Kaye & LabyThe book that has been a staple for physics or chemistry students, technicians and scientists over the past 100 years.
View Kaye & Laby online
We have converted 600 pages of tables of physical and chemical constants online for you to search and use.
Our website is based on the 16th edition published in 1995 - and any future edits will only be implemented online - so this will be the definitive source for the most up-to-date data.
Kaye & Laby Celebrates 100 Years
Ever needed to check the melting and boiling points of some organic compounds or wondered how the acceleration due to gravity varies over the surface of the earth? For a hundred years, scientists, engineers and chemists have relied for such information on one of that select group of books (including Bradshaw, Wisden and Mrs Beeton) which are better known by the names of their authors than by their cover titles.
Tables of Physical and Chemical Constants was the idea of two young scientists, George Kaye and Thomas Laby, in J J Thomson’s research group in Cambridge.
They had collected a wide range of data from various sources for the purposes of their research, and they noted in the Preface to the first edition (September 1911) that they had been impressed by the need for a set of up-to-date physical and chemical tables during their teaching and laboratory experience.
Today the latest version of their brainchild can be accessed online at Kaye & Laby Online
Dr Seton Bennett, Chairman of the Kaye & Laby Editorial Board
Kaye & Laby
About Kaye & Laby (external link)
History of Kaye & Laby (external link)
See 1st Edition online (courtesy Internet Archive.org)
Kaye & Laby Quiz
Are you a Kaye and Laby aficionado? Do you know your boiling points from your melting points, all the standard measurement units and the fundamental physical constants of the universe? Test yourself in our short but challenging Kaye and Laby quiz, and find out how good you really are.