Revisiting an article

Measurements of soil water content, heat capacity, and thermal conductivity with a single TDR probe. Soil Science, 161: 22--28 by Noborio, K., McInnes, K.J. and Heilman, J.L. (1996)

Abstract

We developed a prototype of the now-called “thermo-time domain reflectometry probe” in 1996. We revisited the article describing the prototype and explained how we thought at those moments. Let us start our visit; first met a soil water sensor at college. Later year at Texas A\&M University as a graduate student, Jim Heilman and Kevin McInnes became my supervisors. They inspired me to make a multipurpose time domain reflectometry (TDR) probe by combining TDR and dual-probe heat-pulse (DPHP) sensors. Our new TDR-DPHP sensor owed the hard work of Clerk Topp, Gaylon Campbell and Keith Bristow. When we published an article on the new TDR-DPHP sensor in 1996, Robert Horton of Iowa State University might be the only one who truly understood the potential of the new probe in the world. He and his research group named our sensor a “thermo-time domain reflectometry probe” and have been pushing its limit since then.