I was looking up something on the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) web site the other day and ran across thermocouple polynomials.
I wondered what that could be, assuming “thermocouple” was a metaphor for some algebraic property.
No, it refers to physical thermocouples.
The polynomials are functions for computing voltage as a function of temperature, and temperature as a function of voltage, for a variety of types of thermocouples.
See the NIST ITS-90 Thermocouple Database.
I keep running into NIST’s eclectic collection of useful information.
Three examples:My post on Koide’s coincidence references their list of physical constants.
My post on naming elliptic curves mentions NIST and their FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) publications.
My post on testing the PCG random number generator made use of the NIST Statistical Test Suite.
I wonder what’s going to take me back to NIST next.
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