Technology is amazing. It’s amazing that I own a smartphone with more power than a 10-year-old laptop. It’s amazing that we have self-driving cars or smart appliances that tell you when you need to go shopping, ideas considered science fiction 20 years ago. It’s even amazing that you are reading this article on your smartphone... on the internet—an invention that isn’t even 40 years old and is arguably the driver for most of the technology advances we have seen since its development.

But forget about consumer technology, in our field amazing technology revolves around dimensional measurement. Visit any industrial trade show that features dimensional metrology equipment, and the speed and accuracy with which measurements can be done today are astounding. In fact, the advances in speed and accuracy have come so far and so fast that they are no longer a selling point. Speed and accuracy are a given.

And we take all this for granted.

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