Abstract
THE number of communications made to Section A this year was again so large as to necessitate duplicate sittings on several days, an arrangement which appears to bring home to members in a forcible manner the impossibility of being in two places at once. For some undiscovered reason the subcommittee which arranges the order of the papers is generally held responsible for this limitation, and gets a considerable amount of abuse. The disadvantage of the division was particularly evident at the discussion on the units used in meteorological measurements opened by Dr. W. N. Shaw. A subcommittee of the council of the association appointed to consider the question, recommends the use of the absolute zero of temperature with either the centigrade or Fahrenheit degree as the unit, but preferably the former, and the introduction of a new “degree of pressure ” which is equal to 2000 C.G.S. units, and involves a graduation of the barometer in nearly 1/16th of an inch (0.06 in.), and the use of a vernier down to 1/160 inch. The meeting before which the matter was discussed was disposed to dwell mainly on the cost of effecting the changes proposed, and owing to the scant attendance of physicists, rather lost sight of the advantages of adopting what is practically equivalent to the C.G.S. system.
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LEES, C. PHYSICS AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION . Nature 70, 515–516 (1904). https://doi.org/10.1038/070515a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/070515a0