I don’t even know where to stick the thermometer.
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Graeme Inkster Says:
January 17th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
What sort of thermometers do they use? Sorry to ask but I’m new to this.
You can get calibrated (mercury) thermometers to 0.1 deg C, but they are quite expensive. I can’t see the typical Govt. Purchasing Dept. buying them [even at less than $150 each in bulk] when they could buy the “equivalent” at $1. Unless the respective BOM’s bought them themselves, or kept instructing each new Purchasing Officer on what to buy, then the cheap ones would be bought.
Use (or substitution/replacement) with ordinary thermometers introduces an error of over 0.5 deg. [if you've ever checked a box of them you'd know]. If they use thermocouples and automatic recording, how well are these calibrated at the start, and after time?
And then there is the well known problem of getting people to read them accurately. It is well known that in the USSR the colder the temperature reported, the more heating oil was allocated by the Central Bureau. A certain tendency to “underestimate” developed, but disappeared after the breakup when there was no point in doing so. But have those records ever been corrected? So from 1985 to 1995 there would have been a jump in the supposed temperature regardless of any actual trend.
Great one liner! I seldom comment, but had to on this one. Thanks for the grins.
I think the orifice you're looking for is called Zimbabwe.