I have been involved in the creation of a European pre-standard for the validation of computational models used to predict the structural performance of engineering systems [see ‘Setting Standards‘ on January 24th, 2014]; so, an example of a two thousand year old standard in the National Palace Museum in Taipei particularly attracted my interest during a recent visit to Taiwan.  A Jia-liang is a standard measure from the Xin Dynasty dated to between 9 and 24 CE.  It is an early form of standard weights and measure issued by the Chinese emperor.  The main cylinder contains a volume known as a ‘hu’; however, if you flip it over there is a small cylinder that contains a ‘dou’ which is one tenth of a ‘hu’.  The object that looks like a handle on the right in the photograph is third cylinder that holds a ‘sheng’ which is one tenth of a ‘dou’ or one hundredth of a ‘hu’; and the handle on the left contains a ‘ge’ when it is as shown in the photograph and a ‘yue’ when the other way up.  A ‘ge’ is tenth of ‘sheng’ and a ‘yeu’ is a twentieth.  The Jia-liang was made of bronze with all of the information engraved on it and was used to measure grain across the Xin empire.