Henry Maudslay

Measurement turns reality into numbers, and numbers into reality.

Henry Maudslay invented the high-precision screw lathe, and used it to produce his "Lord Chancellor" screw micrometer, the mother of all measurement instruments. This device was used to make other devices that Whitworth used to define the standard screw thread. It was used to make the ruling engine that produced the Paris meter standard. Essentially every modern measured object descends from the Lord Chancellor.