Arthur S. C. Wurtele - Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France

Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

12345

Arthur S. C. Wurtele

Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France

History and actual comparisons. With appendix on introduction of the mtre

Published by Good Press, 2019

EAN 4064066136055

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION.

Table of Contents

During the preparation of this investigation of Standard Measures a large number of authorities were examined, including the following: Kellys Universal Cambist, Maunders Weights and Measures, Encyclopdia Britannica, Chambers Encyclopdia, Williams Geodesy, Hymers works, Smithsonian Reports, Coast Survey Reports, Herschels Astronomy, etc. The only concise and clear statement I found was J. E. Hilgards report to the Coast Survey on standards in 1876, which I was gratified to find coincides with my deductions.

Arthur S. C. Wurtele.

Albany , November 26, 1881.

---

STANDARD MEASURES.

Table of Contents

A standard measure of length at first sight appears to be very simplemerely a bar of metal of any length, according to the unit of any country; and comparisons of different standards do not seem to present any difficulty. But on looking further into the thing, we find that standards are referred to some natural invariable length, and we are at once confronted with a mass of scientific reductions giving different values to the same thing, according to successively improved means of observation. We find, also, that comparisons of one standard with another differ, as given by reductions carried to great apparent exactness.

Every author appears to assume the right of using his own judgment as to what reduction is to be considered the most exact, and the result is a very confusing difference in apparently exact figures, with nothing to show how these differences arise.

I have endeavored to indicate what may be the cause of this confusion by giving the figures of actually observed comparisons and reductions; in a manner, the roots of the figures used as statements of length.

Sir Joseph Whitworth gives 0000 of an inch as the smallest length that can be measured with certainty, with an ultimate possibility of 1/1000000 of an inch; but imperceptible variations of temperature affect these infinitesimal lengths to such an extent that he believes the limit can only be reached at a standard temperature of 85 F., to avoid the effect of heat of the body.

It appears to me that comparisons should be made of double yards and mtres with the old French toise, as the limit of exactness would be thereby doubled.

Another great defect in statements of relative values is the omission of necessary factsthe material of which the bars or standards are made, the temperature at which comparison was made, and the standard temperatures used as to the final reduction, with the coefficient of expansion adopted.

Again, bars of different metals appear in time to sensibly change their relative length.

ENGLISH STANDARDS OF LENGTH.

Table of Contents

The first establishment of a uniform standard appears to have been made in 1101 by Henry I., who is said to have fixed the ulna (now the yard) at the length of his arm; but nothing definite was done till 1736, when the Royal Society took steps toward securing a general standard, and in 1742 they had a standard yard made by Graham from a comparison of various yards and ells of Henry VII. and Elizabeth, that were kept in the Exchequer.

Two copies of the Royal Society standard yard were made by Bird in 1758 for a committee of Parliament, one of which was marked standard of 1758, and the other 1760. But no exact legal standard was yet established, as shown by comparisons in 1802 of the various standard measures in use which Pictet, of Geneva, made with an accurate scale by Troughton, using means exact to the ten thousandth part of an inch, with the following results at the temperature of 62 F.:

Troughton Scale	3600000	inches.
Parliamentary	Standard	(1758, Bird)	3600023
Royal Society	(1760, )	3599955
(Graham)	3600130
Exchequer	3599330
Tower	3600400
Gen. Roy	(Trig. Survey)	3600036

Parliament finally undertook to reform the measures of England, and appointed a commission in 1818, under whose authority Capt. Kater compared the standard yards then in use with the following results, as referred to the Indian Survey standard:

Col. Lambton Standard (Indian Survey)	36000000	inches.
Birds Standard (1760)	36000659
Sir Geo. Schuckburghs Standard	36000642
Ramsdens Bar. Ordnance Survey	36003147
Gen. Roys Scale	36001537
Royal Society Standard	36002007

The commission reported in favor of adopting Birds standard of 1760, as it differed so slightly from Sir George Schuckburghs standard (which had been used in deducing the value of the French mtre) that those values could be assumed as correct. They also established the length of the seconds pendulum at level of sea in London and in vacuo as 3913929 inches. The seconds pendulum had been previously fixed by Wollaston and Playfair in 1814 as 3913047 inches.

On this report, an Act of Parliament in 1823 declared the only standard measure of length for the United Kingdom to be the yard as given by the distance at 32 F. between two points in gold studs on the brass bar, made by Bird, and marked Standard of 1760, and in the keeping of the Clerk of the House of Commons; also it referred this standard yard to the natural standard of a pendulum vibrating seconds of mean solar time at the level of the sea, in vacuo at London and temperature of 32 F., as in the proportion of 36 to 3913929; so that a pendulum 36 inches long ought to make 9008842 vibrations in 24 hours.

The Royal Society had a copy of the legal standard made by Bailey in 1834; and in the same year the Parliamentary standard was destroyed by fire at the burning of the Houses of Parliament, leaving the kingdom again without a legal standard.

All attempts made by a commission consisting of Airy, Bailey, Herschel, Lubbock, and Sheepshanks, to restore the standard by means of the seconds pendulum failed in exactness, on account of the many conditions of a vibrating pendulum, and recourse was had to the Royal Society standard, which had been carefully compared by Captain Kater in 1818, and from this in 1838 Bailey and Sheepshanks made six bronze bars, one inch square, and 38 inches long, which in 1855 were legalized by Act of Parliament, and the English standard of length defined as follows:

That the straight line on distance between the centres of the transverse lines in the two gold plugs on the bronze bar deposited in the Exchequer shall be the genuine standard yard at the temperature of 62 Fahrenheit; and if lost, it shall be replaced by means of its copies.

The French metrical system was made legal permissively in 1864, at the length established by Captain Kater, referred to in Act of Parliament of 1823, of 1 mtre equal to 3937079 inches, or 328089916 feet.

Next page

12345

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France»

Look at similar books to Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Frédéric Bozo

A History of the Iraq Crisis: France, the United States, and Iraq, 1991-2003

Sandy K. Wurtele

Out of Harms Way: A Parents Guide to Protecting Young Children from Sexual Abuse

Ted Wilson

Battles for the Standard: Bimetallism and the Spread of the Gold Standard in the Nineteenth Century

William J. Phalen

The First War of United States: The Quasi War with France 1798-1801

Doyle Arthur Conan

Arthur Conan Doyle: the man behind Sherlock Holmes

Great Britain. Army

Deaths men: soldiers of the Great War

Arthur

Last of the few: the Battle of Britain in the words of the pilots who won it

James Barr

Lords of the Desert: The Battle Between the United States and Great Britain for Supremacy in the Modern Middle East

Donahue Arthur Gerald

Life as a Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot

King. Arthur

The Reign of Arthur : from history to legend.

Arthur Marwick

The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958—c.1974

Burton R. Clark

The Research Foundations of Graduate Education: Germany, Britain, France, United States, Japan

Discussion, reviews of the book Standard Measures of United States, Great Britain and France and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.