Why standards Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Why standards - Essay Example Although this paper will focus most on standards in reference to technical scientific requirements and standards, they are of course important in general too, and have extremely widespread importance and relevance. Introduction A standard in its definitive sense is ‘a required or agreed level of quality or attainment’ (Merriam-Webster). In other words, it is a published set of guidelines that defines a certain criteria that an object, measurement, procedure or otherwise should fit into. It set out rules that act as definitions or references for anything in particular and are expected to be enacted exactly as they are without change or adjustment. Standards are generally enforced not as rigid rules to make things more complicated but rather to simplify things when viewing from a bigger picture. Standards allow all involved in something, whether it is a researcher looking to publish a bit of information, or a student wishing to learn something, or a manufacturer aiming to sell a product, or a consumer wishing to buy one, to effectively and exactly explain what they are offering or understanding, without ambiguity or confusion (Brownell, 1917). Where these standards are used and how they are used is what this paper will now begin to examine. Consider the standards employed by a manufacturing industry. To a certain measurable level as a standard reference point is very important for them for a great number of reasons. Without manufacturing norms, products would have little to no mobility. Each country and manufacturer would be working on their own terms of reference, thereby making it difficult for a consumer. A typical consumer will buy products from different manufacturers or will use services from different companies, and will ultimately have them all at use in one place. It would therefore be redundant and a hassle to have one particular product in one specific room only and be unable to use anything else with it, as they would not be standardized to work with each other. Furthermore, if you consider using the product or service in another country, unless the plugs, sockets, voltage supply required, power consumed etc were not standardized, it would be impossible to import or export a product for any widespread use. In terms of science though, standards have an importance so immense that without them science would not only be unable to progress, rather they would face setbacks so severe in the form of chaos and confusion that it would ultimately do more damage than good. One main reason for this is that science is not localized. It is universally applicable, universally required, universally used and therefore, universally researched upon and worked with. When there is a subsidized standard in place, a scientist in Muscat can pick up the thesis of a scientist in Russia, build upon it, research it further and produce a paper with terms and references of a specific format so that tomorrow, when someone in yet another country wi shes to learn from it, they will do so without confusion and conflict. Communicating on a standardized subject is far easier than having to communicate on a relative subject where first you would have to explain your terms of perspective and then get your point across. Luckily, some standards have been in use for so long and so widespread that they have become second nature to use and alternates are not even considered. For example, when illustrating the size of an object, without a standard form of measurement, we would have to employ words like small and big, which are relative terms. To say something is very small could mean a very large number of things,