Word: woodcuts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Last Word. Precise standards of measurement are a present-day perplexity. On a laboratory wall in the U.S. Bureau of Standards hangs a blow-up of a 16th century woodcut showing 16 men lined up heel to toe to define the rute, an old German measure of length related to the English rod. That was fine for the 1500s. But since then, each advance in technology has required better measurements. The standard meter bar, adopted by 28 nations, including the U.S.. in 1875, was considered the last word. Used with elaborate comparing devices, it could measure with an accuracy...