Abstract
MR. GRIFFITHS, in a recent communication to the Royal Society, has called attention to the indefiniteness attending our present knowledge of the heat unit. In this connection I would wish to suggest—what indeed has long been present in my mind—that a unit of heat other than the present calorie is desirable. The present thermal unit is highly arbitrary, as well as most difficult of verification. This is true, whether we take the temperature at which the calorie is to be measured as 4°C. or 15° C. or as the temperature of minimum specific heat of water. The calorie owes its perpetuation to the method of mixtures—a laborious and inaccurate method of calorimetry—and dates from a period when the variations in the specific heat of water were not held of account.
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JOLY, J. The Unit of Heat. Nature 52, 4 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/052004a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/052004a0
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