Indicator (technology)

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Display device

Display of a battery tester

The term indicator ( Latin indicator ) stands for a feature or sign that indicates a certain development, a situation that has occurred or the like. serves. In the early days of development in technology, it was also used for an apparatus in order to follow a process.

Devices known as indicators in technology have now been replaced by measuring devices , or they serve as display devices without quantitative information. For example, a battery tester shows the evaluation of an electrical voltage in three stages , but no numerical value.

Pressure measurement on steam engines

Pressure indicator
Indicator on a steam engine

From the early days of measurement technology , the term indicator was used specifically for a measuring device for changing pressures . The first vapor pressure indicator to determine the pressure curve in a cylinder was developed by James Watt in 1782. It was used in slow-running machines, such as steam engines, and has now been replaced by a pressure sensor with an electrical signal.

Individual evidence

  1. Duden
  2. ^ Klaus Lüders, Robert Otto Pohl: Pohl's introduction to physics: Electricity and optics