Special edition of ‘Philosophical Transactions’ available on the redefined kelvin
26 January 2026
Last year a Royal Society Theo Murphy discussion meeting was held to consider the progress and prospects for the redefined kelvin, five years after it’s redefinition in May 2019. The meeting was timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Lord Kelvin and was held in Glasgow where he did much of his work.
The meeting comprised of fourteen talks, given by world leading experts in their field, and covered four broad areas “State of the art primary thermometry”, “New approaches to temperature traceability”, “Quantum and photonic based thermometry approaches” and “Practical impact on users of direct traceability to the kelvin”.
After the meeting a focus edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, entitled “The redefined kelvin: progress and prospects” was prepared containing 15 papers of topics that were discussed at the meeting. This was published on 15th January 2026 and is now fully open for anyone to access. To download and view, click the link below.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsta/issue/384/2312
InstMC members can also purchase the print issue at the reduced price of £40 (usual price £60) by contacting the Royal Society Sales Team at sales@royalsociety.org quoting the promotional code TA 2312.
Professor Graham Machin FREng, FRS, HonFInstMC, co-author of ‘The redefined kelvin – progress and prospects’ said: “The meeting, animated discussion that took place and diverse content of the papers in this focus edition demonstrate that thermometry is a very active field of metrology with many avenues of research to pursue and many more decisions to be made concerning its future. One can’t help but think that Lord Kelvin himself would have been pleased to see that a technical discipline he helped found was still a live and lively topic of research today".
Contact Professor Graham Machin at graham.machin@npl.co.uk.
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