How did people learn to use scales? Detailed answer

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How did people learn to use scales? Detailed answer

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How did people learn to use scales?

Just think how many things in your city people weigh every day! You won't have enough space or time if you try to list them. Today it is very important to be able to weigh things correctly. This is necessary not only in trade and production, but also in everyday life. This skill is essential in the world of science.

Who was the person who first guessed how to weigh different objects? Perhaps we will never know his name, but historical books tell us that this happened in ancient Egypt. About 7000 years ago, the Egyptians invented the first scale. Two weights were placed at different ends of a long horizontal beam and they waited until the beam stopped swaying and came to a state of equilibrium.

And here is how the oldest scales on earth looked like. A long beam was attached to a small bar with a string threaded through a hole in the middle of the beam. Each end of the beams was attached with threads in a bowl. When the bowls were empty, the beam lay horizontally: the scales were in a state of equilibrium. To determine the weight of any object, it was placed on one thicket, and a load was placed on the other, which served as a weight standard, and therefore its weight was known to everyone.

For 5000 years, this design has been the most reliable balance known to man. Already at the beginning of our time, the ancient Romans somewhat modernized them. Through a hole in a horizontal beam, they began to thread a thin rod or pin instead of a rope. Such scales began to be called a steelyard.

The plank, which hung from a rod or hook, had two ends of different lengths. An object was hung from the short one, which had to be weighed. Then a certain weight was moved along the long end of the balance until it reached equilibrium.

These two devices were the great-grandfathers of all modern types of scales known today.

Today we can weigh things that were not even thought of in ancient times. Modern scales can show how much a human hair weighs. And how much, for example, do letters written in ink on a blank sheet of paper weigh? Modern scales can also show how much a loaded dump truck weighs.

And in scientific laboratories, they use special, highly accurate scales and create special conditions for their work: after all, humidity, vibration, electric waves and other factors can interfere with the accurate operation of the scales. After all, with their help you can determine the weight with an accuracy of 1/100!

Author: Likum A.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

How did you start wearing gloves?

Wearing gloves is a very old custom. They were invented by ancient people who lived in cold regions. Gloves are known to have been worn by the ancient Persians and Romans. The Odyssey says that one of the heroes of this poem used gloves while working in the garden.

In the old days, gloves were made only of leather and were worn mainly during war and hunting to protect hands. But in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, almost every inhabitant of Germany and the Scandinavian countries wore gloves in winter. Women began to wear gloves as decoration from the XNUMXth century. They were usually made of linen and were long, up to the elbows.

Years later, Queen Elizabeth brought jeweled and embroidered gloves into fashion. Kid gloves first appeared in France during the reign of Louis XIV. French women in those days wore gloves knitted from silk thread.

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