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CALORIMETRY
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CALORIMETRY , the scientific name for the measurement of quantities of See also:heat (See also:Lat. calor), to be distinguished from See also:thermometry, which signifies the measurement of temperature. A calorimeter is any piece of apparatus in which heat is measured. This distinction of meaning is purely a See also:matter of See also:convention, but it is very rigidly observed. Quantities of heat may be measured indirectly in a variety of ways in terms of the different effects of heat on material substances. The most important of these effects are (a) rise of temperature, (b) See also:change of See also:state, (c) trans-formation of See also:energy. § 1. The rise of temperature of a See also:body, when heat is imparted to it, is found to be in See also:general nearly proportional to the quantity of heat added. The thermal capacity of a body is measured by the quantity of heat required to raise its temperature one degree, and is necessarily proportional to the See also:mass of the body for bodies of the same substance under similar conditions. The specific heat of a substance is sometimes defined as the thermal capacity of unit mass, but more often as the ratio of the thermal capacity of unit mass of the substance to that of unit mass of See also:water at some See also:standard temperature. The two See also:definitions are identical, provided that the thermal capacity of unit mass of water, at a standard temperature, is taken as the unit of heat. But the specific heat of water is often stated in terms of other See also:units. In any See also:case it is necessary to specify the temperature, and sometimes also the pressure, since the specific heat of a substance generally depends to some extent on the See also:external conditions. The methods of measurement, founded on rise of temperature, may be classed as thermometric methods, since they depend on the observation of change of temperature with a thermometer. The most See also:familiar of these are the method of mixture and the method of cooling. § 2. The Method of Mixture consists in imparting the quantity of heat to be measured to a known mass of water, or some other standard substance, contained in a See also:vessel or calorimeter of known thermal capacity, and in observing the rise of temperature produced, from which data the quantity of heat may be found as explained in all elementary See also:text-books. This method is the most generally convenient and most readily applicable of calorimetric methods, but it is not always the most accurate, for various reasons. Some heat is generally lost in transferring the heated body to the calorimeter; this loss may be minimized by performing the transference rapidly, but it cannot be accurately calculated or eliminated. Some heat is lost when the calorimeter is raised above the temperature of its enclosure, and before the final temperature is reached. This can be roughly estimated by observing the See also:rate of change of temperature before and after the experiment, and assuming that the loss of heat is directly proportional to the duration of the experiment and to the See also:average excess of temperature. It can be minimized by making the mixing as rapid as possible, and by using a large calorimeter, so that the excess of temperature is always small. The latter method was generally adopted by J. P. See also:Joule, but the rise of temperature is then difficult to measure with accuracy, since it is necessarily reduced in nearly the same proportion as the correction. There is, however, the See also:advantage that the correction is rendered much less uncertain by this See also:procedure, since the See also:assumption that the loss of heat is proportional to the temperature-excess is only true for small See also:differences of temperature. See also:Rumford proposed to eliminate this correction by starting with the initial temperature of the calorimeter as much below that of its enclosure as the final temperature was expected to be above the same limit. This method has been very generally recommended, but it is really See also:bad, because, although it diminishes the See also:absolute magnitude of the correction, it greatly increases the uncertainty of it and therefore the probable See also:error of the result. The coefficient of See also:heating of a calorimeter when it is below the temperature of its surroundings is seldom, if ever, the same as the coefficient of cooling at the higher temperature, since the convection currents, which do most of the heating or cooling, are rarely symmetrical in the two cases, and moreover, the duration of the two stages is seldom the same. In any case, it is desirable to diminish the loss of heat as much as possible by polishing the exterior of the calorimeter to diminish See also:radiation, and by suspending it by non-conducting supports, inside a polished case, to protect it from See also:draughts. It is also very important to keep the surrounding conditions as See also:constant as possible throughout the experiment. This may be secured by using a large water-See also:bath to surround the apparatus, but in experiments of See also:long duration it is necessary to use an accurate temperature regulator. The method of lagging the calorimeter with See also:cotton-See also:wool or other non-conductors, which is often recommended, diminishes the loss of heat considerably, but renders it very uncertain and variable, and should never be used in See also:work of precision. The bad conductors take so long to reach a steady state that the rate of loss of heat at any moment depends on the past See also:history more than on the temperature of the calorimeter at the moment. A more serious objection to the use of lagging of this See also:kind is the danger of its absorbing moisture. The least trace of See also:damp in the lagging, or of moisture condensed on the See also:surface of the calorimeter, may produce serious loss of heat by evaporation. This is another objection to Rumford's method of cooling the calorimeter below the surrounding temperature before starting. Among See also:minor difficulties of the method may be mentioned the uncertainty of the thermal capacity of the calorimeter and stirrer, and of the immersed portion of the thermometer. This is generally calculated by assuming values for the specific heats of the materials obtained by experiment between loo° C. and 20° C. Since the specific heats of most metals increase rapidly with rise of temperature, the values so obtained are generally too high. It is best to make this correction as small as possible by using a large calorimeter, so that the mass of water is large in proportion to that of See also:metal. Analogous difficulties arise in the application of other calorimetric methods. The accuracy of the work in each case depends principally on the skill and ingenuity of the experimentalist in devising methods of eliminating the various See also:sources of error. The See also:form of apparatus usually adopted for the method of mixtures is that of See also:Regnault with. slight modifications,. and figures and descriptions are given in all the text-books. Among See also:special method, which have been subsequently See also:developed there are two which deserve mention as differing in principle from the See also:common type. These are (I) the constant temperature method, (2) the continuous flow method. The constant temperature method of mixtures was proposed by N. Hesehus (Jour. Phys., 1888, vii. p. 489). See also:Cold water at a known temperature is added to the calorimeter, immediately after dropping in the heated substance, at such a rate as to keep the temperature of the calorimeter constant, thus eliminating the corrections for the water See also:equivalent of the calorimeter and the external loss of heat. The calorimeter is surrounded by an See also:air-jacket connected to a See also:petroleum See also:gauge which indicates any small change of temperature in the calorimeter, and enables the manipulator to adjust the See also:supply of cold water to compensate it. The apparatus as arranged by F. A. Waterman is shown in fig. I (See also:Physical See also:Review, 1896, iv. p. Y6i). A is the calorimetric See also:tube, B the air-jacket and L ~ the gauge. H is an electric UW heater for raising the body to a suitable temperature, which can See also:swing into See also:place directly over the calorimeter. W is a conical can containing water o cooled by See also:ice I nearly too , which is swung over the calorimeter as soon as the hot body has been introduced and the heater removed. The cold water flow {s regulated by a tap S with a long handle 0, and its temperature is taken by a delicate thermometer with its bulb at G. The method is interesting, but the manipulations and observations involved are more troublesome than with the See also:ordinary type of calorimeter, and it may be doubted whether any ad-vantage is gained in accuracy. The continuous flow method is specially applicable to the important case of calorific value of gaseous See also:fuel, where a large quantity of heat is continu- ously generated at a nearly See also:uniform rate by See also:combustion Fig. 2 illustrates a See also:recent type of See also:gas calorimeter devised by C. V. Boys (Prot. R.S., 1906; A. 77, p. I22). The heated products of combustion from the burner B impinge on a metal See also:box H, through which water is circulating, and then pass downwards and outwards through a See also:spiral cooler which reduces them practically to the atmospheric temperature. A steady stream of water enters the apparatus by the inflow thermometer O, B _J flows through the spiral coolers N and M, and finally through the box H, where it is well mixed before passing the outflow thermometer P. As soon as a steady state is reached, the difference of temperature between the outflow and inflow thermometers, multiplied by the current of water in grammes per See also:minute gives the heat per minute supplied by combustion. The gas current is simultaneously observed by a suitable See also:meter, which, with subsidiary corrections for pressure, temperature, &c., gives the necessary data for deducing calorific value. A continuous flow calorimeter has been used by the writer for measuring quantities of heat conveyed by See also:conduction (see CoNDUCTION OF HEAT), and also for determining the variation of the specific heat of water. In the latter case two steady currents of water at different temperatures, say o° and too° are passed through an equalizer, and the resulting temperature measured without mixing the currents, which are then separately determined by weighing. This is a very See also:good method of comparing the mean specific heats over two ranges of temperature such as o-50, and 50-too, or o-20 and 20-4o, but it is not so suitable as the electric method described below for obtaining the actual specific heat at any point of the range. § 3. Method of Cooling.—A common example of this method is the determination of the specific heat of a liquid by filling a small calorimeter with the liquid, raising it to a convenient temperature, and then setting it to cool in an enclosure at a steady temperature, and observing the See also:time taken to fall through a given range when the conditions have become fairly steady. The same calorimeter is afterwards filled with a known liquid, such as water, and the time of cooling is observed through the same range of temperature, in the same enclosure, under the same conditions. The ratio of the times of cooling is equal to the ratio of the thermal capacities of the calorimeter and its contents in the two cases. The advantage of the method is that there is no transference or mixture; the defect is that the whole measurement depends on the assumption that the rate of loss of heat is the same in the two cases, and that any variation in the conditions, or uncertainty in the rate of loss, produces its full effect in the result, whereas in the previous case it would only affect a small correction. Other sources of uncertainty are, that the rate of loss of heat generally depends to some extent on the rate of fall of temperature, and that it is difficult to take accurate observations on a rapidly falling thermometer. As the method is usually practised, the calorimeter is made very small, and the surface is highly polished to diminish radiation. It is better to use a fairly large calorimeter to diminish the rate of cooling and the uncertainty of the correction for the water equivalent. The surface of the calorimeter and the enclosure should be permanently blackened so as to increase the loss of heat by radiation as much as possible, as compared with the losses by convection and conduction, which are less See also:regular. For accurate work it is essential that the liquid in the calorimeter should be continuously stirred, and also in the enclosure, the lid of which must be water-jacketed, and kept at the same steady temperature as the sides. When all these precautions are taken, See also:tire method loses most of the simplicity which is its See also:chief advantage. It cannot be satisfactorily applied to the case of solids or powders, and is much less generally useful than the method of mixture. § 4. Method of See also:Fusion.—The methods depending on change of state are theoretically the simplest, since they do not necessarily involve any reference to thermometry, and the corrections for external loss of heat and for the thermal capacity of the containing vessels can be completely eliminated. They nevertheless See also:present See also:peculiar difficulties and limitations, which render their See also:practical application more troublesome and more uncertain than is usually supposed. They depend on the experimental fact that the quantity of heat required to produce a given change of state (e.g. to convert one gramme of ice at o° C. into water at o° C., or one gramme of water at too° C. into See also:steam at too° C.) is always the same, and that there need be no change of temperature during the See also:process. The difficulties arise in connexion with the determination of the quantities of ice melted or steam condensed, and in measuring the latent heat of fusion or See also:vaporization in terms of other units for the comparison of observations. The earlier forms of ice-calorimeter, those of See also:Black, and of See also:Laplace and See also:Lavoisier, were useless for work of precision, on See also:account of, the impossibility of accurately estimating the quantity of water See also:left adhering to the ice in each case. This difficulty was overcome by the invention of the See also:Bunsen calorimeter, in which the quantity of ice melted is measured by observing the diminution of See also:volume, but the successful employment of this See also:instrument requires consider-able skill in manipulation. The sheath of ice surrounding the bulb must be sufficiently continuous to prevent See also:escape of heat, but it must not be so solid as to produce See also:risk of See also:strain. The ideal See also:condition is difficult to secure. In the practical use of the instrument it is not necessary to know both the latent heat of fusion of ice and the change of volume which occurs on melting; it is sufficient to determine the change of volume per calorie, or the quantity of See also:mercury which is See also:drawn into the bulb of the apparatus per unit of heat added. This can be determined by a See also:direct See also:calibration, by inserting a known quantity of water at a known temperature and observing the contraction, or weighing the mercury drawn into the apparatus. In See also:order to be See also:independent of the accuracy of the thermometer employed for observing the initial temperature of the water introduced, it has been usual to employ water at See also:roe C., adopting as unit of heat the " mean calorie," which is one-hundredth See also:part of the heat given up by one gramme of water in cooling from too° to o° C. The See also:weight of mercury corresponding to the mean calorie has been determined with considerable care by a number of observers well skilled in the use of the instrument. The following are some of their results:—Bunsen, 15.41 mgm.; Velten, 15.47 mgm.; Zakrevski, 15.57 mgm.; Staub, 15.26 mgm. The explanation of these discrepancies in the fundamental constant is not at all clear, but they may be taken as an See also:illustration of the difficulties of manipulation attending the use of this instrument, to which reference has already been made. It is not possible to deduce a more satisfactory value from the latent heat and the change of See also:density, because these constants are very difficult to determine. The following are some of the values deduced by well-known experimentalists for the latent heat of fusion:—Regnault, 79.06 to 79.24 calories, corrected by See also:Person to 79.43; Person, 79.99 calories; See also:Hess, 80.34 calories; Bunsen, 8o•025 calories. Regnault, Person and Hess employed the method of mixture which is probably the most accurate for the purpose. Person and Hess avoided the error of water sticking to the ice by using dry ice at various temperatures below o° C., and determining the specific heat of ice as well as the latent heat of fusion. These discrepancies, might, no doubt, be partly explained by differences in the units employed, which are somewhat uncertain, as the specific heat of water changes rapidly in the neighbourhood of o° C; but making all due See also:allowance for this, it remains evident that the method of ice-calorimetry, in spite of its theoretical simplicity, presents See also:grave difficulties in its practical application. One of the chief difficulties in the practical use of the Bunsen calorimeter is the continued and often irregular See also:movement of the mercury See also:column due to slight differences of temperature, or pressure between the ice in the calorimeter and the ice bath in which it is immersed. C. V. Boys (Phil. Mag., 1887, vol. 24, p. 214) showed that these effects could be very greatly reduced by surrounding the calorimeter with an See also:outer tube, so that the ice inside was separated from the ice outside by an air space which greatly reduces the See also:free passage of heat. The present writer has found that very good results may be obtained by enclosing the calorimeter in a vacuum jacket (as illustrated in fig. 3), which practically eliminates conduction and convection. If the vacuum jacket is silvered inside, radiation also is reduced to such an extent that, if the vacuum is really good, the external ice bath may be dispensed with for the See also:majority of purposes. If the inner bulb is filled with mercury instead of water and ice, the same arrangement answers admirably as a See also:Favre and Silbermann calorimeter, for measuring small quantities of heat by the expansion of See also:Ftc 3 the mercury. The question has been raised by E. L. See also:Nichols (Phys. Rev. vol. 8, See also:January 1899) whether there may not be different modifications of ice with different densities, and different values of the latent heat of fusion. He found for natural See also:pond-ice a density 0.9179 and for artificial ice 0.9161. J. See also:Vincent (Phil. Trans. A. 198, p. 463) also found a density .916o for artificial ice, which is probably very nearly correct. If such See also:variations of density exist, they may introduce some uncertainty in the absolute values of results obtained with the ice calorimeter, and may account for some of the discrepancies above enumerated. § 5. The Method of Condensation was first successfully applied by J. Joly in the construction of his steam calorimeter, a full description of which will be found in text-books. The body to be tested is placed in a special See also:scale-See also:pan, suspended by a See also:fine See also:wire from the See also:arm of a See also:balance inside an enclosure which can be filled with steam at atmospheric pressure. The temperature of the enclosure is carefully observed before admitting steam. The weight of steam condensed on the body gives a means of calculating the quantity of heat required to raise it from the atmospheric temperature up to oo° C. in terms of the latent heat of vaporization of steam at roe C. There can be no appreciable gain or logs of heat by radiation, if the See also:admission of the steam is sufficiently rapid, since the walls of the enclosure are maintained at roe C., very nearly. The thermal capacity of the scale-pan, &c., can be determined by a See also:separate experiment, or, still better, eliminated by the See also:differential method of counterpoising with an exactly similar arrangement on the other arm of the balance. The method requires very delicate weighing, as one calorie corresponds to less than two milligrammes of steam condensed; but the successful application of the method to the very difficult problem of measuring the specific heat of a gas at constant volume, shows that these and other difficulties have been very skilfully overcome. The application of the method appears to be practically limited to the measurements of specific heat between the atmospheric temperature and roo° C. The results depend on the value assumed for the latent heat of steam, which Joly takes as 536.7 calories, following Regnault. Joly has himself deter-See also:mined the mean specific heat of water between 12° and roe C. by this method, in terms of the latent heat of steam as above given, and finds the result •9952. Assuming that the mean specific heat of water between 12° and 1o0° is really 1.00Ii in terms of the calorie at 20 C. (see table, p. 66), the value of the latent heat of steam at roe C., as determined by Joly, would be 54o•2 in terms of the same unit. The calorie employed by Regnault is to some extent uncertain, but the difference is hardly beyond the probable errors of experiment, since it appears from the results of recent experiments that Regnault made an error of the same order in his determination of the specific heat of water at 100° C. § 6. Energy Methods.—The third general method of calorimetry, that based on the transformation of some other kind of energy into the form of heat, rests on the general principle of the conservation of energy, and on the experimental fact that all other forms of energy are readily and completely convertible into the form of heat. It is therefore often possible to measure quantities of heat indirectly, by measuring the energy in some other form and then converting it into heat. In addition to its See also:great theoretical See also:interest, this method possesses the advantage of being frequently the most accurate in practical application, since energy can be more accurately measured in other forms than in that of heat. The two most important varieties of the method are (a) See also:mechanical, and (b) See also:electrical. These methods have reached their highest development in connexion with the determination of the mechanical equivalent of heat, but they may be applied with great advantage in connexion with other problems, such as the measurement of the variation of specific heat, or of latent heats of fusion or vaporization. § 7. Mechanical Equivalent of Heat.—The phrase " mechanical equivalent of heat " is somewhat vague, but has been sanctioned by long usage. It is generally employed to denote the number of units of mechanical work or energy which, when completely converted into heat without loss, would be required to produce one heat unit. The numerical value of the mechanical equivalent necessarily depends on the particular units of heat and work employed in the comparison. The See also:British engineer prefers to state results in terms of See also:foot-pounds of work in any convenient See also:latitude per See also:pound-degree-See also:Fahrenheit of heat. The See also:continental engineer prefers kilogrammetres per kilogramme-degree-centi-grade. For scientific use the C.G.S. See also:system of expression in ergs per gramme-degree-centigrade, or " calorie," is the most appropriate, as being independent of the value of gravity. A more convenient unit of work or energy, in practice, on account of the smallness of the erg, is the joule, which is equal to io• 7 ergs, or one See also:watt-second of electrical energy. On account of its practical convenience, and its See also:close relation to the See also:international electrical units, the joule has been recommended by the British Association for See also:adoption as the absolute unit of heat. Other convenient practical units of the same kind would be the watt-See also:hour, 3600 joules, which is of the same order of magnitude as the kilo-calorie, and the kilowatt-hour, which is the ordinary commercial unit of electrical energy. § 8. Joule.—The earlier work of Joule is now chiefly of See also:historical interest, but his later measurements in 1878, which were undertaken on a larger scale, adopting G. A. Hirn's method of measuring the work expended in terms of the See also:torque and the number of revolutions, still possess value as experimental See also:evidence. In these experiments(see fig. 4) the paddles were revolved by See also:hand at such a See also:speed as to produce a constant torque on the calorimeter h, which was supported on a See also:float w in a vessel of water v, but was kept at See also:rest by the couple due to a pair of equal weights k suspended from fine strings passing See also:round the circumference of a See also:horizontal See also:wheel attached to the calorimeter. Each experiment lasted about See also:forty minutes, and the rise of temperature produced was nearly 3° C. The calorimeter contained about 5 kilogrammes of water, so that the rate of heat-supply was about 6 calories per second. Joule's final result was 772.55 foot-pounds at See also:Manchester per poun 1-degree-Fahrenheit at a temperature of 62° F., but individual experiments differed by as much as 1 %. This result in C.G.S. measure is equivalent to 4.177 joules per calorie at 16.5° C., on the scale of Joule's mercury thermometer. His thermometers were subsequently corrected to the See also:Paris scale by A. Schuster in 1895, which had the effect of reducing the above figure to 4.173. § 9. See also:Rowland.—About the same time H. A. Rowland (Prot. Amer. Acad. xv. p. 75, 188o) repeated the experiment, employing the same method, but using a larger calorimeter (about 8400 grammes) and a petroleum motor, so as to obtain a greater rate of heating (about 84 calories per second), and to reduce the importance of the uncertain correction for external loss of heat. Rowland's apparatus is shown in fig. 5. The calorimeter was suspended by a See also:steel wire, the torsion of which made the See also:equilibrium See also:stable. The torque was measured by weights 0 and P suspended by See also:silk See also:ribbons passing over the pulleys n and round the disk kl. The See also:power was transmitted to the paddles by See also:bevel wheels f, g, rotating a spindle passing through a stuffing box in the bottom of the calorimeter. The number of revolutions and the rise of temperature were recorded on a See also:chronograph See also:drum. He paid greater See also:attention to the important question of thermometry, and extended his researches over a much wider range of temperature, namely 5° to 35° C. His experiments revealed for the first time a diminution in the specific heat of water with rise of temperature between 0° and 3o° C., amounting to four parts in 10.000 per 1 ° C. His thermometers were compared with a mercury thermometer standardized in Paris, and with a See also:platinum thermometer standardized by Griffiths. The result was to reduce the co-efficient of diminution of specific heat at 15° C. by nearly one See also:half, but the absolute value at 20° C. is practically unchanged. Thus corrected his values are as follows: Temperature . 10° 15° 20° 25° 30° 35° Joules per cal. 4.197 4.188 4.181 4.176 4.175 4.177 These are expressed in terms of the See also:hydrogen scale, but the difference from the See also:nitrogen scale is so small as to be within the limits of experimental error in this particular case. Rowland himself considered his results to be probably correct to one part in 500, and supposed that the greatest uncertainty See also:lay in the comparison of the scale of his mercury thermometer with the air thermometer. The subsequent correction, though not carried out strictly under the conditions of the experiment, showed that the order of accuracy of his work about the See also:middle of the range from 15° to 25° was at least r in woo, and probably 1 in 2000. At 30° he considered that, owing to the increasing magnitude and uncertainty of the radiation correction, there " might be a small error in the direction of making the equivalent too great, and that the specific heat might go on decreasing to even 4o° C." The results considered with reference to the variation of the specific heat of water are shown in the See also:curve marked Rowland in Fig. 6. § to. See also:Osborne See also:Reynolds and W.H.Moorby (Phil. Trans.,1897, P.381) determined the mechanical equivalent of the mean thermal unit between o° and too° C., on a very large scale, with a See also:Froude-Reynolds See also:hydraulic See also:brake and a steam-See also:engine of too h.p. This brake is practically a Joule calorimeter, ingeniously designed to See also:churn the water in such a manner as to develop the greatest possible resistance. The admission of water at o° C. to the brake was controlled by hand in such a manner as to keep the outflow nearly at the boiling-point, the quantity of water in the brake required to produce a constant torque being regulated automatically, as the speed varied, by a See also:valve worked by the lifting of the weighted See also:lever attached to the brake. a. /AI o° '' See also:ram tO Pil .4900 \® ]00. 4.1580 The accompanying illustration (fig. 7) shows the brake lagged with cotton-wool, and the 4-ft. lever to which the weights are suspended. The power of the brake may be estimated by comparison with the See also:size of the rope See also:pulley seen behind it on the same See also:shaft. With 300 pounds on a 4-ft. lever at 300 revolutions per minute, the rate of See also:generation of heat was about 12 kilo-calories per second. In spite of the large range of temperature, the correction for external loss of heat amounted to only 5%, with the brake uncovered, and was reduced to less than 2 % by lagging. This is the special advantage of working on so large a scale with so rapid a generation of heat. But, for the same See also:reason, the method necessarily presents peculiar difficulties, which were not overcome without great pains and ingenuity. The See also:principal troubles arose from damp in the lagging which necessitated the rejection of several trials, and from dissolved air in the water, causing loss of heat by the formation of steam. Next to the radiation loss, the most uncertain correction was that for conduction of heat along the 4-in. shaft. These losses were as far as possible eliminated by combining the trials in pairs, with differ-ent loads on the brake, assuming that the heat-loss would be the same in the heavy and See also:light trials, provided that the external temperature and the gradient in the shaft, as estimated from the temperature of the See also:bearings, were the same. The values deduced in this manner for the equivalent agreed as closely as could be expected considering the impossibility of regulating the external condition of temperature and moisture with any certainty in an engine-See also:room. The extreme variation of results in any one See also:series was only from 776.63 to 979.46 ft.-pounds, or less than 1%. This variation may have been due to the state of the lagging, which Moorby distrusted in spite of the great reduction of the heat-loss, or it may have been partly due to the difficulty of regulating the speed of the engine and the water-supply to the brake in such a manner as to maintain a constant temperature in the outflow, and avoid variations in the heat capacity of the brake. Since hand regulation is necessarily discontinuous, the speed and the temperature were constantly varying, so that it was useless to take readings nearer than the tenth of a degree. The largest variation recorded in the two trials of which full details are given, was 4–9° F. in two minutes in the outflow temperature, and four or five revolutions per minute on the speed. These variations, so far as they were of a purely accidental nature, would be approximately eliminated on the mean of a large number of trials, so that the accuracy of the final result would be of a higher order than might be inferred from a comparison of separate pairs of trials. Great pains were taken to discuss and eliminate all the sources of constant error which could be foreseen. The results of the light trials with 400 f t.-pounds on the brake differ slightly from those with boo ft.-pounds. This might be merely accidental, or it might indicate some constant difference in the conditions requiring further investigation. It would have been desirable, if possible, to have tried the effect of a larger range of variation in the experimental conditions of load and speed, with a view to detect the existence of constant errors; but owing to the limitations imposed by the use of a steam-engine, and the difficulty of securing steady conditions of See also:running, this proved to be impossible. There can be no doubt, however, that the final result is the most accurate direct determination of the value of the mean calorie between o° and too C. in mechanical units. Expressed in joules per calorie the result is 4.1832, which agrees very closely with the value found by Rowland as the mean over the range 15° to 20° C. The value 4.183 is independently confirmed in a remarkable manner by the results of the electrical method described below, which give 4.185 joules for the mean calorie, if Rowland's value is assumed as the starting-point, arid taken to be 4.18o joules at 2o° C. § 11. Electrical Methods.—The value of the international electrical units has by this time been so accurately determined in absolute measure that they afford a very good, though indirect, method of determining the mechanical equivalent of heat. But, quite apart from this, electrical methods possess the greatest value for calorimetry, on account of the facility and accuracy of regulating and measuring the quantity of heat supplied by an electric current. The frictional generation of heat in a metallic wire conveying a current can be measured in various ways, which correspond to slightly different methods. By See also:Ohm's See also:law, See also:mid by the See also:definition of difference of electric pressure or potential, we obtain the following alternative expressions for the quantity of heat H in joules generated in a time T seconds by a current of C amperes flowing in a wire of resistance R ohms, the difference of potential between the ends of the wire being E= CR volts: H=RCP= C2RT =E2T/R . (t.) The method corresponding to the expression C2RT was adopted by Joule and by most of the See also:early experimentalists. The defects of the earlier work from an electrical point of view lay chiefly in the difficulty of measuring the current with sufficient accuracy owing to the imperfect development of the See also:science of electrical measurement. These difficulties have been removed by the great advances since 188o, and in particular by the introduction of accurate standard cells for measurements of electrical pressure. § 12. Griffiths.—The method adopted by E. H. Griffiths (Phil. Trans., 1893, p. 361), whose work threw a great See also:deal of light on the failure of previous observers to secure consistent results, corresponded to the last expression E2T/R, and consisted in regulating the current by a special rheostat, so as to keep the potential difference E on the terminals of the resistance R balanced against a given number of standard See also:Clark cells of the See also:Board of See also:Trade See also:pattern. The resistance R could be deduced from a knowledge of the temperature of the calorimeter and the coefficient of the wire. But in order to obtain trustworthy results by this method he found it necessary to employ very rapid stirring (2000 revolutions per minute), and to insulate the wire very carefully from the liquid to prevent leakage of the current. He also made a special experiment to find how much the temperature of the wire exceeded that of the liquid under the conditions of the experiment. This correction had been neglected by previous observers employing similar methods. The resistance R was about 9 ohms, and the potential difference E was varied from three to six Clark cells, giving a rate of heat-supply about 2 to 6 See also:watts. The water equivalent of the calorimeter was about 85 grammes, and was determined by varying the quantity of water from 140 to 260 or 280 grammes, so that the final results depended on a difference in the weight of water of 12o to 140 grammes. The range of temperature in each experiment was 14° to 26° C. The rate of rise was observed with a mercury thermometer standardized by comparison with a platinum thermometer under the conditions of the experiment. The time of passing each See also:division was recorded on an electric chronograph. The duration of an experiment varied from about 30 to 70 minutes. Special observations were made to deter-mine the corrections for the heat supplied by stirring, and that lost by radiation, each of which amounted to about to % of the heat-supply. The calorimeter C, fig. 8, was gilded, and completely surrounded by a See also:nickel-plated steel enclosure B, forming the bulb of a mercury thermo-regulator, immersed in a large water-bath maintained at a constant temperature. In spite of the large corrections the results were extremely consistent, and the value of the temperature-coefficient of the diminution of the specific heat of water, deduced from the observed variation in the rate of rise at different points of the range 15° to 25°, agreed with the value subsequently deduced from Rowland's experiments over the same range, when his thermometers were reduced to the same scale. Griffiths' final result for the average value of the calorie over this range was 4.192 joules, taking the E.M.F. of the Clark See also:cell at 15° C. to be 1..4342 volts. The difference from Rowland's value, 4.181, could be explained by supposing the E.M.F. of the Clark cells to have in reality been 1.4323 volts, or about 2 millivolts less than the value assumed. Griffiths subsequently applied the same method to the measurement of the specific heat of See also:aniline, and the latent heat of vaporization of See also:benzene and water. § 13. Schuster and Gannon.—The method employed by A. Schuster and W. Gannon for the determination of the specific heat of water in terms of the international electric units (Phil. Trans. A, 1895, p. 415) corresponded to the expression ECT, and differed in many essential details from that of Griffiths. The current through a platinoid resistance of about 31 ohms in a calorimeter containing 1500 grammes of water was regulated so that the potential difference on its terminals was equal to that of twenty Board of Trade Clark cells in series. The duration of an experiment was about ten minutes, and the product of the mean current and the time, namely CT, was measured by the weight of See also:silver deposited in a voltameter, which V. 3amounted to about 0.56 gramme. The uncertainty due to the correction for the water equivalent was minimized by making it small (about 27 grammes) in comparison with the water weight. The correction for external loss was reduced by employing a small rise of temperature (only 2.22°), and making the rate of heat-supply relatively rapid, nearly 24 watts. The platinoid coil was insulated from the water by shellac See also:varnish. The wire had a length of 76o See also:ems., and the potential difference on its terminals was nearly 30 volts. The rate of stirring adopted was so slow that the heat generated by it could be neglected. The result found was 4.191 joules per calorie at 19° C. This agrees very well with Griffiths considering the difficulty of measuring so small a rise of temperature at 2° with a mercury thermometer. Admitting that the electro-chemical equivalent of silver increases with the See also:age of the See also:solution, a fact subsequently discovered, and that the E.M.F. of the Clark cell is probably less than 1.4340 volts (the value assumed by Schuster and Gannon), there is no difficulty in reconciling the result with that of Rowland. § 14. H. L. Callendar and H. T. See also:Barnes (Brit. Assoc. Reports, 1897 and 1899) adopted an entirely different method of calorimetry; as well as a different method of electrical measurement. A steady current of liquid, Q grammes per second, of specific heat, Js joules per degree, flowing through a fine tube, A B, fig. 9, is heated by a steady electric current during its passage through the tube, and the difference of temperature do between the inflowing and the outflowing liquid is measured by a single See also:reading with a delicate pair of differential platinum thermometers at A and B. The difference of potential E between the ends of the tube, and the electric current C through it, are measured on an accurately calibrated See also:potentiometer, in terms of a Clark cell and a standard resistance. If MO is the radiation loss in watts we have the See also:equation, EC=JsQde+hdo . . . (2). The advantage of this method is that all the conditions are steady, so that the observations can be pushed to the limit of accuracy and sensitiveness of the apparatus. The water equivalent of the calorimeter is immaterial, since there is no appreciable change of temperature. The heat-loss can be reduced to a minimum by enclosing the flow-tube in a hermetically sealed See also:glass vacuum jacket. Stirring is effected by causing the water to circulate spirally round the bulbs of the thermometers and the heating conductor as indicated in the figure. The conditions can be very easily varied through a wide range. The heat-loss hdo is determined and eliminated by varying the flow of liquid and the electric current simultaneously, in such a manner as to secure approximately the same rise of temperature for two or more widely different values of the flow of liquid. An example taken from the Electrician, See also:September 1897, of one of the earliest experiments by this method on the specific heat of mercury will make the method clearer. The flow-tube was about r See also:metre long and I See also:minim. in See also:diameter, coiled in a See also:short spiral inside the vacuum jacket. The outside of the vacuum jacket was immersed in a water jacket at a steady temperature equal to that of the in-flowing mercury. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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