Assuming that typepad and my Blackberry both cooperate then you should see a picture of a statue below. The statue is of Lord Kelvin and in the background you can see the Kelvin Grove museum. Last time I was there I wrote about the museum's exhibition to Watt and how he not only figured out how to make industrially viable commercial engines but also invented the "horse power" measurement which was needed to sell them.
As I type I am sitting on the bench at the far end reading Douglas Hubbard's "How to measure anything".
The book starts with this quote from Kelvin:
"When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of science."
If your thinking what I'm thinking then you're thinking that Lord Kelvin probably needed to get laid more often. Apart from that he's got a point. The book is excellent btw. My eyes are opening.
Sent using my BlackBerry Bold - the thinking man's iphone. www.clarkeching.com +44(0)7920114893 Clarke Ching - Author of "Rolling Rocks Downhill" ... a business novel about software development; coming soon from the Pragmatic Bookshelf.
