Measuring instruments?
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We've got lots of units of measurements, but no measuring intruments, as far as I can tell. Am I missing something or do we need to define a type for the barometers, anemometers, rulers, stopwatches,etc of the world?
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you are totally correct. Feel free to create such a type.
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Seems like a good idea. How would we want to model the relationship of the instrument to what it's measuring? The simplest solution would be just to link it to Dimension, so that you could say that a stopwatch measures time, a ruler measures length, etc. This works very well for a lot of instruments, but to say that a barometer measures pressure is missing some of the picture, since what it really measures is atmospheric pressure. And should this type allow for instruments like Sphygmomanometers (one of my all time favorite words)? "Blood pressure" is not really a subcategory of pressure in the way that atmospheric pressure is, but typing it as a Dimension would seem somewhat odd, I think.
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I like the idea. Would it just link a tool topic to the dimension that it measures?
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+1 to having a measurement instrument type.
+1 to a link to dimension.
I think we need a phylogeny pattern on this new type, as a Barometer and Sphygmomanometers are more specific types of Pressure sensor.
There's likely to be quite a few strange dimensions e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_sensor if we don't get a handle on this, but I notice things like Unit of Alcohol already typed as a Dimension.
Just to point out that this new type should be for a category of instrument (watch, ruler) and not for an individual physical item e.g. one of the Vacheron Constantin Tour de l’Ile watches.
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A phylogeny pattern might be useful, but I'm not sure I agree with your example. Barometers and sphygmomanometers both measure pressure, but I don't think need to be connected in a way other than through their shared dimension. On the other hand, an aneroid barometer is a sub-class of barometer, and could usefully be linked through a phylogeny.
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Done! Measuring Instrument. Let me know if I missed anything.
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