Do You Know the History of Balance Scales?

Scales are used in all aspects of our lives, such as digital gram scales and food weighing machine. How did it develop? Let us take a look today.

Unlike the current digital kitchen weighing scales and marble kitchen scales, the balance scale of the past is so simple that its use may predate the evidence. What allowed archaeologists to connect artifacts to scales was the stones used to determine absolute mass. The balance itself can be used very early to determine relative mass.

The earliest evidence of the existence of scales can be traced back to c. 2400–1800 BC in the Indus Valley. Before that, due to the insufficient scale, no banking business was conducted. The uniform, polished stones found in the early settlements may have been used as sizing stones for scales. Although the cubes are not marked, their masses are multiples of the common denominator. The cube is made of many different density stones. Obviously, their quality rather than size or other characteristics is a factor in sculpting these cubes.

In Egypt, the history of scales can be traced back to around 1878 BC, but its use range may be earlier. Inscribed gem-engraved stones, engraved with quality marks and Egyptian hieroglyphic gold symbols, have been found, indicating that Egyptian merchants have been using established quality measurement systems to classify gold shipments or gold mine production. Although no actual scales of that era have survived, many sets of weighing stones and murals depicting the use of scales show widespread use. In China, the earliest scales to be excavated from the Chu Tomb of the Warring States Period in China can be traced back to the American period from the 3rd to the 4th century BC. It is located in Zuojiajiao Mountain near Changsha, Hunan. The balance is made of wood and used bronze blocks.

Changes in balance scales, including cheap and inaccurate bismar (unequal arms scales) and other equipment, began to see common usage by c. 400 BC by many small merchants and their customers. Many small merchants and their customers have appeared throughout the history of records. Great inventors such as Leonardo da Vinci personally promoted the development of varieties with advantages and improved scales, such as kitchen scales with clock and rose-gold kitchen scales.

Even with all the advances in the design and development of scales, all scales from AD to the 17th century were variations of balances, such as electronic kitchen scales and digital weighing scales for baking. Throughout this period, it is important to standardize the weights used by the government and ensure that traders use the correct weights.

An exquisite weighing pan or balance with a boxed standard weight, such as digital weighing scales for baking or waterproof kitchen scales, composed of the original form of the balance, with the center of the beam as the fulcrum. For the highest accuracy, the fulcrum will consist of a sharp V-shaped pivot in a shallow V-shaped bearing. In order to determine the mass of an object, a combination of reference masses is suspended at one end of the beam, and an object of unknown mass is suspended at the other end (see Balance and Weighing Scale). For high-precision work, such as empirical chemistry, central beam balancing is still one of the most accurate techniques available and is often used to calibrate test quality.