Sympathetic Vibratory Physics

The origins of some of our units of measurement:
A foot was length of a man’s foot.
An inch was the width of a man’s thumb. King Edward II of England later ruled that an inch was the length of 3 grains of barley placed end to end lengthwise
A cubit was the distance from one’s elbow to the tip of one’s middle finger.
A yard was the distance from one’s nose to one’s thumb, with the arm outstretched.
A hand was the width of a man’s hand.
A fathom was the distance between the fingertips of a man’s outstretched arms.
A rod was the length of the left feet of 16 men lined up heel to toe.
A furlong was the distance a team of oxen could plow without resting.
An acre was the amount of land a team of oxen could plow in a day.
A mile was a thousand paces—a pace being two steps.
A league was the distance a man could walk in an hour (about three miles). [anon]

Measurement is the assignment of a number to a characteristic of an object or event, which can be compared with other objects or events. The scope and application of a measurement is dependent on the context and discipline. In the natural sciences and engineering, measurements do not apply to nominal properties of objects or events, which is consistent with the guidelines of the International vocabulary of metrology published by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. However, in other fields such as statistics as well as the social and behavioral sciences, measurements can have multiple levels, which would include nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales.

Measurement is a cornerstone of trade, science, technology, and quantitative research in many disciplines. Historically, many measurement systems existed for the varied fields of human existence to facilitate comparisons in these fields. Often these were achieved by local agreements between trading partners or collaborators. Since the 18th century, developments progressed towards unifying, widely accepted standards that resulted in the modern International System of Units (SI). This system reduces all physical measurements to a mathematical combination of seven base units. The science of measurement is pursued in the field of metrology. Wikipedia, Measurement

Ramsay
There is no one musical interval which is the perfect measuring rule for the others. But the octave has been divided into 53 parts called commas, and these commas are as near a commensurable rule as we need seek for measuring the musical intervals; always remembering that, strictly speaking, these intervals are incommensurable. The large second has 9 commas; the medium second has 8; and the small second 5; and all other intervals, being of course composed of some of these seconds, can be measured accordingly. Thus the comma, though not itself an interval of our musical system, is the handy and sufficiently perfect inch, let us call it, for practical purposes in music. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 75]

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