Measuring The Needs Of The World Scientifically

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31221, 19 November 1966, Page 5

Measuring The Needs Of The World Scientifically

{By

OWEN J. SURRIDGE,

of the British Information Services)

PRECISE measurement is the key to modern living. Without it life would be much less pleasant and the commonly-accepted products of technological industrialisation would not be available on the present grand scale. It is difficult to imagine life without a car, a telephone, and those many kitchen gadgets so appreciated by the housewife.

Lack of precision instruments would lower health standards. affect education and food manufacture. Such new branches of science as space research, nucleonics and automation would not exist.

Measurement is as old as man, of course, but the primitive estimations of yesterday are no longer good enough. True, a horse may be measured by the width of a hand and the result is near enough for its purpose, but in industry it is often necessary to make measurements so precise that the quantities are indiscernible to the unaided eve.

Indeed, some of the subjects of measurement would have been quite unknown to our fathers. Hamlet’s wellknown observation that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of . . .” was as true for them as for our Elizabethan borebears. Modern Demands Modern standards of accuracy demand the use of highly-sophisticated scientific measurement instruments, and it is not surprising that one of the world’s most advanced industries is the manufacture of such apparatus.

Much of this advance has taken place in the last 50 years, but the development of scientific instruments has its roots much further back in history. Britain has played—and is still playing—a leading role in this process. Its scientific instruments’ industry has an annual turn-over of nearly £2OO million and is steadily expanding. Its products are in great demand all over the world.

At present a major trade mission of British scientific

instrument manufacturers is visiting New Zealand to show how their products and knowledge can best be of service to the country’s development. The tour has been organised by the Scientific Instrument Manufacturers’ Association of Great Britain in co-operation with the British National Export Council. The mission has the active backing of the British Government.

The development of scientific measuring instruments is closely linked with the progress of scientific discovery, and Briiish inventors have ’ been evolving new scientific I instruments for more than I three centuries. Clock-Making In the 18th century John Harrison's chronometer and John Hadley’s sextant revolutionised ocean navigation. The 19th century saw such developments as Lord Kelvin’s current balances and galvanometers and the Wheatstone Bridge, thus making accurate measurement of electrical current possible for the first time. In 1830, Dr. Ure, of Glasgow, devised the first thermostat for use in controlling distillation.

There were notable British contributions to the craft of clock-making. Recent advances include the free pendulum clock of W. M. Short and the quartz-crystal clock of W. H. Morrison. Dr. Louis Essen was responsible for the caesium resonator, which provides a unit of time accurate to the equivalent of one second in 3000 years. The self-winding I watch was invented by John Harwood in the 1920’5. Optics, Navigation Early instruments were confined largely to the fields of research. They were mainly concerned with optics, navigation and the measurement of time. It is only in the last few decades that the use of instruments in industry has become general. Now scientific measurement instruments have become essential to pracitically every sphere of activity. Some idea of the diversity of the British measurement industry may be gained from a look at the four main groups of instruments made by members of the Scientific Instrument Manufacturers’ Association. They make optical and opthalmic instruments, lenses, precision cameras, cinematographic and allied instruments, apparatus for use in laboratories and instruments for use in engineering, navigation, surveying, meteorology, medicine, traffic control, industrial instruments for measurement, regulation, process

control and automation, and electrical, electronic, telecommunications and nucleonic instruments.

The expansion of the last )few decades must continue as advancing technology calls for

more precise measurement in an ever-widening range of applications, some of them undoubtedly, as yet, unknown. Helping Medicine In the medical field, for example, British companies have pioneered new techniques and equipment. The first wholebody radiation monitor was produced by Nuclear Enterprises in 1960. These monitors make it possible to detect lowlevel radiation from radioisotypes, whether occurring naturally or accidentally. With the introduction of the 5.P.800 spectrophotometer—a complex instrument widely used for chemical analysis and the study of enzyme reactions—by Unicam, automation has been brought to the medical laboratory. Wayne Kerr Laboratories, Ltd., has produced an entirely new instrument for use with aircraft-landing systems; its accuracy is more than 100 times greater than has previously been possible. So sensitive is it that an error of only 2.7 inches can be detected immediately at the entrance to a runway.

Milling Develoiuent Geologists and mineralogists can for the first time carry out “on-site” analysis with a portable fluorescent analyser developed by Hilger and Watts, Ltd., in conjunction with the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. It represents the greatest break-through in the mineral and mining industries for many years. Micro-alignment telescope equipment made by Rank Taylor Hobson was used for the alignment of the television camera used in the Mariner IV space shot to Mars. The state of a country’s measurement science is thus one of the clearest indications of its degree of technical proficiency. This truth is becoming more and more widely recognised throughout the world. It is applicable to New Zealand as much as anywhere else—probably more so, indeed, for the trend toward the use of instrumentation must obviously first affect the countries in the forefront of development.