23 July 2007

Something isn't right

The other day i bought a Cherry scented air freshener. It smelled wonderful. Smelled so good i had to stop and get me a bag of candy cherries. So yesterday i was shopping and bought some fresh cherries. The fresh cherries don't smell or taste anything like the candies or the air freshener. Why is that?

That got me to thinking about what else in this world i accept as fact. If anything i buy that is supposed to be cherry doesn't smell or taste like real cherries, which one is right? I will keep my eye open on this matter.

At work we must use calibrated instruments. Calipers, thermometers, torque wrenches and such. We send that equipment off periodically to be calibrated. What do they use to calibrate? Take it one step further, and what do the calibrate the calibration tools with? If you calibrate a vernier caliper, you take a known 1,2,3 block and measure it. If your device reads correctly the 1,2 and 3" block it is calibrated. What about the block? what calibrates that? Do they have a vault someplace that has the original standard in it? I know they have Master calibration tools to calibrate the calibration tools. What set the standard for the Master?

For example, a State Trooper stops me saying i am going 75 MPH according to his radar gun. I sat my speedometer said i was going 70 mph. Which one is right. How do they calibrate the radar gun? I find this fascinating and plan to look into it. If anyone has any information, please let me know.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Speed radar is calibrated with tuning forks. If the tuning forks are miss handled or not correctly stored they become inaccurate.

Anonymous said...

The operating manual states that the radar should be calibrated with the tuning forks before and after each working shift and before and after each speeding citation