Talk:Gauge block

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I'm thinking of changing the tolerance specs in the beginning of the article to be in μm instead of mm. This would eliminate 3 leading zeros and make the numbers easier to read. However, I'm not familiar with common practice in this field, so I'm not sure if that would be appropriate or not. Comments? --RoySmith 13:37, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

There is a bit of overlap between the shop floor and the inspection departments but probably little understanding. The Inspection dept. would understand the micron and use it, the shop floor would recognize the micron but think in the more familiar unit. So, which camp do we aim at? Probably both ;-)

The use of μm makes good sense but the Micro page, while useful, is a tad dry. For those unfamilar with the unit I think there needs to be at least one example conversion to assist with a quick comparison. -- Graibeard 23:47, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

casimir effect

Could the adhesion between wrung gauge blocks be a manifestation of the Casimir effect? 71.116.83.87 03:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you are really stretching about the Casimir Effect. You are talking about the bleeding edge of physics that will not be proven in our lifetimes. It is completely apparent to me (and many many many scientists) that Gauge/Gage Blocks adhere due to van der Waals' forces, just as Geckos do. Let's not stretch so far on this to make it unbelievable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.10.181.117 (talk) 08:23, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, the Casimir effect is just the macroscopic manifestation of Van der Waals' forces, and additionally considers the (significant) many-body interactions involved. Since we are talking about macroscopic bodies, not sparse individual particles, we must attribute this phenomenon to Casimir forces. See this article for an excellent review (or at least the abstract and figure, if your institution does not subscribe to Nature): http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/v5/n4/full/nphoton.2011.39.html

The idea that the Casimir effect is "bleeding edge" and unproven is a misconception spread by popular science magazines. There is no controversy regarding the theory and experimental results and there hasn't been controversy in my lifetime. What has been controversial are claims that the Casimir effect can be used to extract energy from the zero-point field, which were spawned by imaginative misinterpretations of sloppy instruction. It's been proven (https://arxiv.org/abs/1605.04143) that Casimir forces have nothing to do with vacuum energy -- that they are a macroscopic limit of atomic interactions only -- but the easiest way to describe them is by pulling the numbers out from renormalization of the zero-point QED field under restrictions of appropriate (read: contrived) boundary conditions. There are few physicists I would trust to glean the fundamental physics from this mathematical venture!

Jerr.r (talk) 03:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Changes to introduction

I feel the recent changes to the introduction will make it unclear to the many readers who have no tool or machine shop experience exactly what gauge blocks are and how they are used. For example, the only description of how they are put together is: "...they can be joined together ("wrung") with very little dimensional uncertainty". The many readers who don't know what "wrung" means could assume they have some sort of clips to hold them together. The previous description: "In use, the blocks are stacked end-to-end to make up the desired length." was much clearer. Without that description, the phrase: "...a small number of gauge blocks can be used to create accurate lengths within a wide range", can give a misleading impression. There should be an explicit statement that gauge blocks come in sets of blocks of various lengths. I understand the points being made in the above statements, and I think they are useful and could be kept in the intro, maybe in a second paragraph, but I just think a more elementary explanation should be provided for neophytes. --Chetvorno^TALK 00:08, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Infinite regression?

If gauge blocks were used to measure precise lengths, how was machines that manufacture gauge blocks set up to precise measure? Where and how do the measurement end? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.22.207.177 (talk) 11:53, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

See Meter (unit of length)#Speed of light definition. The meter, the standard unit of length in the world, is defined as the distance light travels in 1/299792458 of a second in vacuum. Precision length standards like gauge blocks are calibrated by interferometers, which count the number of wavelengths of red light from a helium neon laser that is equal to the length. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures using the speed of light definition has determined that 1579800.762042 wavelengths of HeNe laser light in vacuum equals a meter, so a single wavelength is 632.99121258 nanometers long. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:08, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Wringing has nothing to do with air pressure

Contrary to what the article says, it's been known since the 19th century that the adhesion of flat surfaces is much stronger than air pressure, and is just as strong in a vacuum. It's due to intermolecular forces in the material, not to air pressure. See:

http://www.mitutoyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/E12016-History-of-The-Gage-Block.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C2:500:625A:ACA7:F712:5C53:977D (talk) 08:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

History - AB CEJ Date of Incorporation

Paragraph 3 of the history section gives the incorporation date of AB C.E. Johansson as March 16, 1917. I've seen this date in the Ford history and maybe elsewhere but Althin; CEJ The Master of Measurement gives this date as March 16, 1911. Ref: Althin p. 126 and in the chronology on p. 163 (only 1911 without month and day here). Does anyone have better information? Thucyg (talk) 02:36, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

https://www.mitutoyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/E12016-History-of-The-Gage-Block.pdf Has nice history (J did not invent wringing), but does not specify incorporation dates.

http://www.datamp.org/patents/displayPatent.php?pn=17017&id=56146 refs 1904 patent and states C. E. Johansson AB incorporated 1911 and C. E. Johansson, Inc. in 1918. But I think that info comes from WP's article on Carl Edvard Johansson.

https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapid=26227 says 1911

https://www.tekniskamuseet.se/en/learn-more/swedish-inventors/carl-edvard-johansson/ says first factory opened in 1909

• Ahlstrom, Göran (2001). ""The Edison of Sweden": C.E. Johansson and the 'Standards of Standard'" (PDF). Lund Papers in Economic History. Lund, Sweden. ISSN 1101-346X.; says first sale in 1899

Glrx (talk) 21:18, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Oil

Oil is unnecessary for wringing.Longinus876 (talk) 01:47, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

minimize number of blocks to make up a dimension

it would seem to me that adding blocks to a stack would reduce the likelihood of error, and reduce the standard deviation of errors in general - assuming that size errors are distributed above and below the specification size of each block. am i missing something? thx

If each block has a tolerance (variance) of ±a then the sum of N blocks will have a variance of Na. It's true that the standard deviation of the length will increase slower than linearly with number of blocks, as N^½ but it will increase. You might be thinking of the average standard deviation per block = σ/N, that will decrease with N, but not the standard deviation of the total length. --Chetvorno^TALK 05:51, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The statement about the wringing mechanism not being known is not correct

> While the exact mechanism that causes wringing is unknown, it is believed to be a combination of:[needs update]

I am pretty sure that this statement is not correct. Mrconter1 (talk) 11:38, 5 October 2022 (UTC)