Treasure of the Past: IV: THE STANDARD-CELL COMPARATOR, A SPECIALIZED POTENTIOMETER

The standard cell plays a very important role in the maintenance of the electrical units and in correlating the units of the various national laboratories. Modern standard cells have attained such a high degree of reproducibility and permanence as to warrant the use of apparatus of the utmost precision and reliability in their intercomparison. The paper describes a new potentiometer developed especially for this purpose. Although it actually measures the small difference between the known emf of a reference cell and that of the cell under test, it contains a simple mechanical computing feature which automatically adds this small difference algebraically to the emf of the reference cell and thereby indicates directly the value of the emf under measurement. The design of the instrument is such that no readjustment of its coils will be required when the impending changes in the ohm and the volt are accomplished. The new instrument has been given the distinctive name, “standard-cell comparator”.