1.
Operation Plumbbob
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Operation Plumbbob was a series of nuclear tests conducted between May 28 and October 7,1957, at the Nevada Test Site, following Project 57, and preceding Project 58/58A. It was the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series in the continental United States, the operation consisted of 29 explosions, of which only two did not produce any nuclear yield. Twenty-one laboratories and government agencies were involved and they included forty-three military effects tests on civil and military structures, radiation and bio-medical studies, and aircraft structural tests. Operation Plumbbob had the tallest tower tests to date in the U. S. nuclear testing program as well as high-altitude balloon tests, one nuclear test involved the largest troop maneuver ever associated with U. S. nuclear testing. Approximately 18,000 members of the U. S. Air Force, Army, Navy, the military was interested in knowing how the average foot-soldier would stand up, physically and psychologically, to the rigors of the tactical nuclear battlefield. Almost 1,200 pigs were subjected to experiments and blast-effects studies during Operation Plumbbob. On shot Priscilla,719 pigs were used in experiments on Frenchman Flat. Some pigs were placed in elevated cages and provided with suits made of different materials, as shown and reported in the PBS documentary Dark Circle, the pigs survived, but with third-degree burns to 80% of their bodies. Other pigs were placed in pens behind large sheets of glass at measured distances from the hypocenter to test the effects of flying debris on living targets, nuclear weapons safety experiments were conducted to study the possibility of a nuclear weapon detonation during an accident. On July 26,1957, a safety experiment, Pascal-A, was detonated in a hole at NTS. The knowledge gained here would provide data to prevent nuclear yields in case of accidental detonations–for example, the John shot on July 19,1957 was the only test of the Air Forces AIR-2 Genie missile with a nuclear warhead. It was fired from an F-89 Scorpion fighter over Yucca Flats at the NNSS, in 2012 the photographer and the last survivor of the five met in a restaurant in Dallas to reminisce. The five officers were, Colonel Sidney C, bruce, later professor of Electrical Engineering at Colorado University, died in 2005, Lieutenant Colonel Frank P. Ball, died in 2003, Major John w. Hughes II, died in 1990, Major Norman B. Bodinger, died February 2,1997, Major Donald A. Luttrell, the photographer, Akira George Yoshitake, died in October 2013. The Rainier shot, conducted September 19,1957, was the first fully contained underground nuclear test and this test of 1.7 kt could be detected around the world by seismologists using ordinary seismic instruments. The Rainier test became the prototype for larger and more powerful underground tests, some images from Upshot-Knothole Grable were accidentally relabeled as belonging to the Priscilla shot from Operation Plumbbob in 1957. As a consequence many publications including official government documents have the photo mislabeled, Plumbbob released 58,300 kilocuries of radioiodine into the atmosphere. This produced total civilian radiation exposures amounting to 120 million person-rads of thyroid tissue exposure
2.
Spirit level
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A spirit level, bubble level or simply a level is an instrument designed to indicate whether a surface is horizontal or vertical. Early spirit levels had very slightly curved glass vials with constant inner diameter at each viewing point and these vials are incompletely filled with a liquid, usually a colored spirit or alcohol, leaving a bubble in the tube. They have an upward curve, so that the bubble naturally rests in the center. At slight inclinations the bubble travels away from the center position. Where a spirit level must also be usable upside-down or on its side, alcohols such as ethanol are often used rather than water. Alcohols have low viscosity and surface tension, which allows the bubble to travel the tube quickly, alcohols also have a much wider liquid temperature range, and wont break the vial as water could due to ice expansion. A colorant such as fluorescein, typically yellow or green, may be added to increase the visibility of the bubble. An extension of the level is the bulls eye level. It serves to level a surface across a plane, while the level only does so in the direction of the tube. To check the accuracy of a carpenters type level, a horizontal surface is not needed. The level is placed on a flat and roughly level surface and this reading indicates to what extent the surface is parallel to the horizontal plane, according to the level, which at this stage is of unknown accuracy. The spirit level is then rotated through 180 degrees in the horizontal plane, if the level is accurate, it will indicate the same orientation with respect to the horizontal plane. A difference implies that the level is inaccurate, a similar procedure is applied to more sophisticated instruments such as a surveyors level or a theodolite and is a matter of course each time the instrument is set up. In this latter case, the plane of rotation of the instrument is levelled and this is done in two horizontal perpendicular directions. The sensitivity is an important specification for a level, its accuracy depends on its sensitivity. The sensitivity of a level is given as the change of angle or gradient required to move the bubble by unit distance, if the bubble housing has graduated divisions then the sensitivity is the angle or gradient change that moves the bubble by one of these divisions. 2 mm is the spacing for graduations, on a surveyors level the bubble will move 2 mm when the vial is tilted about 0.005 degree. For a precision machinist level with 2mm divisions, when the vial is tilted 5 arc seconds the bubble will move one graduation and this is equivalent to movement of.0005 inches measured one foot from the pivot point, referred to as 5 ten-thousandths per foot
3.
Measuring instrument
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A measuring instrument is a device for measuring a physical quantity. In the physical sciences, quality assurance, and engineering, measurement is the activity of obtaining and comparing physical quantities of objects and events. Established standard objects and events are used as units, and the process of measurement gives a number relating the item under study, measuring instruments, and formal test methods which define the instruments use, are the means by which these relations of numbers are obtained. All measuring instruments are subject to varying degrees of instrument error, scientists, engineers and other humans use a vast range of instruments to perform their measurements. These instruments may range from simple objects such as rulers and stopwatches to electron microscopes, virtual instrumentation is widely used in the development of modern measuring instruments. In the past, a common time measuring instrument was the sundial, today, the usual measuring instruments for time are clocks and watches. For highly accurate measurement of time a clock is used. Stop watches are used to measure time in some sports. Energy is measured by an energy meter, examples of energy meters include, An electricity meter measures energy directly in kilowatt hours. A gas meter measures energy indirectly by recording the volume of gas used and this figure can then be converted to a measure of energy by multiplying it by the calorific value of the gas. A physical system that exchanges energy may be described by the amount of energy exchanged per time-interval, for the ranges of power-values see, Orders of magnitude. Action describes energy summed up over the time a process lasts and its dimension is the same as that of an angular momentum. A phototube provides a measurement which permits the calculation of the quantized action of light. This includes basic quantities found in classical- and continuum mechanics, dumpy level Laser line level Spirit level Gyroscope Ballistic pendulum, indirectly by calculation and or gauging Considerations related to electric charge dominate electricity and electronics. Electrical charges interact via a field and that field is called electric if the charge doesnt move. If the charge moves, thus realizing an electric current, especially in a neutral conductor. Electricity can be given a quality — a potential, and electricity has a substance-like property, the electric charge. Energy in elementary electrodynamics is calculated by multiplying the potential by the amount of charge found at that potential, potential times charge, electrometer is often used to reconfirm the phenomenon of contact electricity leading to triboelectric sequences
4.
Ancient Egypt
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Ancient Egypt was a civilization of ancient Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. It is one of six civilizations to arise independently, Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh Narmer. In the aftermath of Alexander the Greats death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter and this Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture, the predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world and its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for centuries. The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history, nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry. In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates, foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. The largest of these cultures in upper Egypt was the Badari, which probably originated in the Western Desert, it was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools. The Badari was followed by the Amratian and Gerzeh cultures, which brought a number of technological improvements, as early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan, establishing a power center at Hierakonpolis, and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the desert to the west. Royal Nubian burials at Qustul produced artifacts bearing the oldest-known examples of Egyptian dynastic symbols, such as the crown of Egypt. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia, the third-century BC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of pharaohs from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today
5.
Surveying
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Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is called a land surveyor, Surveyors work with elements of geometry, trigonometry, regression analysis, physics, engineering, metrology, programming languages and the law. Surveying has been an element in the development of the environment since the beginning of recorded history. The planning and execution of most forms of construction require it and it is also used in transport, communications, mapping, and the definition of legal boundaries for land ownership. It is an important tool for research in other scientific disciplines. Basic surveyance has occurred since humans built the first large structures, the prehistoric monument at Stonehenge was set out by prehistoric surveyors using peg and rope geometry. In ancient Egypt, a rope stretcher would use simple geometry to re-establish boundaries after the floods of the Nile River. The almost perfect squareness and north-south orientation of the Great Pyramid of Giza, built c.2700 BC, the Groma instrument originated in Mesopotamia. The mathematician Liu Hui described ways of measuring distant objects in his work Haidao Suanjing or The Sea Island Mathematical Manual, the Romans recognized land surveyors as a profession. They established the basic measurements under which the Roman Empire was divided, Roman surveyors were known as Gromatici. In medieval Europe, beating the bounds maintained the boundaries of a village or parish and this was the practice of gathering a group of residents and walking around the parish or village to establish a communal memory of the boundaries. Young boys were included to ensure the memory lasted as long as possible, in England, William the Conqueror commissioned the Domesday Book in 1086. It recorded the names of all the owners, the area of land they owned, the quality of the land. It did not include maps showing exact locations, abel Foullon described a plane table in 1551, but it is thought that the instrument was in use earlier as his description is of a developed instrument. Gunters chain was introduced in 1620 by English mathematician Edmund Gunter and it enabled plots of land to be accurately surveyed and plotted for legal and commercial purposes. Leonard Digges described a Theodolite that measured horizontal angles in his book A geometric practice named Pantometria, joshua Habermel created a theodolite with a compass and tripod in 1576. Johnathon Sission was the first to incorporate a telescope on a theodolite in 1725, in the 18th century, modern techniques and instruments for surveying began to be used. Jesse Ramsden introduced the first precision theodolite in 1787 and it was an instrument for measuring angles in the horizontal and vertical planes
6.
Nadir
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The nadir, is the direction pointing directly below a particular location, that is, it is one of two vertical directions at a specified location, orthogonal to a horizontal flat surface there. Since the concept of being below is itself somewhat vague, scientists define the nadir in more rigorous terms. Specifically, in astronomy, geophysics and related sciences, the nadir at a point is the local vertical direction pointing in the direction of the force of gravity at that location. The direction opposite of the nadir is the zenith, the word is also used figuratively to mean the lowest point of a persons spirits, or the quality of an activity or profession. The term nadir can also be used to represent the lowest point reached by a body during its apparent orbit around a given point of observation. This can be used to describe the location of the Sun, the sun is said to be at the nadir at a location when it is at the zenith at the locations antipode and the sun is 90 degrees below the horizon. In oncology, the nadir is used to represent the lowest level of a blood cell count while a patient is undergoing chemotherapy. A diagnosis of neutropenic nadir after chemotherapy typically lasts 7–10 days
7.
Theodolite
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A theodolite /θiːˈɒdəlaɪt/ is a precision instrument for measuring angles in the horizontal and vertical planes. Theodolites are used mainly for surveying applications, and have adapted for specialized purposes such as meteorology. A modern theodolite consists of a telescope mounted within two perpendicular axes, the horizontal or trunnion axis and the zenith axis. A theodolite measures vertical angles as angles between the zenith, forwards or plunged—typically approximately 90 and 270 degrees, when the telescope is pointed at a target object, the angle of each of these axes can be measured with great precision, typically to seconds of arc. A theodolite may be either transit or non-transit, in a transit theodolite, the telescope can be inverted in the vertical plane, whereas the rotation in the same plane is restricted to a semi-circle in a non-transit theodolite. Some types of transit theodolites do not allow the measurement of vertical angles, the builders level is sometimes mistaken for a transit theodolite, but it measures neither horizontal nor vertical angles. It uses a level to set a telescope level to define a line of sight along a horizontal plane. A theodolite is mounted on its head by means of a forced centering plate or tribrach containing four thumbscrews, or in modern theodolites. Before use, a theodolite must be placed vertically above the point to be measured using a plumb bob. The instrument is then set level using leveling footscrews and circular, both axes of a theodolite are equipped with graduated circles that can be read through magnifying lenses. The vertical circle which transits about the horizontal axis should read 90° when the axis is horizontal, or 270° when the instrument is in its second position. Half of the difference between the two positions is called the index error, the horizontal and vertical axes of a theodolite must be perpendicular, if not then a horizontal axis error exists. This can be tested by aligning the tubular spirit bubble parallel to a line between two footscrews and setting the bubble central, a horizontal axis error is present if the bubble runs off central when the tubular spirit bubble is reversed. To adjust, the operator removes 1/2 the amount the bubble has run off using the screw, then re-level, test. If not, then a collimation error exists, index error, horizontal axis error and collimation error are regularly determined by calibration and are removed by mechanical adjustment. Their existence is taken account in the choice of measurement procedure in order to eliminate their effect on the measurement results of the theodolite. The term diopter was used in old texts as a synonym for theodolite. This derives from an astronomical instrument called a dioptra
8.
Tape measure
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A tape measure or measuring tape is a flexible ruler. It consists of a ribbon of cloth, plastic, fibre glass and it is a common measuring tool. Its design allows for a measure of length to be easily carried in pocket or toolkit. Today it is ubiquitous, even appearing in miniature form as a keychain fob, Surveyors use tape measures in lengths of over 100 m. Tape measures that were intended for use in tailoring or dressmaking were made from cloth or plastic. These types of tape measures were mainly used for the measuring of the humans waist line. Today, measuring tapes made for sewing are made of fiberglass, measuring tapes designed for carpentry or construction often use a stiff, curved metallic ribbon that can remain stiff and straight when extended, but retracts into a coil for convenient storage. This type of measure will have a floating tang or hook on the end to aid measuring. The tang is connected to the tape with loose rivets through oval holes, a tape measure of 25 or even 100 feet can wind into a relatively small container. The self-marking tape measure allows the user an accurate one hand measure, the first record of a people using a measuring device was by the Romans using marked strips of leather, but this was more like a regular ruler than a tape measure. On July 14,1868, a patent was filed by one Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, Fellows rule, although crude and flimsy, was the first attempt to make a spring tape measure. On 3 January 1922, Hiram A. Farrand received the patent he filed in 1919 for his tape measure. Sometime between 1922 and December 1926, Farrand experimented with the help of The Brown Company in Berlin and it is there Hiram and William Wentworth Brown began mass-producing the tape measure. Their product was sold to Stanley Works. The basic design on all modern spring tape measures are built can trace its origins back to an 1868 patent by a New Haven. According to the text of his patent, Fellows tape measure was an improvement on other versions previously designed, the spring tape measure has existed since Fellows patent in 1868, but its usage did not become very popular due to the difficulty in communication from one town to another. In the early 1900s, carpenters began slowly adopting H. A. Farrands design as the one commonly used. With the mass production of the circuit the tape measure has also entered into the digital age with the digital tape measure. Some incorporate a digital screen to give measurement readouts in multiple formats, an early patent for this type of measure was published in 1977
9.
Survey marker
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Survey markers, also called survey marks, survey monuments, or geodetic marks, are objects placed to mark key survey points on the Earths surface. They are used in geodetic and land surveying, informally, such marks are referred to as benchmarks, although strictly speaking the term benchmark is reserved for marks that indicate elevation. Horizontal position markers used for triangulation are also known as triangulation stations, all sorts of different objects, ranging from the familiar brass disks to liquor bottles, clay pots, and rock cairns, have been used over the years as survey markers. Some truly monumental markers have used to designate tripoints, or the meeting points of three or more countries. In the 19th century, these marks were often drill holes in rock ledges, crosses or triangles chiselled in rock and these marks are intended to be permanent, and disturbing them is generally prohibited by federal and state law. Such surveys laid the basis for map-making in the United States, Geodetic survey markers were often set in groups. For example, in surveys, the primary point identified was called the triangulation station. A triangulation station was surrounded by several reference marks, each of which bore an arrow that pointed back towards the main station. These reference marks made it easier for visitors to recover the primary mark. Reference marks also made it possible to replace a station mark that had been disturbed or destroyed, some old station marks were buried several feet down. Occasionally, these buried marks had surface marks set directly above them, in the U. S. survey marks that meet certain standards for accuracy are part of a national database that is maintained by the National Geodetic Survey. Each station mark in the database has a PID, a unique 6-character code that can be used to call up a datasheet describing that station, the NGS has a web-based form that can be used to access any datasheet, if the stations PID is known. Alternatively, datasheets can be called up by station name, a typical datasheet has either the precise or the estimated coordinates. Precise coordinates are called adjusted and result from precise surveys, estimated coordinates are termed scaled and have usually been set by locating the point on a map and reading off its latitude and longitude. Scaled coordinates can be as much as several feet distant from the true positions of their marks. Survey markers are now used to set up a GPS receiver antenna in a known position for use in Differential GPS surveying. Boundary marker Milestone No website will allow for searching of USGS Marks and this website provides a state-by-state mapping of NGS survey marks on to Google Maps, enabling one to search for these marks visually. Links to the listings on Geocaching. com are also provided
