HOW IS POSSIBLE THAT THE VALUE OF GOLD USED TO BE MEASURED WITH SEEDS?

The oldest known unit of measure is the "biblical elbow," which Noe used to build his ark, was established about four thousand years ago, as the length between the elbow and the tip of the middle finger on the king's forearm Og de Bazán.

The league is another old unit of length is 5573 meters and expresses the distance in which a person or a horse can walk in an hour. In each country it has a different value oscillating between (4 and 7 kms). The French league measures 4.44 km, the marine league 5.55 km, in Ancient Rome 4.43 km and the Castilian language established in the sixteenth century measured 5572 meters.

The mile had its origin in Ancient Rome and was equivalent to the distance traveled with a thousand pairs of steps, exactly 1480 meters, therefore a simple step was 74 cms. Currently there are two miles, the international nautical mile of 1852 meters and the land mile which is 1,609.34 meters.

The breaststroke is a unit of nautical length that is used to measure depths of water, it is so called because it is equivalent to the length of a pair of extended arms. The Spanish breaststroke is worth 1,671 meters and an English breaststroke is 1,828 meters.

The foot has a value of 30.48 cm and as its name indicates it was in principle the distance between the heel and the tip of the big toe.

The yard is a curious case, equivalent to 91.44 cm, was defined by Henry VIII who used his finger to define the yard as the distance between the tip of his nose and the tip of his thumb with the arm fully extended.

The inch is 2.54 cm, represents the width of a man's thumb and in the fourteenth century, Edward I of England, decreed that it was equivalent to three grains of dried barley measured lengthwise.

The carat comes from the Greek word keration, which means carob because the seeds of the carob tree are very uniform and were formerly used to weigh gems and jewels. Carat is a term that is used in two different ways. The carat of jewelry is a unit of mass for weighing gems and pearls. It is equivalent to 1/140 ounce, that is 202 milligrams. Then there is the carat of goldsmithing that defines the purity of the metals used in jewelry. An 18-karat gold jewel, its alloy is made of 18/24 parts of gold, that is, a purity of 75%, therefore one of 24 is pure gold. It is an interesting thing to show to kids. It is so much fun because they can find it in the open nature, close to where they live. Teacher can bring the seeds and other parts of the tree to the classroom and discuss about why they think it is a good method to measure and why not...

Carob seeds

The metric system is based on logic not like the previous measures we just reviewed, it was created in the French Revolution, as a reaction to tradition. It was the result of the work of twelve scientists appointed by the French National Assembly in the year 1791. These scientists decided to find a fundamental length that existed in nature that would be called meter (from the Greek métron) which means measure, and turn it into the unit of a system of multiples of ten. The meter is the ten millionth part of the distance between the north pole and the equator measured on the meridian that passes through Paris.