The Taly Range: an introduction to a remarkable family of instruments of precision measurement

摘要

You don't often see on the television or read in the newspapers that there are challenging problems in precision engineering, problems as hard as many in basic physics, problems that have also attracted some of the best brains, hands and eyes of recent generations. This story is about an area of such challenges where, had it not had the involvement of very bright people over a long period of time, we would not enjoy today the standard of cars, cycles, planes, optical devices and many mechanical and electro-mechanical products we have come to expect. The theme is instruments of precision mechanical measurement. One set of instruments in particular in this field have rightly been tagged as 'world leaders' for over half a century: the Taly range, initiated by Taylor, Taylor and Hobson, developed by Rank Taylor Hobson and now produced by Taylor Hobson Precision, part of the Ametek group but still based in Leicester. Our basic thesis is that this range of instruments has been, and still is, of key importance in the history of precision engineering and they certainly merit a place alongside more famous apparatus of earlier generations.