Tidal Force Leap May Cause Malignant Impact on Zener Standard Measurement and Even Aircraft Instrumentation System

Abstract

From 1996 to 1997, the National Metrology Centre of Singapore (NMC) coordinated the 3rd Asia Pacific Metrology Program (APMP) comparison of dc voltage using a Zener traveling standard. The comparison results at 1.018 V showed a zigzag curve among those laboratories that used their Josephson Array Voltage Standards (JAVSs) for this comparison. The amplitude of the zigzag was more than 1 part in 107, much larger than the typical uncertainty of such standards. These results motivated NMC to search for an explanation, which finally led to the development of an approximate mathematical model to describe this phenomenon [1]. During this developing period a surprising phenomenon was observed: Continuously measured dc voltage output with a periodic fluctuation pattern correlated with the times of tide high and tide low [2]. In addition to this, [2] also mentioned another observation that some of measurements carried out exhibit vast errors during spring tide. Through water molecules’ adsorption or desorption on the insulation of a wiring harness forming the voltage divider, which is situated in an air sealed thermostat of a measured Zener cell, the dc voltage output was very strongly disturbed by spring tides.