Measuring is a basic human activity, we all do it all the time, but the reality is that what we do is not measuring, but estimating, and the one thing we over-estimate more than anything else is our ability to estimate accurately.
During my time in Africa I noted that native women (for they did the work) were uncannily accurate at estimating not just how many containers of size A fitted into a container or size B, but were able to adjust on the fly from measuring out “solids and voids” like millet to measuring out liquids like water.
How many egg cups heaped full of rice will fit into the empty coffee jar? A native African woman will estimate this accurately to a precision of one egg cup, e.g. the volume of the smaller container.
Gardner diesel engines used to use three oil pressure gauges, they all measured the same oil pressure, and the rule was the majority of two out of three was presumed to be right.
My mother has a thermostat with a dial for controlling her central heating fitted to the lounge wall, it is graduated in numbers from 10 to 30, despite telling her for ten years that the numbers are arbitrary she still insists on treating it as an accurate temperature setting controller, if she sets it to 25 she thinks it should heat the house to 25 degrees.

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