Talk:Gauge block

message: 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.  --ChetvornoTALK 00:08, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to introduction 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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. --ChetvornoTALK 19:08, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infinite regression? 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Wringing has nothing to do with air pressure 

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

message: 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 N½  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. --ChetvornoTALK 05:51, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  minimize number of blocks to make up a dimension 

message: > 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)
thread_title:  The statement about the wringing mechanism not being known is not correct