The scale, throughout history, has been both a practical device facilitating trade and commerce between individuals, as well as a symbol as in the scales of justice. Along with the clock, scales are arguably the most important of measuring devices we have ever known. If you can’t count out something or measure it using a container, the scale was the only other way to make quantity equal something else. This is essential for selling and buying of some items.
The Romans were the first to use the balance beam method of weighing – setting the beam on a “pin” and suspending dishes or pans from the ends of the beam. Items to be weighed went on one side, and items where the weight was already known went on the other side in various increments until the scale beam “balanced” between the two sides. The Romans also invented the sliding-weight measurement where the beam is secured on one end and the counterweight sitting on the beam is moved in increments to find the mass of the object being weighted.
It was around 5000 BC when the first scale was known to be in existence. That tells you how long we have been depending on this mechanism. Then came the concept of measuring wealth – by the ounce – for coinage during the Renaissance. This was the first time in our world’s history when money, in and of itself, became important to both rich and poor alike. This required a greater degree of precision than had ever before been required. During that same timeframe, Leonardo da Vinci put his formidable intellect toward solving problems around determining weight, and the inclination scale was born with its use of a plate sitting on a spring and force plus gravity placing pressure on the plate which moves a needle higher or lower on an incremental, numerical range.
The 18th century saw improvements in precision as weighing with the balance beam was bettered by shortening the beam and getting more detailed increments. But it was finally in the 20th century that everyone really got down to business about accuracy in weights and measures. The leaps in technology and industry that came in the wake of the Second World War, made measuring accuracy more important than ever. Governments got involved and placed regulations around weights and measures – especially as applied in commerce. It started taking shorter timeframes to produce goods, and therefore required better means of weighing them to meet demands. Technology has met or exceeded all expectations for assisting in this regard.
And then scales went electronic. Right around 1960, electronics were applied to scales for the purpose of weighing and measuring. Aeronautics demanded extreme precision in this area, and the U.S. Was dedicated to putting a man on the moon. Any way you cut it, precision was the only way to go when it came to space. And now digital has taken over from analog. The digital scale is the most accurate and easily calibrated scale in human history.
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