and an ISBN-13 but i dont know the difference
Check out a book called “The Perfectionists”. It’s about the history of precision tools and things. Really interesting something we take for granted these days Link:
https://www.amazon.com/Perfectionists-Precision-Engineers-Created-Modern/dp/0062652559
Mr. Crabwaffleman, this isn't a stupid question at all. The concept/science of precision is an interesting subject worthy of a thorough answer.
I highly recommend reading/listening to: The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
There’s a really great book by Simon Winchester about basically this topic. Based on asking this question you’d probably enjoy the book a lot.
https://www.amazon.com/Perfectionists-Precision-Engineers-Created-Modern/dp/0062652559
If you’re interested in the history of precision, I highly recommend this book:
The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester.
It’s a fascinating read on how we got to where we are.
Granted. This adoption is effective immediately, and requires a mass deployment of road crews out to update every single sign that currently uses Imperial. The resulting traffic jams leave people stranded on the road for hours, while others try to avoid said jams by driving on sidewalks, resulting in mass pedestrian fatalities.
(side note, there is an interesting book about how this failed in the US)
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, boxed set: The New Millennium Edition
$129.04
Old forms of measurement were based on easily divisible numbers. You could do the math in your head of my segmenting a circle.
SI works in decimal, with can be harder to hold in your head as details increase. More importantly, every SI detail relates to any other somehow:
I just finished reading Simon Winchester's Perfectionists and he goes into great detail about the development of interchangeable parts for guns. He debunks the myth that Eli Whitney pioneered this field. I had an aha moment when he talked about lock, stock and barrel - a term we are all familiar with but I never put it together that is was describing the parts of a rifle.
It's always been aluminium, the Americans tried to systematically change spelling of many words in the 1800s. Melville Dewey, (from the famed book classification Dewey decimal system) was a large part of that 'movement' to simplify spelling to make it more phoenetic, he was ahuge advocate for it, even tried to change his own name to ' Melvil Dui'. Add to this how Americans drop the u in colour, favour etc and replace z in words like 'realize' all happened in the same movement.
An entertaining read for an Aussie that covers much more than how Americans stuck with imperial measures.
https://www.amazon.com/Whatever-Happened-Metric-System-America/dp/1608199401
One, I'm not attacking anyone and particularly not the youngsters. I'm trying to speed their progress. I provided plenty of directions on what they should be reading. Go up to my initial comment here. I didn't dismiss Graham completely; instead I suggested people read Zhang first for some proper framework. In particular, his approach is compatible with efficient markets so the premiums are there to be earned by everyone. (More broadly I like to live with an abundance mindset. It's not always zero sum, mi amigo, especially since we are not talking about alpha here.)
You present yourself as a thinking man and professional, but sometimes I wonder if you have a reading comprehension problem or alternatively your reading ability is fine but you are so resistant to the viewpoints of others that you fail to understand them properly before you lash out. I'm no psychologist so I will leave that to your therapist.
Second, go knock yourself out with his lectures (https://www.amazon.com/Feynman-Lectures-Physics-boxed-set/dp/0465023827/) . Not a real test since you are smarter than the average /r/investing bear but give it an honest effort and report back in a month.
Map making is roughly similar to map reading - some people are good at it, others are not (my mother-in-law firmly believes that North is whatever direction she happens to be facing).
For reading material, I highly recommend The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder ( https://www.amazon.com/Measure-All-Things-Seven-Year-Transformed/dp/0743216768 ). It's the story of the survey mission that set out to determine the exact length of the meter. It's a good treatment of surveying and measuring, as well as some digging into mapping. All during the French Revolution. Good fun.
The were using a variation of the metric system for only a few applications. Their overall system though was completely disjointed and many of the more common measurements still used in France prior to the revolution were not based on decimal increments. This book has a good explanation on the use of various measurements in France at the time and the establishment of the modern metric system: https://www.amazon.com/Measure-All-Things-Seven-Year-Transformed/dp/0743216768
Whatever happened to the Metric System is a really interesting book that goes through the chaos prior to "metrificiation" during the French Revolution, and the scope of the craze around unit of measure standardization, including descriptions of the calendar system that was put in place. It's a surprisingly engrossing book.
>...some guys in France grabbed a chunk of Platinum and thought 'eh, this is good and BAM, the kilogram was born.
You should read about how the meter was formed. Jesus, what those two astronomers went through. Ken Alder wrote a book called The Measure of all Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World. Very nerdy.
Read The Measure of All Things, it will yield a little more insight into the origin of the meter and the thinking that led to it.
Check the local library. I ran across a book about clockmaking there. I didn't find the projects I wanted in it--but hey, it was free.
I ended up buying a book from Amazon, and there were some neat designs in there. Here's the link
As already mentioned by others, there's a lot more to math beyond what you've mentioned above, but on the presumption that something that covers from "numbers sets and arithmetic" to "calculus and differential equations", I might suggest Measurement by Paul Lockhart.
It definitely satisfies the "written for human beings" requirement, and it starts out with a discussion of shapes that any elementary school student could probably follow and then works its way up to calculus. You might have to look elsewhere for d.e. though.
In general, you'll probably find more success covering "some~~every~~thing about math" if you try to find a collection of books on various topics, rather than just one book.
I recommend the Feynman Lectures on Physics, they are very clear and reaches up to quantum theory. If you feel that you don't know enough mathematics then you can read Schaum's Outline series on Calculus, and whatever other topic you feel is stopping you.
I learned probability out of Billingsley's and Chung's books. Sorry for ugly links, I'm on mobile.
http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Measure-Patrick-Billingsley/dp/1118122372#
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0121741516/ref=pd_aw_sim_b_2?refRID=1RJTNM4C6X862W4GGXH9
Billingsley is a masterpiece in my opinion.
Oh man, how has this not been mentioned yet?
http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
This same guy wrote a book that I just recently bought and am cracking open tomorrow on a long bus ride: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674057554
I built one in my living room table based on plans from this book:
It was done with a scroll saw and hand tools. It all went together ok but unfortunately ultimately does not work. Friction is your enemy so getting the holes drilled perfectly vertically is critical as is getting the alignment right. Having done this one I certainly know what I'd do differently on the next project. Thankfully it runs for a minute or so and still looks good on my wall!