* Granted, I forgot some details such as the continuous replenishment with make-up water, but as soon as I read the paper again, I understood it. Continuous replenishment eliminates several problems, and reduces the complexity you see in the F&P calorimeter. And if you think this paper is difficult, try reading theirs!
Great. So - from the paper -
- how do they do continuous replenishment? Do they manually adjust it? (if not there is a contradiction - they cannot keep meniscus levels correct)
- did they keep a record of all those manual adjustments?
- did they know (and look at) the evaporation rate?
It is pretty clear to me from private communication and the paper that Staker did not consider evaporation rate important. And therefore he would not have recorded it.
I'd like your answer to these questions, and how you know them. If it is "I know this is what needs to be done, so I'm sure Staker did it" how do you reconcile that with the paper methodology (you can check this from the earliest of the two papers).
The F&P calorimeter was indeed mathematically complex, because it is (for this purpose) a poor calorimeter. The more you rely on calibration and modelling of the thermal charecteristics the more possibility there is for errors when that model chnages between calibration and active systems.