Terence Quinn

Terence Quinn Terence “Terry” John Quinn Order of the British Empire CBE Fellow of the Royal Society FRS is a British physicist, known for his research on metrology. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002 and made CBE in 2004. Quotes ... Thermoception Subjective sensations of temperature may allow us to say that "this object is hotter or colder than that one." But even this apparently simple statement is fraught with pitfalls for the unwary. For example, take hold in turn of a block of wood, a piece of expanded polystyrene and a rod of copper, all near room temperature but differing slightly slightly in temperature from one another. It is not easy to make any useful statements about which is hotter or colder. This means, of course, that the Hand human hand is a poor thermometer, but the reasons for this being so are by no means straight-forward: they are related to the way in which sensations of hotness and coldness are generated in the human body ... 2013 Temperature Physical Measurement: A Series of Monographs 2nd, revised Academic Press https://books.google.com/books?id=pMc3BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA2 2 9781483259345 (pbk reprint of 1990 2nd edition; 1st edition 1983) It has long been recognized that the basic units in science – such as the second and the kilogram – should be defined in terms of fundamental physical phenomena. Indeed in 1870 James Clerk Maxwell recognized that the units of length, time and mass would only remain unchanged and reproducible if they were defined by the wavelength, period of vibration and absolute mass of molecules rather than by the physical properties of the Earth. However, it took over a century for the metre and the second to be defined in terms of the quantum properties of atoms. And it was only in 1990 that reproducible standards of voltage and resistance were linked to quantum phenomena. 1999 Capacitance reaches a new standard Physics World 12 11 22 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2058-7058/12/11/25 10.1088/2058-7058/12/11/25 In my house I have four Clock chime chiming mechanical clocks, I sometimes adjust them so that at least two, but rarely more than three, strike the hour within a few seconds of each other. Fortunately, the pleasure I get from my clocks does not depend on them all telling the same time. When I switch on the Global Positioning System GPS in my car, however, things are different. It very quickly latches on to at least four atomic clocks high in the sky, all of which tell the same time to about a hundred millionth of a second. If they did not, my GPS would guide me to somewhere other than my desired destination. Introduction xvii–xxviii Oxford University Press From Artefacts to Atoms: The BIPM and the Search for Ultimate Measurement Standards 2012 9780195307863 https://books.google.com/books?id=Nf9aUId09_0C&pg=PR17 (quote from p. xvii; 408 pages. See International Bureau of Weights and Measures Bureau international des poids et mesures (BIPM).) Metrology, the science of measurement, is part of the essential but largely hidden infrastructure of the modern world. We need it for high-technology manufacturing, human health and safety, the protection of the environment, global climate studies and the basic science that underpins all these. Highly accurate measurements are not exclusively the preserve of the Outline of physical science physical sciences and engineering; many areas of chemistry, molecular biology and medicine are now dependent on accurate quantitative measurements. International trade in all manufactured and agricultural products is strictly controlled by regulations that need accurate metrology for their implementation. 2017 From artefacts to atoms—A new SI for 2018 to be based on fundamental constants Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 65 8-20 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0039368117301851 10.1016/j.shpsa.2017.07.003 (See International System of Units Système international d'unités (SI).) On 19 March 1791 five of the great luminaries of French science, Laplace, Lagrange, Condorcet, Jean-Charles de Borda Borda and Gaspard Monge Monge, met at the French Academy of Sciences Académie des Sciences in Paris and drew up a document that laid down the definition of the new basic unit of length, the metre, for the proposed new system of measurement that would become the Outline of the metric system decimal metric system. American Journal of Physics August 2018 Book Review: Precise dimensions: A History of units from 1791–2018, edited by Malcolm Cooper and Jim Grozier 638–640 https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/article/86/8/638/1056993/Precise-Dimensions-A-History-of-Units-from-1791 10.1119/1.5040579 External links Dr Terence Quinn CBE FRS Fellows Directory, The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/people/terence-quinn-12129/ Category:Living people Category:Physicists from the United Kingdom Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:University of Oxford alumni Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire