Book Review

Temperature: Its Measurement and Control in Science and Industry, Volume 7
Dean C. Ripple, ed.
AIP Conference Proceedings 684
American Institute of Physics, Melville, NY, 2003
1,187 pp.
ISBN 0-7354-0153-5

Reviewed by James F. Schooley

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Volume 7 of the series Temperature: Its Measurement and Control in Science and Industry (TMCSI) contains the papers presented to the 8th International Temperature Symposium (ITS), held October 21–24, 2002, in Chicago. (Organizers of the first symposium, held in Chicago in 1919, did not publish proceedings, thus creating the numerical discrepancy noted above.) The name of the symposium series may strike the reader as ponderous, but even a cursory examination of the proceedings will reveal the tremendous variety of instruments and physical laws required to adequately measure and control temperature.

In what has become a comfortable working relationship for the symposium series, the Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society (formerly known as the Instrument Society of America) provided the conference venue and deftly handled its mechanics; the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) solicited and reviewed the contributed papers and edited the proceedings; and the American Institute of Physics published the papers in a two-part set.

The seventh volume of the TMCSI series satisfies well the tradition created by its predecessors: It brings together 191 contributions from thermometrists in 34 countries, and it presents them in a clean, well-edited publication, providing archival discussions of virtually all the past decade’s advances in the field of temperature measurement and control. Complete author and subject indexes provide the reader with easy access to the information it contains.

Dean C. Ripple, head of the thermometry group at NIST, served as both the chair of the symposium program committee and the editor-in-chief of the proceedings. Ripple’s program committee, 50 thermometrists from 15 countries, reviewed the contributions and organized the sessions, thus ensuring worldwide coverage of advances in the field. A group of seven NIST thermometrists served as technical editors for the proceedings.

A strong focus of the symposium was the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90). Seven papers treat the relationship between that scale and thermodynamic temperature. Like all of its predecessor scales, the ITS-90 was based on classical gas thermometry, using the defined temperature of the triple point of water as its primary reference. During the decade following promulgation of the new scale, a more precise gas thermometer supplanted the gas-bulb-plus-mercury manometer as the most accurate means of replicating thermodynamic temperatures. Using measurements of the speed of sound in argon gas contained in a spherical resonator, Gregory Strouse et al. found the ITS-90 to differ from thermodynamic temperature by only 0.011 K at 505.1 K, the melting temperature of pure tin, marking the 1990 scale as a vast improvement over its predecessor. Another group of nearly two dozen papers contains the results of realizations of the ITS-90 or of comparisons of scale realizations in two or more laboratories.

During October 2000, the International Committee of Weights and Measures adopted a provisional temperature scale to define temperatures below the lower limit set by the ITS-90 (0.65 K). The new provisional scale is based on the melting pressure of He³. It covers the range 0.0009 K to 1 K. Some 15 laboratories in 5 countries contributed to the discussion of the new scale, including its thermodynamic consistency and reliable means for its realization.

More than two dozen papers contain discussions of the manufacture or use of fixed-point temperature reference devices. Several of these papers are devoted to multiple high-pressure sealed cells that allow realization of several low-temperature fixed points in a single device. Other fixed-point studies were undertaken to provide secondary reference temperatures or those needed for temperatures higher than the gold freezing temperature.

Resistance thermometers—both the standard platinum instruments and various secondary thermometers—are the subject of more than a dozen papers. Likewise, thermocouple thermometers received considerable attention.

Studies of radiation thermometers ranged over a wider span of temperature than ever before. Some 23 individuals or groups evaluated the accuracy of a variety of radiation thermometers at temperatures as low as 225 K (a remarkable 50 K below the water triple point) and as high as 3,500 K. In addition, thermometrists in both standards laboratories and industrial laboratories studied the use of radiation thermometers in special applications and to evaluate emissivity and other material properties. Studies of temperature control in particular applications and thermometry involving novel principles or unusual situations completed coverage of temperature measurement and control in a well-run and comprehensive symposium.

As an archive, this volume has no peer. Like its predecessors, it will be used for a decade and more by serious thermometrists working in industry as well as those involved in providing national standards.


James F. Schooley, now retired, was chief of the temperature division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). He served as program chairman and editor-in-chief of the two previous temperature symposia.