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§ 2. P O I N T E R R E A D I N G S
I n exact science, numbers are introduced into nature by certain conventional
and historic processes, If we exclude the process of pure counting, by which,
for instance, we find the number of Jupiter's moons, these conventional processes
are found to consist of visual observations of the alignment of two marks, together
with
420 counting. I n exact science G.these are theBrown
Burniston only observations that are necessary,
and this has led Eddington to describe a physicist as a man who requires no
sense organs beyond one colour-blind eye, and to call the objects of his emasculated
attention pointer readings.
T h e physicist claims that he measures many things-mass, force, potentials
and so on-but what he actually observes are pointer readings, and this, together
with the faculty of counting, is all that is required for that part, and it is important
to remember that it is only a part, of science called exact science. A hint in this
direction might have been obtained by recalling that mass is a coefficient invented
by Newton, force is the hypothetical cause of change, and potential is a pure
Western-European myth. None of them cauld, therefore, be measured directly.
Now consideration will show that there are only two direct ways of making
use of pointer readings in the process of introducing numbers into nature:
in one case the alignment is of two different pairs of marks ; in the other case one
of the marks at least, and usually both marks, must be the same in each pair of
alignments. T h e first type of observation leads to the mea'surement of a length
or space interval and the second to a measurement of a time interval. I n the case
of measurement of mass by a balance, or resistance by a bridge method, although
a pointer reading is observed, i t is not this reading which introduces a number,
i.e. it is not by counting marks on this scale that the number is obtained. The
number is got by pure counting elsewhere.
Consider first the simple measurement of length. This involves the use
of a material scale which is placed in contact with both marks on the object to be
measured. T h e zero mark on the scale is aligned with one of the marks on the
We have object,
moved on andslightly
then thefrommark
thereon the scale
- today which
it boils down is to
in connecting
contact with the second
a computer to amark
digital device
onalways),
(big hassle the objectandisthen
noted.
takingByvastly
a process of counting
too much data, withmarks on the
typically scale
very between
small random theerrors that
twothe
falsely leads marks with which
experimenter to alignment
think that the has errors
been made, a number is arrived
in the experimental results areat which
nil (of is
course, one
defined
has to worry about to all
bethe
theforms
length of between
systematic the twostill).
error marks on the object.
Nonetheless, Usually
is is still true inthe
the ob-
21st century
as it was server moves
throughout thefrom one point
last that to the
when you wantother to observe
to make the two alignments,
a measurement of some physical so that
parameter it
a time
is basically someinterval
electricalis measurement.
necessarily involved
I want toin consider
the measurement of a length.
in this lecture how theseTmeasurements
o avoid are
made, the movement
limitationsthe observer
to the variousmay remain at
approaches, andrest a t the
what otherpoint of zeroone
techniques alignment
can use toandmake them
better. Inarrange
class wemirrors
will dointhis
suchinteractively
a way as to superimpose
and so of course,an image
these of the only
notes distantlistalignment
those things that I
thought upupon the zero
- rather thanposition, so that
all the good ideasboth
thatmay
yoube observed
have thoughtwith thewhen
about sameweglance.
actually But
did it. There
has to beeven
someinadvantage
this case, as to we know,up!
turning a time interval is involved. This is usually expressed
by saying that " light takes time to travel ". I n this paper it will be most im-
portant to avoid this popular form of speech. We shall emphasize that, in the
2.2 Voltage
case of light,Measurements
nothing observable has ever been shown to travel at all. We shall
not, therefore, make a hypothesis for which there is no evidence whatever ; we
shall restrict ourselves to the discussion of interaction, which is what we observe.
Now the question which arises in connection with the above discussion of
measurement is this : is interaction instantaneous ? I n other words, if a disturb-
ance is produced at the point occupied 2-1 by the observer, does its interaction with
a distant object occur at the same time (on the observer's clock) as that at which
the disturbance was caused ? I t is, of course, well known that this is not the case.
T h e experiment that shows this is one of the Fizeau-wheel type. A disturbance
Lecture 2: Electrical Measurements 2-2
As current is passed through the coils a magnetic force is developed between the central coil and the
static magnetic field of the permanent magnet. The entire central coil is mounted on jewelled bearings.
The springs attached to the moving coil also bring the current into the coil. The meter therefore measures
current. How do you measure voltage and resistance with such a device. Simple,
• Voltage: Use a high quality resistor to convert the voltage to be measured into a current. Then
pass this current through the moving coil.
• Resistance: Use a high quality voltage source and a series resistor to set-up a current through the
resistor of interest. We set the output current to be equal to the full scale value when the output
terminals are shorted together. We then include the resistor to be measured between the terminals
and measure the decrease in the current flowing.
In order to minimize the load placed on the circuit (and therefore minimize the effect of the measurement
itself) one wants a current meter with the lowest possible impedance, while for a voltage measurement
you want the highest possible impedance (i.e. the high quality resistor should be of high value). For
the resistance measurement it is probable that other things are important (i.e. probably don’t want to
pass too much current through the resistor because you may heat it and therefore change its impedance
- termed self-heating).
The coil will have a fixed full-scale current range determined by the design of the coil, springs and
magnet. To allow for varying the range of current to be measured one uses a current shunt. This is
merely another resistor in parallel with the coil that provides another current path. The current that
passes through the meter, im is now reduced to iitotm
= RshR+R
sh
m
where Rsh is the shunt resistance and
Rm is the meter coil resistance. The shunt resistor is chosen by some external switch. For the highest
current values the shunt resistor becomes impractically small - in this case one inserts a series resistor
with the meter to raise its effective resistance.
Lecture 2: Electrical Measurements 2-3
In order to switch the sensitivity in the voltmeter mode we switch the value of the series resistor. For
the impedance measurements we change the value of the series resistor.
Detector
Adjustable
Unknown
Vx Vr Known
Voltage
Voltage
Figure 2: The “null” detector detects either the small current flowing or the small voltage difference
For the variable source we can use a precision variable divider along with a voltage standard. In the
19th century this voltage source was based on a chemical energy gap (i.e. a battery), whereas today
they are more typically based on a semiconductor energy gap (i.e. a Zener diode). For the utmost
precision experiments (in Standards Laboratories) they make use of the superconducting energy gap in
a Josephson Junction - this voltage can be related to fundamental properties of the Universe. When
R2
r rs
Null
Detector R1 Vs
Vx
Figure 3: The “null” detector detects the small current flowing or the small voltage difference between
the variable source and unknown voltage
balanced Vx = VR = R1R+R1
2
VS if RS R1 + R2 . This voltage measurement has essentially come down
to a measurement of an accurate resistance ratio, ρ = R1 /(R1 + R2 ) The good thing about this design
is that at the measurement point no current is drawn from the unknown source (so the value of r is
irrelevant). What are the bad things:
To make sure that problems (2) and (3) are avoided one typically uses an intermediate voltage standard
that can supply lots of current (i.e. rS is small). One then regularly calibrates this new standard against
the fixed standard to eliminate drifts. By using the intermediate standard in the right hand position of
Figure 3 on both occasions one avoids ever needing to draw substantial current from either the standard
or the voltage source under test.
In order to achieve challenge (1) one can take a number of routes: one can use a simple analog rotary
or linear potentiometer and measure its position or angle as a measure of its actual impedance. This
is easy but is going to be low precision. A much better approach is to to use a sequence of switched
“digital” potentiometers in series. The internals of one such “digital pot” is shown in Figure 4 - a switch
chooses how many resistors are included in the circuit. By ganging several of this devices in series (as
shown in Figure 5) one obtains a large range with potentially high precision and accuracy (as long as
the constituent resistors have good stability and accuracy). This works very well but can be difficult
(expensive) to purchase a large number of different valued resistors with accurately set values.
Lecture 2: Electrical Measurements 2-4
ISO-9001
Registered
This difficulty can be overcome by using an R-2R network (see Figure 6) in which the output voltage
is set by opening and closing the various switches. The output voltage of the network is equal to
R =R R =R R =R R =R R =R
Vout = Vr N/(2n − 1) where n is the number of switches, and where N is the digital equivalent of the
thevenin thevenin thevenin thevenin thevenin
R R R R
binary word represented by the switch position. V out
2R
2R 2R 2R 2R 2R
(T e rm .)
B it N R R B it N -1R R R R
B it 2 R R
B it 1 R R
B it 0
T e rm .
2R
R R R R
V ou t
2R 2R 2R 2R 2R
B it N B it 1
B it N -1 B it 3 B it 2
LS B MSB
Vr
One popular technique for analog to digital conversion relies on the use of charge integrators to convert
a measurement of voltage into a measurement of time. The input voltage to the unit is converted to a
current (e.g. most simply by using a resistor) and is then connected to a capacitor for a precise and fixed
amount of time. A charge proportional to both the input voltage and the time period is stored on the
capacitor. A clock is then started and the capacitor connected to a constant current source. When the
Lecture 2: Electrical Measurements 2-5
9 MΩ
900kΩ
Vin DVM
90kΩ
9kΩ
1kΩ
voltage on the capacitor drops below some threshold value (e.g. 0 V), the clock is stopped and its value
read. The time for this discharge to occur is proportional to the original charge on the capacitor and
hence to the original voltage to be measured. DVMs from the cheap end up to an Agilent 34401 make
use of this process.
Another technique for converting a voltage to a digital value is to, as above, connect the external voltage
to a constant current source and then to a capacitor to generate a charge that is increasing linearly with
time. The capacitor is also connected to a device that can deposit quanta of charge into the capacitor.
A feedback loop controls the rate of charge pulses in order that the voltage/charge on the capacitor is
kept constant with time. Clearly, the rate of charge pulses will be proportional to input voltage and a
simple counting of the pulse rate yields a measure of the input voltage.
There are many other ways to convert voltages into a number - we may look at some of these others later
in this course, although the upper two techniques are the most widely used approaches in convention
DVMs. I note that the R-2R ladder I described above is an immediate Digital to Analog converter (DAC)
- if I put a digital word onto the switches then the output voltage is an analog voltage proportional to
the value of the binary number. We can build an Analog to Digital converter (ADC) from one of these
DACs by comparing the voltage to be measured with the output of the DAC using a null detector. The
DAC word setting is then adjusted until its output is equal to the unknown voltage. We stop at this
point and the DAC word then represents the binary equivalent of the unknown voltage (see Chapter 9
in Horowitz and Hill for further details).
R t1 +1/ω
• power: A2 R/2 = R t1
V 2 (t) dt = RV (t)2
However, for other types of signal (e.g. square or triangle waves) or for noise these relationships ar
different i.e. for “white noise” the peak-to-peak value (99/
Ways to measure AC signals:
1. If one can sample an AC signal fast enough then it is possible to sample the waveform and therefore
obtain all of these measurements by calculation, or even just give the waveform and therefore avoid
the difficulty. One could, for example, just look at the waveform on a CRO (up to perhaps 100 GHz
these days).
2. Traditionally one used an “true rms voltmeter” to deliver the rms value for a wave. The voltmeter
obtains this by essentially determining the average power in the signal and taking the square root
of it i.e. the input waveform is squared (rectified) and then averaged, and then the square root
is taken of the final value. The AC voltage signal produces the same heating in a resistor as DC
signal with a voltage equal to the root mean-square value of the AC signal.
3. Spectrum Analyzer: measures the spectrum of the signal from which is it possible to recover the
full time domain behaviour (i.e. give the waveform), or use the spectrum analyzer to deliver the
amplitude (in whatever form) of the most important sinusoidal components.
4. Lock-in Amplifier: a tool that allows you to directly measure noise at various frequencies -discussed
later in course
R1 R2
V Null
Detector
Rx
Rs
unknown resistance Rx . Rs is a variable resistor and is adjusted until the null detector declares that
the bridge is balanced, i.e. that there is no current flowing along the central branch. We can solve to
determine what this means in terms of the values of the resistors and we find that the balanced condition
corresponds to Rx = Rs R1 /R2 . The ratio R1 /R2 is referred to as a multiplier, and the ratio of these
two resistors could well be switch selectable for values between say 10−3 and 103 so that a broad range
Lecture 2: Electrical Measurements 2-7
of resistances can be measured. In general the sensitivity is optimal when all impedances are about the
same. One can use this bridge for both AC and DC measurements but you need to take into account
any reactances in the circuit. We often use such bridges for the sensor in sensitive thermometry in our
lab.
R + jω −CR2 − CL2 ω 2 + L
Z= 2 2 4 (1)
C L ω + C 2 R2 ω 2 − 2CLω 2 + 1
If R has been constructed so that L and C are small (obviously the desirable situation), then we can
assume that ω 2 LC 1 and ω 4 L2 C 2 being the square of a small number will be real small. The previous
expression collapses to:
R + ıω L(1 − ω 2 LC) − CR2
Z= (2)
1 + ω 2 C(CR2 − 2L)
From this we find that the real part is:
R
Reff = (3)
C (CR2 − 2L) ω 2 + 1
The resistance can be measured in a bridge configuration (called a Kelvin bridge - a 4 wire variant of the
Wheatstone bridge) or one can just make use of modern DVMs with input impedances of 10 M-10 GΩ
in the sense leads. The unit will pass ∼ 1mA through the current leads (depends on the resistor under
study but is about this level for low resistances) while passing a few nA through the sense leads. This
leads to a reduction in the effect of lead resistance of about a factor of 106 .
V I R
One finds the equivalent circuit elements from a real network by a couple of measurements. One measures
the open circuit voltage of the network to determine the voltage in the Thévenin equivalent circuit. If
one then also measures the short-circuit current then one obtains a series resistance. For the Norton
equivalent one measures the short-circuit current and that determines the value of the current source. If
one also measures the open circuit voltage then one can determine the value of the shunt resistor.
R V Ideal I Ideal
Voltmeter Ammeter
Lets model the meter when one is making voltage and current measurements. In Figure 11 we show
circuit models for real meters. They are shown as ideal meters in parallel or series with resistors. The
ideal voltmeter has an infinite impedance while the ideal ammeter has a zero resistance. If we combine
the equivalent circuits with the Thévenin and Norton equivalents we obtain the following:
The intention of course is to measure the output voltage, V of the Thévenin circuit or the current, I of
the Norton equivalent. Any error in this measurement comes about from the non-ideality of the meter
and the non-ideality of the source under study.
Lets look first at the voltmeter measurement in Figure 12. The ideal voltmeter is just making a simple
resistor divider measurement and so we obtain:
Vm V + δV R1
= = (5)
V V R1 + R
δV R
= − (6)
V R + R1
Lecture 2: Electrical Measurements 2-9
V R1 V Ideal
Voltmeter
R2
I R I Ideal
Ammeter
So the fractional error is given in the final expression. If we now turn to the current measurement one
can show that it is equal to :
δI R2
=− (7)
I R + R2
Vm2 R1 V 2
P = = (8)
R (R + R1 )2
where Vm is the voltage over the internal resistor in the meter. This is a maximum as a function of R1
when:
∂P 1
= 0 → R1 = R and Vm = V (9)
∂R1 2
This is potentially a major difficulty as it heavily loads the source output voltage i.e. δV ∼ V /2 but if
R and R1 are known (and stable) the error can be calculated and corrected. We will see that this power
matched position is often also the point at which the signal-to-noise ratio is maximized.
2.6 Amplification
Almost all of the techniques discussed in this section require signal levels of the order of a volt, and
currents of the order of 10mA in order to obtain good results. If the signal available is not of this level
then one needs to amplify the signal. We looked at some issues associated with noise in amplification
etc in the last lecture but will suspend discussion of the details of this until next time.