What size of couch will fit in your living room? How many minutes does it take to get to work? As humans, we’re good at measuring the things we encounter in our everyday lives, and we’re familiar with the tools that help us do that. We are much less skilled at measuring some of the fundamental forces that underpin the universe – for example, the gravitational waves that are generated when black holes collide, or the precise behaviors of electrons when chemical compounds bond together.