Patent ID: 7355715

Claim:
A temperature measuring apparatus comprising: a light source; a first splitter that splits light originating from said light source into a temperature measurement beam and a reference beam; a second splitter that further splits said temperature measurement beam from said first splitter into first through nth measurement beams; a reference beam reflecting means for reflecting said reference beam from the first splitter; an optical path length altering means for altering the optical path length of said reference beam reflected at said reference beam reflecting means by moving said reference beam reflecting means; a reflected light transmitting means for transmitting said reference beam from said first splitter to a reference beam irradiating position at which said reference beam is radiated onto said reference beam reflecting means; first through nth measurement beam transmitting means for transmitting said first through nth measurement beams from said second splitter to measurement beam irradiating positions at which said first through nth measurement beams are radiated onto various measurement points at a temperature measurement target; and a light receiving means for measuring interference of said first through nth measurement beams reflected from said temperature measurement target with said reference beam reflected from said reference beam reflecting means as said beam reflecting means is moved, wherein the lengths of optical paths of said first through nth measurement beams extending from said second splitter to said temperature measurement target are each offset by an extent at least equal to the coherence length of interference waves detected at said light receiving means such that the individual interference waves do not overlap.