Precise dimensions :a history of units from 1791-2018 /

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"Version: 20171101"--Title page verso.Includes bibliographical references.Preface -- Introduction -- Glimpses in brief -- 1. The metre and the metric system -- part 1. The making of the metre -- 1.1. Introduction -- 1.2. The birth of the metric system -- 1.3. The Meridian Expedition -- 1.4. How the Meridian was measured -- 1.5. From angles to metres -- 1.6. Measuring the base lines -- 1.7. Crunching the numbers -- 1.8. Extrapolation to the quadrant -- 1.9. Conclusionpart 2. The metre convention and the BIPM -- 1.10. The archive metre shows its age -- 1.11. The international consensus : 1864-1875 -- 1.12. The metre convention : 1 March to 20 May 1875 -- 1.13. The metric system in the 20th and 21st centuries2. From notion to precision : the SI second -- 2.1. Ancient times -- 2.2. The mechanical clock -- 2.3. The pendulum -- 2.4. Pursuing precision -- 2.5. Earth abandoned? -- 2.6. Electronics appear -- 2.7. Independent standards -- 2.8. Conclusions3. Lord Rayleigh's determination of the ohm -- 3.1. Introduction -- 3.2. The rotating coil method -- 3.3. Value of the BA unit of resistance as determined by Rayleigh -- 3.4. The Lorenz method -- 3.5. The mercury standard -- 3.6. Subsequent developments and modern resistance standards4. Temperature scales : past, present and future : 1700-2050 -- 4.1. Introduction -- 4.2. de facto temperature scales : 1700-1900 -- 4.3. Towards defined temperature scales -- 4.4. The demise of defined temperature scales? -- 4.5. Summary5. Kelvin's absolute temperature and its measurement -- 5.1. Thomson's motivations for absolute temperature -- 5.2. The absolute as the abstract -- 5.3. The operationalization of Thomson's first absolute temperature -- 5.4. Thomson's second concept of absolute temperature -- 5.5. The operationalization of the second concept -- 5.6. Iterative operationalization6. A brief history of the unit of chemical amount -- 6.1. Comparative measurements -- 6.2. Quantitative measurements -- 6.3. The mass unit of the chemist : the gram-molecule -- 6.4. The many atomic weight scales -- 6.5. The name : mole -- 6.6. Molar measurements in practice -- 6.7. Amount of substance as a dimensional quantity -- 6.8. The Avogadro number -- 6.9. Proposed new definition of the mole -- 6.10. Consequences of the entity-based definition -- 6.11. Outlook7. The history of the SI unit of light, the candela -- 7.1. Introduction : light and vision -- 7.2. Artefact-based standards and units for measurement of 'light' -- 7.3. A radiometric approach to photometry -- 7.4. A look to the future8. The story of mass standards 1791-2018 -- 8.1. Introduction -- 8.2. Construction of the kilogram of the archives -- 8.3. William Hallowes Miller and the New Imperial Standard Pound -- 8.4. The metre convention, the BIPM and the international prototype of the kilogram -- 8.5. Relative stability of national and international prototypes -- 8.6. The new definition of the kilogram -- 8.7. Realisation of the kilogram using the silicon x-ray crystal density method : Si[rightwards arrow]SI -- 8.8. Conclusion -- 9. Mass from energy--a unit for a quantum world.Units are the foundation for all measurement of the natural world, and from which standard, our understanding develops. This book, stemming from a conference on the history of units organised by the editors, provides a detailed and discursive examination of the history of units within physics, in advance of the proposed redefinition of the SI base units at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in 2018. It features contributions from leading researchers in metrology and history.Also available in print.Mode of access: World Wide Web.System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader, EPUB reader, or Kindle reader.Malcolm Cooper is a former broadcast television engineer now retired. His upbringing in the somewhat authoritarian style of engineering studies drove him to pursue an honours degree in physics with the Open University. During this time the IOP opened its doors to OU students and he joined as a student member in 1987, opting for the History of Physics Group, later attaining full corporate membership. He has served on the group's committee in several capacities for many years, including briefly as chairman and secretary but his chief contribution has been as editor of the group's newsletter from 2004 to date. Although sometimes now described as more like a journal, he considers its less formal style a very positive attribute and likes to think it has been instrumental in doubling the group membership over that period. Jim Grozier is a former railway telecommunications engineer and experimental particle physicist, now working as a lab demonstrator at University College London. His research interests include the philosophy of measurement in the physical sciences, and popular (mis)conceptions of special relativity. He is a member of the Committee of the History of Physics Group, and has published numerous articles in the Group's newsletter. He is the author of Made In Hungary, the official history of the International Association of Physics Students, and of a web-based History of Early High Energy Physics Research at UCL. His article on bubble chamber scanners at UCL in the 1960s was published in the British Society for the History of Science's magazine, Viewpoint, in October 2015.Title from PDF title page (viewed on December 11, 2017).

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: .,

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1 online resource (various pagings) :illustrations (some color).

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780750314879

Classification

389.15

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Subject(s)

History of science.
Metrology
Units of measurement
SCIENCE / History.

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Malcolm Cooper, Jim Grozier.

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