Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Jan 1965
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1965metro...1....1h&link_type=abstract
Metrologia, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 1 (1965).
Mathematics
Logic
Scientific paper
Today it is often said that there is an over anxiety to initiate new scientific journals and this statement is probably only too true. Every member of the International Committee of Weights and Measures was very conscious of this potential criticism throughout the period when the Committee was giving consideration to the proposal that it sponsor an international journal devoted to scientific measurements of the highest precision and accuracy on which all experimental science rests. After much study the case for such a publication seemed overwhelming and Metrologia was launched. It is appropriate in this first number to state briefly the role and functions envisaged for Metrologia and the kind of material it will publish.
This journal will permit bringing together in one place, for convenience and accessibility, articles dealing with fundamental metrology. At present there is a wide dispersion of such articles in the journals of different countries. Even within a country the growing tendency towards specialist journals results in a further considerable dispersion of metrological publications on the basis of their field of physics.
Preference will be given to articles reporting the results of original researches that contribute to our progress in making fundamental scientific measurements. Currently this will comprise any work contributing to the improvement of accuracy and precision in measuring length, mass, time, electric current, temperature, luminance and ionizing radiations, and the accurate determination of physical constants involved in such measurements. Articles pertaining to a large number of different areas of physics will appear together but they will be unified by the fact that they will all be directed towards making the bases of measurement more accurate, reproducible and, if possible, more philosophically attractive. The subject spectrum will include interference, astronomy, photometry, gas thermometry, pyrometry, thermodynamics, radionuclides, neutrons, x-rays, and many other areas of physics, as well as such physical constants as the gyro-magnetic ratio of the proton, the acceleration due to gravity, the velocity of light, etc. Although principal emphasis will be placed on fundamental measurements, reports of experiments or techniques of particular originality and importance in the area of secondary measurement will be accepted, and certain secondary areas of measurement such as high frequency electrical measurement—where there are substantial difficulties in the way of attaining high accuracy, precision and international uniformity—will be of particular interest.
Review articles will be published in the same fields in order that both the specialist and the nonspecialist may have a convenient and readily available means of surveying the rapidly changing situation in fundamental metrology.
The journal will regularly inform its readers on the activities and decisions of the International Conference of Weights and Measures, the International Committee of Weights and Measures, and its Bureau at Sèvres, France, all of which operate under the oldest international scientific treaty—the Convention du Metre of 1875—which continues to assure uniform, precise and accurate measurements throughout the world. In this first number we are fortunate in having a comprehensive review article about this organization and its work prepared by Dr Jean Terrien, Director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. This provides a background against which much that will be published later will fall into better perspective.
There will be a 'Letters to the Editor' section which it is hoped will offer a useful forum for presenting brief descriptions of original work, new possibilities for the improvement of scientific measurement, and particularly exchanges of opinions on the latter. Such a forum would have been invaluable during the years when the adoption of the new standard for the international metre was being actively considered and it may even yet be of service in the debates on the proposed transition to an atomic standard for defining interval and scale of time.
Ability to measure with ever increasing precision and accuracy is as much the foundation of science at is ever was, but during recent years the lack of reasonably convenient access through the scientific literature to comprehensive information on the current state of progress has undoubtedly blurred the picture to those not directly concerned and has been an inconvenience to those in the field. Assembly of this field of work into one journal should not only revive realization of the importance of improving the means of measurement but also underline the fact that to ensure the essential progress of science in the future fundamental metrology must continue to draw on the very latest developments of science and the most competent scientists.
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