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Re: temp. calibration



On Thu, 2 Jan 1997, Jim Riley wrote:

A biologist in our college wants to measure the temperature of ambient air
within a cave to monitor its effect on bats. I offered to do this for him
with Vernier temperature probes and a Texas Instrument CBL. We want to
calibrate the probes with a little more accuracy than we can get using the
freezing and boiling points of water. Does anyone know of any materials
whose melting and/or boiling points are in the vicinity of 15 C and whose
value is known well enough to provide calibration to within 0.2 C?
Jim Riley, Department of Physics
Drury College
900 N Benton Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802
e-mail: jriley@lib.drury.edu
Phone: (407) 873 7233




Rather than find other substances, ask your chem. department for a
0.1 degree Hg thermometer. Then just slowly heat a water bath with the
probe and thermometer together. You could then fit the data to get a
calibration curve. More accuarcy can be obtained by correcting the data
for stem effects, etc. on the Hg thermometer.

Mike Monce
Connecticut College