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Concept
Odometer
Summary
An odometer or odograph is an instrument used for measuring the distance traveled by a vehicle, such as a bicycle or car. The device may be electronic, mechanical, or a combination of the two (electromechanical). The noun derives from ancient Greek ὁδόμετρον, hodómetron, from ὁδός, hodós ("path" or "gateway") and μέτρον, métron ("measure"). Early forms of the odometer existed in the ancient Greco-Roman world as well as in ancient China. In countries using Imperial units or US customary units it is sometimes called a mileometer or milometer, the former name especially being prevalent in the United Kingdom and among members of the Commonwealth.
Possibly the first evidence for the use of an odometer can be found in the works of the ancient Roman Pliny (NH 6. 61-62) and the ancient Greek Strabo (11.8.9). Both authors list the distances of routes traveled by Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BC) as by his bematists Diognetus and Baeton. However, the high accuracy of the bematists's measurements rather indicates the use of a mechanical device. For example, the section between the cities Hecatompylos and Alexandria Areion, which later became a part of the silk road, was given by Alexander's bematists as 575 Roman miles (529 English miles) long, that is with a deviation of 0.2% from the actual distance (531 English miles). From the nine surviving bematists' measurements in Pliny's Naturalis Historia eight show a deviation of less than 5% from the actual distance, three of them being within 1%. Since these minor discrepancies can be adequately explained by slight changes in the tracks of roads during the last 2300 years, the overall accuracy of the measurements implies that the bematists already must have used a sophisticated device for measuring distances, although there is no direct mention of such a device.
An odometer for measuring distance was first described by Vitruvius around 27 and 23 BC, during the First Punic War, although the actual inventor may have been Archimedes of Syracuse (c. 287 BC – 212 BC).
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