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Asia (band)

Asia are an English rock supergroup formed in London in 1981. The most commercially successful lineup was its original, which consisted of four members of different progressive rock bands who had enjoyed great success in the 1970s: lead vocalist and bassist John Wetton (King Crimson, Uriah Heep and U.K.), guitarist Steve Howe (Yes), keyboardist Geoff Downes (Yes and the Buggles) and drummer Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake & Palmer). Their debut album, Asia, released in 1982, remains their best-selling album and went to number one in several countries. Billboard listed it as the top album in the U.S. in 1982. The lead single from the album, "Heat of the Moment", remains their top charting and best-known song, reaching the top 40 in over a dozen markets. It peaked at #4 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.

The band underwent multiple lineup changes before the original four members reunited in 2006. As a result, a band called Asia Featuring John Payne exists as a continuation of John Payne's career as Asia's frontman from 1991 until Wetton's return in 2006. In 2013, the original lineup was broken once again when Howe retired from the band and was replaced by guitarist Sam Coulson. After a few years of inactivity, Billy Sherwood (of Yes, World Trade and Circa:) replaced an ailing Wetton (who died shortly thereafter) in Asia for a summer 2017 tour with Journey. Following the end of the tour, the band went on hiatus again, re-emerging in 2019 with Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal replacing both Sherwood on vocals and Coulson on guitar. In 2022, Marc Bonilla joined the group as guitarist and vocalist in place of Thal. In 2024, Downes announced a new touring line-up of himself, Virgil Donati, John Mitchell and Harry Whitley.

Formation
Asia began in early 1981 after the apparent ending of Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, two of the founding bands of British progressive rock. After the breakup of King Crimson in 1974, various plans for a supergroup involving bassist John Wetton had not been successful, including the abortive British Bulldog project with Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman in 1976. In 1977 Bruford and Wetton were reunited in U.K., augmented by guitarist Allan Holdsworth and keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson. Their self-titled debut was released in 1978. But by January 1980, U.K. had folded after one lineup change and three recordings. A new project was then suggested involving Wetton, Wakeman, drummer Carl Palmer and (then little known) guitarist/singer Trevor Rabin, but Wakeman left this project shortly before they were due to sign to Geffen and before they had played together.

In early January 1981, Wetton and former Yes guitarist Steve Howe were brought together by A&R man John Kalodner and Geffen Records to start writing material for a new album. They were eventually joined by Palmer and finally by Howe's fellow member of Yes, keyboardist Geoff Downes. Two other players auditioned and considered during the band's formation were former The Move and ELO founder Roy Wood and the aforementioned guitarist/singer Trevor Rabin, who would end up replacing Steve Howe in a reformed Yes in 1983. Rabin, in a filmed 1984 interview included in the DVD 9012Live, said that his involvement with Asia never went anywhere because "there was no chemistry" among the participants.

The band's first recordings, under the auspices of Geffen record label head David Geffen and Kalodner, were extremely popular with record buyers, while considered disappointing by music critics and fans of progressive rock, who found the music closer to radio-friendly album-oriented rock (AOR). However, Asia clicked with fans of popular arena acts such as Journey and Styx; Kalodner had once introduced Wetton to Journey's short-lived frontman Robert Fleischman, with a view to Fleischman becoming Asia's lead singer. As they worked on material together, Fleischman was impressed by Wetton's singing and felt the voice best suited to the new material was Wetton's own. He left Asia amicably.

Rolling Stone gave Asia an indifferent review, while acknowledging the band's musicianship was a cut above the usual AOR expectations.

1981-1985: "Heat of the Moment" and early success
Asia's debut album Asia, released in March 1982, gained considerable commercial success, spending nine weeks at number one on the United States album chart and selling over four million copies in the States alone. The album sold over 10 million worldwide and has never been out of print. The singles "Heat of the Moment" and "Only Time Will Tell" became Top 40 hits, both boosted by popular MTV music videos. Both tracks went on to become stadium favourites at United States sporting events. "Sole Survivor" also received heavy air play on rock stations across the United States, as did "Wildest Dreams" (another MTV video) and "Here Comes The Feeling". The band's best performing single, and perhaps their most recognised and popular hit song, "Heat of the Moment", spent six weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Album Rock Tracks chart and climbed to No. 4 on the Hot 100.

In the United States the band sold out every date on their debut tour, which began at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York on 22 April 1982 and continued in theatres but quickly expanded into massive arenas because of high ticket demand. Asia would go on to receive a Grammy Award nomination as Best New Artist of 1982. MTV also played Asia videos on heavy rotation—as many as five times a day. Both Billboard and Cash Box named Asia's debut the No. 1 album of the year. Asia's logo and cover art were created by illustrator Roger Dean of Yes and Uriah Heep fame.

Asia's second album Alpha (released in August 1983) and future Asia albums did not achieve the chart success of their debut release; however, Alpha's "Don't Cry" was a No. 1 Album Rock Track and Top 10 Pop hit in the summer of 1983, and the video received considerable attention on MTV, while "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" was another Top 40 hit for the band. The video for "Smile" also scored heavy MTV play. However, Rolling Stone criticized Alpha as an "over-produced commercial album", while others stated that Howe and Palmer were effectively reduced to session musicians. Alpha received indifferent reviews from various critics, while attaining platinum status and reaching No. 6 on the Billboard album chart.

In October 1983 Wetton left the group after the comparatively disappointing sales of Alpha. The band says that Wetton quit; Wetton stated that he was fired by phone. There is no universally agreed version of what happened. Wetton later said that his alcohol dependency may have been a factor. Howe, in his 2021 autobiography All My Yesterdays, says that tensions had been building gradually, as songs began to work out differently on stage than they had while recording the album, which had itself not gone smoothly. After a show in New York where some members of the band had, after giving an interview, taken the stage and given a subpar performance, Howe recalls that he, Downes and Palmer confronted Wetton about his increasing mistakes on stage.

The next leg of their 1983 United States tour (which had begun in the summer but shut down suddenly on 10 September following a performance at Pine Knob outside Detroit, Michigan), scheduled for the autumn, was abruptly cancelled, reportedly because of low ticket sales. Howe says this was because Wetton's issues had worsened; the ensuing two-month break in the tour marked Wetton's departure from the band as a practical matter regardless of who had initiated it.

In December 1983 ex-King Crimson and ELP lead singer and bassist Greg Lake replaced Wetton for a few concerts in Japan, including the highly publicised "Asia in Asia" concert at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Japan, on 6 December 1983, which was the first concert broadcast over satellite to MTV in the United States and was later made into a home video. Some songs were played in a lower key to suit Lake's voice. He sang some lyrics assisted with a teleprompter, as he had been asked to cover Wetton's parts on short notice as a favour to Carl Palmer; although he initially declined due to the short preparation time, eventually he accepted because Geffen Records "offered me so much money there was no way I could refuse it." In a 2011 interview, asked why he had not stayed a member of Asia, he stated, "I did a brief stint with them and didn't want to go in that corporate rock direction. I didn't believe in that sort of music, so I didn't continue." Howe says Lake was interested in remaining a member and recording with the band but Palmer was opposed.

Following Lake's departure in early 1984, Wetton was asked to return (in Howe's account, Wetton approached the band via management ) after a three-month absence; he returned on the condition that Howe was ousted from the band. For a while, the group considered continuing as a three-piece without a permanent guitarist, inviting guest guitarists such as Jeff Beck and David Gilmour into the studio. Geffen Records suggested recruiting Krokus guitarist Mandy Meyer, who got on well with the band and was offered a permanent position: his playing style was more inclined to straightforward hard rock, thus changing the sound of the band. Meanwhile, Howe went on to brief success with GTR (another supergroup, this one formed with former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett and produced by Geoff Downes).

1985-1991: Astra, breakup and new lineups
The third Asia album was tentatively titled Arcadia, but during production it was discovered that that name was being used by a forthcoming spin-off project from Duran Duran. The retitled Astra, released in November 1985, was not as commercially successful as the first two albums. The record label cancelled the planned tour because of lack of interest. The band charted another single with "Go" (No. 46), featuring Meyer's guitar work as a primary element. The music video was another hit with MTV but in 1986 this Asia lineup folded, bringing the group to an end for the time being. Wetton is quoted as saying "[Astra] did really well in Sweden ... but Swedish sales aren't that large."

Wetton resurfaced in January 1987 with an album recorded with guitarist Phil Manzanera, Wetton-Manzanera, based on material that had been originally intended for Asia. Also in 1987, Wetton played with Phenomena on their Dream Runner album and landed a number one hit in South America with the Phenomena single "Did It All for Love", also appearing in the related music video.

Asia were also credited with contributing the Giorgio Moroder produced track "Gypsy Soul" to the Sylvester Stallone film soundtrack to Over the Top (1987), although Wetton was the only band member involved.

Wetton and Downes' attempt to restart the group in 1987 with guitarist Scott Gorham (formerly of Thin Lizzy) and drummer Michael Sturgis (ex-A-ha) failed when they were unable to land a worldwide recording deal.

Wetton and Palmer reunited the band for tours of Europe in the summer and autumn of 1989. Downes (working on a project with Greg Lake) was not available, so keyboards were played by John Young. Guitars on the tour were handled by Alan Darby (replaced by German guitarist Holger Larisch); and Zoe Nicholas and Susie Webb were brought aboard to provide back-up vocals. Unlike Wetton's later anger at Asia continuing without him in the 1990s, this lineup was viewed favourably by other Asia band members.

Asia returned to the studio in 1990 with Downes, Toto guitarist Steve Lukather and other studio musicians and released Then & Now (August 1990), a best-of with four new tracks. "Days Like These" from the disc received substantial airplay during the summer of 1990 on AOR radio stations and re-sparked some interest in the band. Pat Thrall joined Downes, Palmer and Wetton on tour and they performed classic material, including King Crimson and U.K. songs.

The band toured the former Soviet Union in November 1990 to play in front of 20,000 fans on two sold-out nights. "Days Like These" charted in the United States at No. 64 in 1990 and No. 2 on the United States Album Rock Tracks chart. But a U.S. tour was scrapped when various problems hampered the single's chance at the Top 40. Asia received the RIAA Gold album award for Then and Now years later, but initially the album did not reach the Top 100. A DVD and CD are available of the Asia concerts in the USSR (featuring a bonus studio track, "Kari-Anne" recorded by the 1987 Wetton-Downes-Gorham-Sturgis lineup and with Francis Dunnery contributing a guitar solo). Wetton left the group in April 1991 after a South American tour, discouraged by Asia's lack of success in the United States.

1991-2006: Downes/Payne era
After Wetton's departure, vocalist/bassist John Payne joined the band and, together with Downes, enlisted new musicians and led Asia through to 2006. The first album with this lineup was Aqua, released in June 1992. In addition to Downes and Payne, the album featured Howe, Palmer, and guitarist Al Pitrelli (of Danger Danger, Megadeth and Alice Cooper). Howe returned during the sessions having just left Yes again, but Palmer would leave soon, committing to an ELP reunion, and was able to play on just three songs. Drummers Simon Phillips and Nigel Glockler then completed the sessions. Downes' environmentalist single "Who Will Stop the Rain?" (originally written for Max Bacon and the aborted Rain project, later appearing on Bacon's album From the Banks of the River Irwell) attracted some radio attention. The Aqua club tour featured Howe (whose presence was heavily promoted), who took the stage after the fifth song. The tour was successful enough to warrant the band's continuation. The 1992–93 tour featured Downes, Howe, Payne, guitarist Vinny Burns and drummer Trevor Thornton. Before a European festival tour in late 1993, Howe and Burns left and were replaced by guitarist Keith More.

The group released Aria in May 1994, which featured lead guitarist Al Pitrelli once again, who would leave Asia during the short Aria tour. The Aria album did not fare well commercially and the ensuing tour was limited to four concerts. Ex-Simply Red guitarist Aziz Ibrahim took over during the tour. Aria also introduced new drummer Michael Sturgis, who had been involved during the band's aborted 1987 reunion and had appeared on some of the sessions for Aqua. Aria was not released in the United States until May 1995.

Over New Year's Eve 1995/1996, a broken pipe inundated the control room in Downes' and Payne's recording studio, Electric Palace, in London. Amid the lost equipment, a vault containing unreleased material was found intact. The band decided to release the material on two discs, Archiva 1 and Archiva 2. The Archiva sets were collections of unreleased tracks recorded during the first three Downes/Payne albums.

Next, Arena, released in February 1996, featured Downes, Payne, Sturgis, Ibrahim and guest guitarist Elliott Randall (ex-Steely Dan, and Randy Crawford). The album was released on Resurgence Records but there was no tour because of lack of interest. The group's lone promotional performance in conjunction with the album occurred on 19 April 1996, when Downes and Payne appeared with guitarist Elliott Randall on the Virgin FM radio programme Alive in London to play the song "Never".

An all-acoustic album, Live Acoustic, was recorded by the group at Stadthalle, Bruchsal, Germany on 21 September 1997 (and released in December 1999) that featured a lineup of Downes, Payne, Ibrahim, and drummer Bob Richards. Also in 1997, a best of album Anthology, featuring songs from the past six albums was released. However, a lawsuit from Wetton meant that songs from the first three albums needed to be re-recorded.

In 1999, there was talk of a reunion of the original lineup minus Howe. The original proposition included Dave Kilminster on guitar, who had previously toured and recorded with Wetton. While Howe was interested in participating, he was unable to because of his busy schedule with Yes. This reunion did not take place and John Payne continued to carry on Asia with Downes uninterrupted. Wetton and Palmer did, however, get together to form Qango, which included Kilminster and John Young, although the band was short-lived. Kilminster went on to work with Keith Emerson, The Nice and Roger Waters.

Also in 1999, Rare, Asia's seventh studio album, was released on Resurgence. It was made up of instrumental music which Downes and Payne had composed for the soundtrack for David Attenborough's documentary nature film Salmon: Against the Tides (tracks 1–16) and for an unreleased CD-ROM video game (tracks 17–22).

In 2000 Geffen/Universal released a best-of entitled The Very Best of Asia: Heat of the Moment (1982–1990), which also included three rare B-sides from the early days.

2001's Aura featured three different session guitarists, including Ian Crichton (of Canadian progressive rock band Saga) who had briefly joined Asia in 1998–1999. Aura took a more progressive rock form, but still did not recapture the commercial success of the first album. Former members Howe, Thrall, Sturgis and Elliott Randall also made guest appearances. The single "Ready to Go Home" was barely distributed. Asia then signed with Recognition Records. 2001 did see the band with a stable lineup, achieved during the Aura sessions featuring Downes, Payne, guitarist Guthrie Govan and ex-Manfred Mann's Earth Band/The Firm/Uriah Heep/Gary Numan/AC/DC drummer Chris Slade (who had first joined Asia in 1999, briefly).

In 2001 and 2002, Asia toured for the first time since 1994, including their first United States dates since 1993. A live album and DVD, both titled America: Live in the USA, were released in 2003, recorded at the Classic Rock Productions Classic Rock Festival at The Patriots Theater at the Trenton War Memorial in Trenton, New Jersey on 5 October 2002, which they co-headlined with Uriah Heep.

In the summer of 2003, Downes and Payne undertook the "Asia Across America Tour", which received some media attention. Performing "unplugged", the duo would reportedly play anywhere in the United States that fans requested, provided there was a venue and the fans put up $3,000 to cover costs.

Marking a departure from convention, for the first time a studio release was not titled as a single word starting and ending with the letter A (excepting the partial compilation / partial new album Then & Now). Released on Asia's newly signed label SPV/Inside Out Records, 2004's Silent Nation (the name being influenced by the Howard Stern vs. FCC incident) picked up some unexpected exposure on the Internet.

In 2004 an acoustic Asia toured once again featuring only Downes and Payne. In 2005 the full band toured in Europe and the Americas playing settings ranging from small clubs to medium-sized theatres. In the United States attendance was poor at best.

In August 2005 Slade left Asia to be replaced by drummer Jay Schellen. The new band started work on an album, tentatively entitled Architect of Time, which was originally planned for release early in 2006, though subsequent developments would cause this project to be shelved. Half of this material ended up being released on the album Window to the Soul in August 2006 under the new band name of GPS, which was an acronym for the three players involved: Govan, Payne and Schellen. After this, the three continued on as Asia Featuring John Payne in 2007.

Meanwhile, Wetton and Downes had released some archival Asia material under the name Wetton/Downes in September 2002 and they then reunited to record a full-length album (Icon, released in August 2005) and an accompanying EP and DVD. Two additional Icon projects have since followed: Icon II: Rubicon (November 2006) and Icon 3 (March 2009).

2006-2013: "Original Asia" reunion
In early 2006, Downes left for a reunion of the original band lineup under the Asia name, a breakup that Payne described as "painful". The existing lineup (minus Downes) continued for a short while before morphing into the aforementioned GPS.

Following Downes' departure, on 9 May 2006, John Payne, Geoff Downes, John Wetton, Carl Palmer and Steve Howe contractually agreed that Payne could continue his 15-year period with Asia as Asia Featuring John Payne. Asia featuring John Payne debuted in 2007 with Payne on vocals/bass, Guthrie Govan on guitar, Erik Norlander on keyboards and Jay Schellen on drums. Downes, Wetton, Palmer and Howe continued to perform and record as Asia thereafter.

The official websites of each band reflect a split between the shared history of Payne's tenure with the band, as the reunited Asia acknowledge only pre- and post-Payne albums, whereas Asia Featuring John Payne claim Payne-era (1991–2006) albums Aqua (1992) through Silent Nation (2004) as part of their own discography. Asia Featuring John Payne perform songs from before and during Payne's time in Asia.

Downes and the other three original members (Wetton, Palmer and Howe) convened a group meeting in England in early 2006 in anticipation of formally reforming for work that year. And after a slew of rumours, they announced that this original lineup of Asia were planning a CD, DVD and world tour to celebrate the band's 25th anniversary. The band appeared in October 2006 on US cable channel VH-1 Classic and began a world tour largely focused on the United States. The band secured ownership of the Asia name and toured under the description of "The Four Original Members of Asia". The set list featured most of the first album as well as a couple of songs from the second, along with one selection each from Yes, ELP, King Crimson and the Buggles to acknowledge the history of each member of the band. In a 2006 interview, guitarist Steve Howe stated, "This is the real Asia. There have been other incarnations of the band, but this is the one that the public truly embraced".

The tour began on 29 August 2006 in Rochester, New York. The Definitive Collection was released by Geffen/Universal to tie into the tour in September and peaked at No. 183 on the United States album charts, the first time Asia had made the charts since 1990. A limited edition release available only at Best Buy stores also included a DVD of all the band's music videos.

The reunion tour continued into 2007 with venue size based on the success of the 2006 shows, where the band was mainly playing in clubs and theatres. Many of these sold out, including all seven dates in Japan. Also in 2007, the band released Fantasia: Live In Tokyo on CD and DVD through Eagle Records, commemorating the 25th anniversary and documenting the success of the 2006–2007 tour.

In mid-2007, all four original members (Wetton, Downes, Howe and Palmer) went into the studio to record a new album, marking the first recorded material from all four original members since 1983's Alpha. The band continued to tour until major heart surgery for Wetton in the second half of the year saw remaining tour dates rescheduled for 2008.

The new studio album, entitled Phoenix, was released on Frontiers Records on 14 April 2008 (via EMI/Capitol on 15 April in North America ), along with a world tour to promote. The 12-track album includes "An Extraordinary Life", based on Wetton's experience of ill health; rockers such as "Never Again" and "Alibis"; and power ballads such as "Heroine" and "I Will Remember You". The world tour also featured a couple of the new songs. The album cover featured Roger Dean's illustration and design. The Phoenix album did well in both the American and European/Japanese markets. It debuted at No. 73 on the American Billboard 200; the band had not charted with a studio album since 1985.

As a special finale to the US Phoenix tour, the band performed, for the first time ever, the entire first Asia album from beginning to end at their San Francisco concert at The Regency Center on 5 May. The album comprised the entire second set of the evening's concert.

In summer 2009, Asia toured the United States with Yes. Asia opened with a 55-minute show, while Yes closed with a 1-hour and 50-minute set. Asia's set included only "An Extraordinary Life" from Phoenix, the rest of the songs coming from the first two albums plus one cover each from The Buggles ("Video Killed the Radio Star" with Wetton on lead vocals and Downes on vocoder), King Crimson ("The Court of the Crimson King", which was recorded by the original incarnation of that band with Greg Lake on lead vocals) and Emerson, Lake & Palmer ("Fanfare for the Common Man"). Yes songs were omitted from this tour's setlist, though Asia also covered "Roundabout" on earlier legs of the "Four Original Members" tour. Contrary to some early expectations, Downes did not perform with Yes, although their set list included two songs from the 1980 album Drama, which featured Downes on keys. A series of shows late in the tour featured a special appearance by Ian McDonald (flute and vocals on "The Court Of The Crimson King", which he co-wrote, and backing vocals on "Heat Of The Moment").

In late 2009, the band began working on their follow-up CD to Phoenix. According to Wetton's website in late November 2009: "Good news is that the new album is starting to leap, rather than creep (or sleep) in terms of progress. This week I have two completed lead vocals, with complete harmony/chorus voxes on three. It's just me, Geoff [Downes], Steve R[ispin], and Mike Paxman in the studio--- Carl [Palmer] is pretty much all done, Steve H[owe] is half done, and returns to the fold after Yes tour. It sounds absolutely wonderful". The follow-up, titled Omega, was released in the UK on 26 April 2010.

The band finished a new studio album timed to coincide with the band's thirtieth anniversary, titled XXX, and released in the UK on 2 July 2012 and worldwide around the same time. In September 2012 they played four shows in Japan and a North American tour started on 11 October 2012. The UK tour, however, had to be cancelled after a number of shows due to Palmer contracting a serious case of E. coli.

2013-2017: Howe's retirement, Gravitas and hiatus
On 10 January 2013, Steve Howe announced his retirement from the band to focus on other projects, including Yes, bringing an end to the reunion of the original lineup. Asia in turn announced they would be continuing with new guitarist Sam Coulson, with a new album in the works entitled Gravitas. The new lineup performed live in 2013.

On the website ultimateclassicrock.com, Howe explained his decision to leave Asia:

"Something had to give. Because I'd just done five years with both bands and then Geoff had joined [Yes] when we did Fly From Here, which is maybe a lot shorter, only a quarter of that time for him. He only experienced the tip of the iceberg of being on call for two bands. But there were times in the first three years — it actually got easier when Geoff joined. It was easier because we were both in the band and we could both wrestle with the schedules — but before that, at times, Yes or Asia would extend a tour by a day and then Yes or Asia would then expand the start of the tour, so the gap would start to close.

And I would start freaking out saying 'yeah, but hang on ... if you add that date here and they've just added this date here, I'm now squeezed like a concertina.' So there was going to be a time at some point when this was unworkable and unfortunately it was the end of last year that made me realize that this being on call was really too much. I couldn't keep either really happy. I was either making Yes miserable or Asia miserable, because of the other one being in existence.

So I think that Asia had a terrific run and we made three great albums. In fact, XXX, I think, is a fantastic record."

The band finished the recording sessions for Gravitas in December 2013 and in January 2014 they started shooting the music video for "Valkyrie", which was released as a single. The album's cover artwork was designed by Asia longtime collaborator Roger Dean. On 30 January 2014, Wetton revealed the album's track listing through Asia's official website and talked about each song from the album. The album was released on 24 March 2014 and reached Number 1 in the Progressive Rock Chart for emusic on 27 March.

Following Gravitas and the subsequent tour, the band went on an almost three-year hiatus due to Wetton having cancer and undergoing chemotherapy. On 5 December 2016, Asia announced a US tour opening for American rock band Journey, beginning with twelve dates from 15 March 2017 at the Yakima Valley Sundome in Yakima, Washington, and four days later, announced their live album Symfonia: Live in Bulgaria 2013, which they performed with the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra.

2017-2018: Wetton's death and tour with Journey
On 11 January 2017, Wetton released a statement that, due to receiving another round of chemotherapy, he would be unable to perform on the dates announced for the Journey tour, and that he would be substituted by Billy Sherwood, one of Downes' Yes bandmates, and Wetton's own co-writer and producer of the album Raised in Captivity. The band originally wanted to cancel the tour altogether, but Journey's management and agents refused, forcing them to pick Sherwood as a last-minute replacement.

Wetton died on 31 January 2017 at the age of 67; Palmer later stated "So, we used Billy and we had a phenomenal time. It was a great experience all 'round, and I'm pleased we did it. John would have loved to be on that tour, so I'm pleased we did it for him, anyway." On 17 June 2017 Asia performed a show in homage to Wetton, titled An Extraordinary Life. The show was an interactive celebration of Wetton's music and life. Fan dedications were sent into management and shown on a large projection screen above the stage.

After Wetton's death, Downes stated that the duo had been working on another Asia album and stated that he hopes to eventually finish and release it as a final testament to Wetton. It is unclear whether Wetton had recorded any parts, or if the album had only been in the songwriting process. In August 2017, Palmer stated that there were no immediate plans for Asia to continue, as it was too soon to make any decisions and the band members would be busy on other projects in the meantime.

2019-present: Lineup changes, tour with Yes, and 40th Anniversary Tour
On 2 April 2019, the band announced it would join Yes, John Lodge, and Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy as part of The Royal Affair Tour, a 26-date Summer 2019 North American joint tour, with Steve Howe joining the band for a portion of the set. The band also confirmed that Sam Coulson had amicably left Asia to focus on solo projects and that he would be replaced as guitarist on the tour by Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, who also took over lead vocals, with Sherwood remaining on bass but moving to backing vocals. Coulson confirmed his departure on Twitter the same day.

In 2019, a New York Times investigation revealed that Asia was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire. While Universal Music has generally disputed the severity of the fire's damage, they have yet to publicly confirm or deny the status of Asia's masters, while Downes has stated that he has it "on good authority" that the masters survived.

In 2022, Asia announced a 40th Anniversary Tour, with Marc Bonilla on guitar and vocals. However, the tour was later cancelled due to Alan Parsons, the band's opening act, backing out in order to undergo surgery. Following the cancellation, Palmer said in February 2023 that there were no plans for any activity for the rest of the year.

The band are touring the US in summer 2024. Carl Palmer announced that he would not be on the tour, although he said "I plan to eventually embrace the music of ASIA again at some point in the future." The tour sees a new line-up of Geoff Downes (keys), Virgil Donati (drums), John Mitchell (guitar) and Harry Whitley (bass, vocals).

Personnel
Throughout the years, Geoff Downes has been the longest serving member of the band and is the only one to appear on every studio album. However, he was out of the band from its 1989 reunion to 1990 due to prior commitments at the time.

The original lineup initially lasted from 1981 until 1983 when John Wetton left. It was reunited on two occasions: first, one year later when Wetton rejoined, but Steve Howe left before the band could work together again, and a second time in 2006, when Downes, the last original member in the band, replaced the rest of the band with his original bandmates. This last original reunion lasted until 2013, when Howe left once again. Wetton died from cancer in 2017, making another reunion of the original lineup impossible.

Several musicians have joined and left after a short time without recording any studio material with the group. The most notable collaboration of this kind was the participation of Greg Lake in the "Asia in Asia" concert on bass guitar and lead vocals. Yet more musicians have played as session musicians or have guested with the band without formally joining. Some of these artists include: Robert Fleischman, Vinnie Colaiuta, Francis Dunnery, Ant Glynne, Scott Gorham, Tomoyasu Hotei, Luís Jardim, Ron Komie, Tony Levin, Steve Lukather, Thomas Lang, Kim Nielsen-Parsons, Nigel Glockler, Simon Phillips, and Alex Thomas.

Lineup
Current members
 * Geoff Downes – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1986, 1990–present)
 * Virgil Donati – drums (2024–present)
 * Harry Whitley – bass, vocals (2024–present)
 * John Mitchell – guitar, backing vocals (2024–present)

Discography

 * Studio albums
 * Asia (1982)
 * Alpha (1983)
 * Astra (1985)
 * Aqua (1992)
 * Aria (1994)
 * Arena (1996)
 * Rare (1999)
 * Aura (2001)
 * Silent Nation (2004)
 * Phoenix (2008)
 * Omega (2010)
 * XXX (2012)
 * Gravitas (2014)

Soundtracks and other uses

 * In the episode "Kenny Dies" of the animated TV series South Park, Eric Cartman and the United States Congress sing "Heat of the Moment" a cappella.
 * A cover of the song "Heat of the Moment" is playable in the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s.
 * In the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, main character Andy Stitzer is mocked for having a framed Asia poster in his apartment. Also, "Heat of the Moment" is played during the scene in which Andy chases Trish's car after she leaves his home.
 * In the film The Matador, "Heat of the Moment" plays as Julian and Danny arrive in Tucson.
 * In the episode "The Splendid Source" of the animated TV series Family Guy, the song "Only Time Will Tell" plays and John Payne is introduced simply as "Lead Singer of Asia." Payne gleefully takes advantage of the fact that the ex-wife of REO Speedwagon's lead singer Kevin Cronin will get money if the song "Time for Me to Fly" plays.
 * In the 2015 video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, a cassette of Only Time Will Tell song can be obtained as a secret collectible.
 * The song "Lay Down Your Arms" was used by the animated film Freddie the Frog (1992) starring Ben Kingsley, Jenny Agutter and Brian Blessed.
 * In the film Over the Top with Sylvester Stallone, a song called "Gypsy Soul" is credited to Asia, although John Wetton was the only member involved as the song was written and recorded by Giorgio Moroder.
 * In the episode "Mystery Spot" of the CW series Supernatural, every Tuesday morning, Sam is awakened by "Heat of the Moment" coming from the radio, followed by a "Rise and shine, Sammy!" from Dean.
 * In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable the stand Aqua Necklace is named after the album Aqua.

title: Asia (band)


text:
Øresund

Øresund or Öresund (, ;  Øresund ; Öresund ), commonly known in English as the Sound, is a strait which forms the Danish–Swedish border, separating Zealand (Denmark) from Scania (Sweden). The strait has a length of 118 km; its width varies from 4 km to 28 km. The narrowest point is between Helsingør in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden.

Øresund, along with the Great Belt, the Little Belt and the Kiel Canal, is one of four waterways that connect the Baltic Sea to the Atlantic Ocean via Kattegat, Skagerrak, and the North Sea; this makes it one of the busiest waterways in the world.

The Øresund Bridge, between the Danish capital Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö, inaugurated on 1 July 2000, connects a bi-national metropolitan area with close to 4 million inhabitants. The HH Ferry route, between Helsingør, Denmark and Helsingborg, Sweden, in the northern part of Øresund, is one of the world's busiest international ferry routes, with more than 70 departures from each harbour per day.

Øresund is a geologically young strait that formed 8,500–8,000 years ago as a result of rising sea levels. Previously, the Ancylus Lake, a fresh-water body occupying the Baltic basin, had been connected to the sea solely via the Great Belt. The incursion of salt water via Øresund marked the beginning of the modern Baltic Sea as a salt-water body.

Name
The strait is called Øresund in Danish (and Norwegian), and Öresund in Swedish, informally Sundet (lit. "the Sound") in all three languages. The first part of the name is øre "gravel/sand beach", and the second part is sund, i.e. "sound, strait".

The name is first attested on a runestone dated to ca. AD 1000, where it is written as ura suti, read as Old East Norse (the dative case). The Old West Norse (and modern Icelandic) form of the name is Eyrarsund. Ør is the modern form of the old Norse word (aur) meaning a gravel beach or shoal (see also ayre), often forming a spit. Such landforms are common in the area and "ör" is found in the names of many places along the strait, e.g. Helsingør, Skanör, Dragør and Halör, an important center of trade during the Viking Age.

Boundaries
The northern boundary between Øresund and Kattegat is a line which goes from Gilleleje at Zealand's northern peak to the westernmost point of Kullaberg (Kullen's Lighthouse) at the smaller peninsula north of Helsingborg, known as Kullahalvön. In the south, the boundary towards the Baltic Sea starts at Stevns Klint, at the westernmost peak of the peninsula just south of Køge Bay, Stevns Peninsula to Falsterbo at the Falsterbo peninsula. Its eastern boundary is the Swedish coastline; to the west Amager may be considered part of Øresund (in which case it is the largest island) or a part of Zealand. Amager has eight connections with Zealand (two street bridges, a road bridge, a motorway bridge, a dual-track railway tunnel, an underground metro and a bicycle bridge) as well as a combined motorway and dual track railway to Scania and Sweden.

Streams, animals and salinity
Øresund, like other Danish and Danish-German straits, is at the border between oceanic salt water (which has a salinity of more than 30 PSU or per mille by weight) and the far less salty Baltic Sea.

As the Kattegat in the north has almost oceanic conditions and the Baltic Sea (around 7 PSU, in its main basin) has brackish water, Øresund's water conditions are rather unusual and shifting. The streams are very complex, but the surface stream is often northbound (from the Baltic Sea) which gives a lower surface salinity, though streams can change from one day to another. The average surface salinity is about 10–12 PSU in the southern part, but above 20 PSU north of Helsingør.

Near the seafloor (where the sea is deep enough), conditions are more stable and salinity is always oceanic (above 30 PSU) below a certain depth that varies between 10 and 15 metres. In the southern part, however, the depth is 5–6 metres (outside the rather narrow waterways Drogden and Flintrännan), and this is the definite border of oceanic salt water, therefore also a border for many maritime species of animals. Only 52 known salt-water species reside in the central Baltic Sea, compared to around 1500 in the North Sea. Close to 600 species are known to exist in at least some part of Øresund. Well-known examples, for which the bottom salinity makes a distinct breeding border, include lobster, small crabs (Carcinus maenas), several species of flatfish and the lion's mane jellyfish; the latter can sometimes drift into the southwest Baltic Sea, but it cannot reproduce there.

There are daily tides, but the lunar attraction cannot force much water to move from west to east, or vice versa, in narrow waters where the current is either northbound or southbound. So, not much of the difference in water levels in Øresund is due to daily tides, and other circumstances "hide" the little tide that still remains. The current has a much stronger effect than the tide on the water level, but strong winds may also affect the water level. During exceptional conditions, such as storms and hurricanes, oceanic water may suddenly flow into the Baltic Sea at all depths. Such events give deep waters in the southern Baltic Sea higher salinity, which makes it possible for cod to breed there. If no such inflow of oceanic water to the Baltic Sea occurs for around a decade, the breeding of cod becomes endangered.

History
Political control of Øresund has been an important issue in Danish and Swedish history. Denmark maintained military control with the coastal fortress of Kronborg at Elsinore on the west side and Kärnan at Helsingborg on the east, until the eastern shore was ceded to Sweden in 1658, based on the Treaty of Roskilde. Both fortresses are located where the strait is 4 kilometres wide.

In 1429, King Eric of Pomerania introduced the Sound Dues which remained in effect for more than four centuries, until 1857. Transitory dues on the use of waterways, roads, bridges and crossings were then an accepted way of taxing which could constitute a great part of a state's income. The Strait Dues remained the most important source of income for the Danish Crown for several centuries, thus making Danish kings relatively independent of Denmark's privy council and aristocracy.

To be independent of the Øresund, Sweden carried out two great projects: the foundation of Gothenburg in 1621 and the construction of the Göta Canal from 1810 to 1832.

The Copenhagen Convention of 1857 abolished the Dues and made the Danish straits an international waterway.

A fixed connection was opened across the strait in 2000, the Øresund Bridge.

Denmark

 * Amager (western part is artificial enlargement from Øresund, or from Kalvebodene more precisely)
 * Saltholm
 * Peberholm – an artificial island
 * Middelgrundsfortet – an artificial island
 * Flakfortet – an artificial island
 * Amager Strandpark - an artificial beach area for Copenhagen
 * Brøndby Strandpark - an artificial beach area for Copenhagen in Køge Bugt
 * Vallensbæk-Ishøj Strandpark - an artificial beach area for Copenhagen in Køge Bugt

Sweden

 * Ven (Hven in older Swedish and Danish)
 * Gråen – an artificial island outside port of Landskrona (enlargements from Øresund in the 17th and 20th centuries)

Denmark

 * Køge Bugt (Køge Bay)
 * Nivå Bugt (Nivå Bay)
 * Kalveboderne

Sweden

 * Lundåkrabukten (Lundåkra Bay)
 * Lommabukten (Lomma Bay)
 * Höllviken

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Øresund


text:
Talk:Micrometer (device)

Snotty anon (2002) thought he'd proven that WP was useless. (Where is he now?)
Amazing stuff. How come neither maveric149 nor eclecticology (seemingly busy, high profile editors here) managed not to notice that a micrometer = micrometre = 1/1 000 000 metres, not 1/1000, and that the symbol isn't µ it's µm? Especially since the page micrometre gives the correct info, making it trivial to check the data.

Some reference work this is. --Anon

Yes, it was caught by you - such is the wiki way. There is a million things to do around here and you can't expect any one person to catch them all. --maveric149

But I might reasonably expect the editor of a page to do even the most trival fact-checking while doing that one edit ot that one page, mightn't I? But then you seem to think its a good idea to duplicate the definition of micrometre. Duplication of data encourages errors. Why not just leave the link to micrometre?

 * In Wikipedia, there are no editors for a page - everybody is an editor. And since there's so many page, not everybody will read everything. And so there are a lot of errors. But, given enough editors, all of these errors will be found - you just found one, so good job. The reason why there's two different pages is probably because of the measuring device, which is never called a micrometre. Because many Americans may type micrometre when looking for it, there should at least be a reference on this page. And since the article which is to be referred to is so short, it's convenient to included that information here as well. But it is prone to errors, yes. jheijmans

I use "editor" here to mean the person editing a given page at any given time. The history shows that the two users I name above between them created and edited the page into the state it was in when first I saw it. While those acts of editing were going on, the errors were introduced. Since there was a link to the page with the correct info provided, I can only conclude that no effort was put into checking what had been placed on the page, even while knowing that it duplicated info carried on another page. Those users can't claim that this page is one of thousands that they haven't got round to yet, they wrote it in the first place. maveric149 also seems to have taken ownership of the page, undoing the changes to it I made.

While it is a fine idea to expect this resourse to increase in quality through collaborative review, it seems negligent, and an insult to the actual users of a reference work (those who turn to it for information, not the writers of it) to use the expectation of that review as a reason to not bother doing even the simplest, quickest check on new content. As clearly didn't happen in this case.

 * I jumped in on this one because I happened to notice that both articles exist, then made the effort to see which was the older so as to apply the generally accepted rule on American vs. British spellings. It's not unusual, Anon, for someone fixing one problem to completely fail to see another.  When I do see an obvious error of the type you indicate I find it far more satisfying to fix it than to whine about it.  I'm confident that Maveric149 does the same.  Try it sometime! -- Eclecticology, Friday, June 7, 2002

 * So then, what's your problem. Some editors made a mistake. And the mistake may have easily been prevented. But everybody makes mistakes - you too. And all the other reference works you are using. Maybe not with micrometer, but probably with other entries. And those reference works usually have been read by several editors to check for errors - so does this one. Only, everything is directly available to the public, so errors may remain until they are correct. As a user of Wikipedia, you have to know that. If you can't live with it, don't use Wikipedia. But if you want to use it and if you find such an error, point it out or - even beter - correct it. That's what this project is about. And if the error made seems to be made on purpose, you can point that out, and discuss it with the editors. But a simple error such as this doesn't deserve this much talking. It just happens. jheijmans

Article structure (fixed since)

 * is it me or does this article just seem to be structured like a block? I think it could do with some thinning out to make it less of a mountain to find what you're after.. I struggled to skim read the article I was merely looking for 1 cross reference.

Figure 3?
Which figure is Figure 3? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mikeblas (talk • contribs).
 * Thanks for the heads up, the images had been deleted according to policy. I've uploaded replacements and adjusted the text to suit, hopefully no errors crept in. — Graibeard 09:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the fix! I linked to vernier scale, and clarified about inch-metric. -- Mikeblas 17:18, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Requests
Larger outside micrometers don't close the whole way, and are supplied with calibration sticks. How are the calibration sticks used? The article also doesn't describe the ratcheting thimble found on many micrometers. (In fact, it doesn't define "thimble" and "barrel" before using the terms.). -- Mikeblas 17:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Addendum: The "sticks" you are referring to are called micrometer standards. They are calibrated to a specific length and are used to ensure that micrometers are accurate. They are used by measuring them with the micrometer, and then setting the micrometer. For instance, if you are using a 6" standard to check a 6"-7" micrometer, you would tighten the micrometer on the ends of the standard to where you can just feel a little dra, then adjust the micrometer so it reads 6.00" [(user: dad7892]) 15:25 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Calibration
How is a micrometer calibrated? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.193.73.194 (talk) 22:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

 * Using "standards", like these: . --Splarka (rant) 08:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Article could explain, if true, that calibration includes adjusting the micrometer so there is no zero error. Outside micrometers come with a small wrench - presumably used to twist the sleeve to eliminate the zero error ? Would a user normally do this themselves or leave it to a formal calibration ? - Rod57 (talk) 12:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

 * Found this Calibration procedure for calibration of External micrometer detailed. Concentrates more on condition of the tips and linearity of the scale.

 * ITTC – Recommended Procedures : Sample Work Instructions Calibration of Micrometers 12 pages of explanation and diagrams. Wonderful, I'll add it to external links. - Rod57 (talk) 12:32, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

what is the principle of micrometer's measuring and reading techinques
when we read the measured value, normally we have to check the value on thimble which coincides with the axial line on the sleeve which will be added to the value gotten from the sleeve to deduce final result. Why do we do that, what is the principle associated? hope some one can clarify it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Panda cool (talk • contribs) 13:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC).

 * I hope my creation tonight of the "Operating principles" section helps out. The answer to your question is easy to understand once understood, just difficult to describe in words! Imagine the following example: You are using a typical "regular" micrometer (outside micrometer caliper, 0"-1" range). You are going to start from zero and "unscrew" the micrometer to something a bit less than 1/8"—Let's say .123 instead of perfect 1/8 (.125). Now, starting from zero, it takes four turns of the thimble to cover the first hundred thousandths (.100). That reveals the first 4 hash marks on the barrel, which you duly note. The final 23 thousandths (.023) is less than one turn of the thimble. You read the marks on the thimble to see how much of that final (5th) turn you get before getting to your "destination". It is 23 out of 25. This thought experiment shows why when you read a micrometer, you start by reading the linear scale on the barrel, then you finish by read that final, partial turn of the thimble. Hope that helps! — ¾-10 00:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Advantages
The opening paragraph states that a micrometer has "several advantages" over other measuring devices like calipers, but this is never discussed in the article. What are the advantages? Julesd 13:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

 * This is an interesting question. A mic is less annoying to read than a vernier caliper, and *may* be more accurate than a dial caliper. But if you're comparing a good, high-quality, name-brand version of each (mic and dial caliper), they are both spot-on and can be trusted to inside of one thou. One advantage of the mic is that it may have a vernier scale to read that last ten-thousandth, which the dial caliper doesn't have. But you know, for practical purposes, given high-quality specimens that have been calibrated not too long ago, I think the mic may not have anything on the dial caliper as far as shop-floor pros and cons go. But psychologically the mic is the one that conventional wisdom trusts to be "superior". — ¾-10 00:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

 * I used to teach precision measuring at the College I work at. They still use the course I created that automated practical as well as theoretical assessment in the course. It has fully interactive flash based lessons as well as randomly generated quizzes from test banks with thousands of questions. It is easily demonstrated statistically in the more than 37,500 graded practical measurements we perform in our program every year that the micrometer requires far less skill to achieve accuracy +-.0005" or .00005 depending on whether the mic has a .0001" scale on the barrel or not. Sliding calipers in practical assessment in our program have been shown to only achieve a +-.001" repeatability with the average student. IE: if we tighten up the parameters to grade actual measuring projects within .0005", very few students are successful with sliding calipers as opposed to micrometers. I use dial calipers for most measurement, but when I need to do something within .0005", let alone .00005" it's always a mic. (Njmorin (talk) 12:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC))
 * Thanks for adding this info. Glad that someone could bring some hard data to the question. I think you summed it up perfectly in that dial calipers are good enough for many applications, and that when you need to be down inside the last thou, checking the tenths with certainty, then a mic is needed. — ¾-10 00:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Parts and Functions
What are they ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.127.62.62 (talk) 04:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

 * I just filled in this info under a new section, "Parts", with a labeled image. — ¾-10 22:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Instructions vs Description
The sections on reading a micrometer are all fairly similar, but only the last one has the tag. I'm adjusting the phrasing of the content a bit to make it more descriptive of how the system of graduations work and less of an instruction manual.

Pstemari (talk) 16:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Tube Micrometers
Please add diagrams and text detailing Tube Micrometers. -69.87.204.208 (talk) 12:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Large Outside micrometers
Larger Outside micrometers do not close to zero. This is quite an important detail. Please add a picture and text highlighting this aspect, and informing about the terms used to distinguish micrometers that do or do not close to zero. -69.87.204.208 (talk) 12:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

 * I found at Google Book Search one of those great old images of a very large micrometer caliper in use. It is public domain because of age. I created a gallery section to put it in. The resolution is poor, which will probably attract the kind of flies that would rather delete useful images than have them be tolerably low-res, but there isn't much you can do for that kind of fly-brain except revert the deletion. For the rest of us with normal brains, the image is useful and interesting. Cheers, — ¾-10 16:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

History
Please add pictures, diagrams, and more details to the history section. -69.87.204.208 (talk) 12:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

astronomy
What is the use of the micrometer in astronomy? This article makes no mention of it, though several articles which link here are about astronomical uses of the device. -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

 * It is mentioned briefly under section Micrometer. Could use more detail if anyone can supply. — ¾-10 02:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Microbes
What is the proceedure of mesuring microbes in simplified form? Detail would be apreciated

 * Uh, I think you got the wrong article. Plus you should read WP:NOTHOWTO. Try the reference desk. Wizard191 (talk) 12:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Materials
how are micrometers classified based on the metal with which they are made of ? or what are common metals used in the manufacture of micrometers?

nice content.. thanks..

 * I'm not aware of any classification systems based on the type of material they are made from. Wizard191 (talk) 20:23, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

 * Me neither. Materials commonly used in their making include tool steel, stainless steel, cast iron, die-cast alloys, sometimes plastics (no idea what type, chemically). Covered by plating and baked enamel paint in some cases. Metal frames sometimes have plastic guards over them to insulate the frame from the body heat of the hand holding it. HTH. — ¾-10 22:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

 * I always thought the plastic guards were for protection from dropping/increased gripping ability. Wizard191 (talk) 01:22, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

 * My understanding is that they're body heat insulators. But I don't remember where I first learned that, or if it's certifiably true. Now that I look, the article already mentions this insulation idea (I had thought it didn't). I have to admit I always thought the insulation idea was kind of silly or overblown, like "how much can my hand really affect the measurement? It's only 37.0 °C (98.6 °F)". And many mics, even top-notch brands, don't come with them, so that suggests to me that it's overblown. But I guess maybe it's true that it could mean a few microns. Still, I guess I'll never believe that the effect matters for practical purposes (mfg) unless someone shoves a science experiment in front of me proving that it does! — ¾-10 21:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

 * BTW, re "radiation" versus "light", I had to be a nerd and point out that light is included in electromagnetic radiation. But you're totally right that "light" is the right word to use here, and "radiation" is a poor choice because it evokes Chernobyl/Fukushima in the average reader's mind upon first sight. Whereas "light" is more specific and also plainer/clearer at the same time. So speaking of calibration, thanks for calibrating on "nerd-speak vs le mot juste". — ¾-10 01:32, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You are quite right, it was technically correct; I just wanted to help out our fellow layman ;-) Wizard191 (talk) 01:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Need more textual explanation of "zero error" method
Prof Lookang, can you write a sentence or two explaining what is meant by "zero error"? The term sounds like it is referring to the mic's accuracy and precision or its calibration, but I infer that it actually refers to a certain method of dialing the barrel. I watched the animation but didn't have time to deeply ponder it. What I'd like to do is to describe in words what "zero error" is referring to, in addition to the animation. Thanks for any help, — ¾-10 01:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

 * Ah, thank you, Prof Lookang! Your recent explanation is helpful. Basically you are talking about applying a correction factor to a mic that's known to be out of calibration. Kind of like subtracting a tare weight value from the reading on a weighing scale that's out of calibration. Or subtracting the starting volume of a solution from the ending volume to find the change. Thanks for explaining. — ¾-10 21:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

 * Before seeing this I had just added an introductory sentence to that section. - Rod57 (talk) 11:51, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

glad to see it is well received by Wikipedia community! (Lookang (talk) 15:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)).

Useless "Zero Error" section.
I'm removing this section because it is useless:
 * any instrument can have a zero error, not only micrometers. The page should give information about micrometers, not lectures about instrument errors and strategies for compensating for them.
 * The previous sections make it obvious that micrometers support adjustment of zero, so the user should simply calibrate zero error away instead of doing the silly arithmetic.

24.85.131.247 (talk) 07:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect measurement?
Maybe it is just late and I am reading it incorrectly, but I think the caption of the first image is incorrect.

The marker appears to be about 0.14mm away from the 1.5mm mark. The marker is between 1.0mm and 1.5mm, so this should be 1.36mm. But the caption currently states 1.64mm (i.e., 1.5 + 0.14 = 1.64, and 1.5 - 0.14 = 1.36).

This image was added to the article all the way back in 2012, which is what is making me wary of my judgement: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Micrometer&diff=prev&oldid=511532066

Tar-Elessar (talk) 02:40, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

 * Hi, Tar-Elessar. You are reading it wrong. The top ticks on the sleeve's scale are marking millimeter positions, while the bottom ticks are marking the half millimeter positions. The top ticks show we are between 1 and 2mm while the bottom scale indicates we are also past 1.5mm. The full measurement is then 1.5mm plus the reading from the scale on the spindle. Because the image is so high resolution, it can be easily seen that the spindle reading is just shy of 0.14mm. Using an estimated tenth, the spindle scale reading should be 0.139mm so that the full measurement is 1.639mm (=1.5mm+0.139mm). Jason Quinn (talk) 16:29, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

 * Coincidentally, note that the estimated tenth amounts to 0.001 mm or 1 micrometer... reflecting the name of the instrument. Jason Quinn (talk) 20:24, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

File:Mahr Micromar 40A 0–25 mm Micrometer.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Mahr Micromar 40A 0–25 mm Micrometer.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on March 10, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-03-10. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:58, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Article very poor
I just made some edits to captions of images to correct the way this article was teaching to read micrometers. The text however still remains FILLED with errors. I will slowly start to improve it but this is going to be a long process. Those who have been writing this article don't understand the proper role of the estimated digit when reading a micrometer, or the importance of providing the error on a measurement. This all needs to be fixed. Jason Quinn (talk) 22:25, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

± 0.005 mm / ± 0.0005"
At least 2 images have captions stating the reading on the mic "± 0.005 mm" which raises questions about the caption. One image's caption states "reading of 1.639 mm ± 0.005 mm." and the image shows a reading of 1·638mm. With the size of accuracy, it would make more sense to claim a measurement of "1·64mm" which implies the ± 0.005. Anyone who's used a mic will know that degree of accuracy is easily possibly with careless use in any case. In the case of the second image showing a vernier mic, and also has the ± 0.005mm which is a greater accuracy range than the indicated measurement as it can be read to a greater accuracy than that stated. I can't imagine any decent manufacturer finding this acceptable. I don't know where the ± 005 are coming from but they seem like nonsense to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.225.0.132 (talk • contribs) 15:48, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

 * I believe you are referring to the images File:Mahr Micromar 40A 0–25 mm Micrometer.jpg and File:578metric-micrometer.jpg and their captions. With both those instruments, the measurement is bounded by range of a hundredth of a millimeter, the limit of the precision of the instrument. The "± 0.005 mm" error corresponds to a range of a hundredth of a millimeter and is therefore correct. The reading of 1.639 mm on File:Mahr Micromar 40A 0–25 mm Micrometer.jpg is a valid reading. Your proposed reading of 1.638 mm differs at the thousandths of a millimeter level and would also be a valid reading. This is why the least digit of a measurement using a ruled instrument is an "estimated tenth", it's because you estimate between the two marks corresponding to the smallest interval. There is no perfectly correct answer because it's an estimate. The error range must be large enough to hold all the estimated values and it is. If you round the reading to 1.64mm, by the rules for significant figures, you are implying there is uncertainty at the hundredths of a millimeter level when there is not. And so effectively you are throwing away precision and actually introducing inaccuracy because of the rounding. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:32, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

 * I did not address your concern about the Vernier mic image, File:5783metric-micrometer.jpg. You may be correct. If the vernier scale is claimed by the manufacturer to add precision, you are correct. A good reading assuming so would be "5.7828 mm ± 0.0005 mm" (the end digits are 28 because the vernier scale lines are not quite matched up at 2 but overshot by 3 so an estimated tenth of 8 seems reasonable). Not all mics manufactured with vernier scales are claimed by the manufacturer to have extra precision and only include the vernier scale to help estimate the tenth at the hundredth of a millimeter level. Seems to me that you make a good case it should be changed. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:02, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

 * I've made this change. Jason Quinn (talk) 08:09, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

 * The first two images of metric mictrometers share an advertised resolution of 0,01mm. Interpolating between lines to obtain an order of magnitude more accuracy is not best behaviour and is never recommended in practise. It would be disingenuous to add this additional digit onto the measurement, even if only talking "repeatability". Certainly, no manufacturer would claim that an analogue instrument should be utilised in this fashion. Higher resolution instruments exist for a reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.163.23.42 (talk • contribs) 09:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
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 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.waybuilder.net/sweethaven/mechtech/mfgtech/precmeasuring/default.asp?iNum=0203&uNum=2
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110719060139/http://www.mahr.de/index.php?NodeID=13120 to http://www.mahr.de/index.php?NodeID=13120
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111005092058/http://ittc.sname.org/2006_recomm_proc/7.6-02-04.res.pdf to http://ittc.sname.org/2006_recomm_proc/7.6-02-04.res.pdf

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Semi-protection?
Every year or so I come back to this article and the readings on the image captions tend to be changed to be incorrect. Most of the time rounding the reading to chop off the last digit of the measurement. There's again some incorrect readings on the article now. The precise reading of micrometers is a delicate subject and one that most people do not properly understand. That's why there's this tendancy to change proper readings to improper ones. I'm thinking that this article would benefit from semi-protection to prevent such regressions. Comments? Jason Quinn (talk) 02:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Removed original research
There was an entire section of what seemed to be original research. Although it was tagged as such for 5 years, it had no inline citations or references to support it. I've went ahead and removed it. Thanks, Gageills (talk) 02:08, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 28 September 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved.

The discussion shows a sufficient consensus to make the proposed move and create a DAB page at the base name. (non-admin closure) Havelock Jones (talk) 12:25, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Micrometer → Micrometer (device) – "Micrometer" (the unit of measurement) isn't a misspelling of "micrometre." It is the standard American spelling of "micrometre." In addition, the article on the unit of measurement receives more |Micrometre pageviews. Crossover1370 (talk | contribs) 23:22, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per nominator. Even though Americans don't use the metric system very much, they still recognise its existence, and Wikipedia should cater for the American spellings too. J I P  | Talk 00:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, noting that is an WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT to Metre, with Meter (disambiguation) for other meanings. 85.67.32.244 (talk) 16:44, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Question: Doesn't American English generally use "micron" rather than "micrometer"? — BarrelProof (talk) 19:19, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per BarrelProof. Am an American, have always read the unit of measurement written as "micron" not "micrometer".  Micrometer is the device, even in American English.  SnowFire (talk) 20:56, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I’m an American. I have seen both “micron” and “micrometer.” Crossover1370  (talk | contribs) 21:37, 29 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose; outside of American English, the name always refers to the device (assumedly because the device was invented by Americans). It follows that the primary topic is the device, given the number of English speakers outside the United States compared to inside - unless it can be shown to be a common misspelling, I cannot see a valid reason for the move. BilledMammal (talk) 12:47, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "Micrometer" is not a misspelling of "micrometre." It is the spelling of "micrometre" in American English. By your logic, all articles not related to America should use British/Commonwealth English because it is used by more people than American English. Crossover1370  (talk | contribs) 21:40, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * My point is that the primary topic of "Micrometer" is the device, as evidenced by the fact that the vast majority of the worlds English-speaking population use that spelling solely for the device, and "Micrometre" for the unit. My comment about misspelling was that if evidence can be provided that a significant percentage of that population commonly misspell "Micrometre" as "Micrometer", then that would be evidence in favour of this move, and was making no claim that "Micrometer" was a misspelling in the United States.
 * And yes, I am a firm believer in WP:COMMONNAME. BilledMammal (talk) 22:11, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The term meter redirects to metre even though "meter" can also refer to an instrument. I am not advocating for micrometer to redirect to micrometre, though, because the device is also a common use of the word "micrometer." However, "micrometer" should definitely be a disambiguation page. Crossover1370  (talk | contribs) 17:46, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

 * Comment the situation is certainly confusing, but I'm not sure the proposal is an improvement. Is the suggestion that Micrometer should primary-topic-redirect to Micrometre?  Or would there be a WP:TWODAB disambiguation page? User:力 (power~enwiki,  π,  ν ) 01:49, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * A disambiguation page. Crossover1370  (talk | contribs) 22:04, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support and create dab page at base name. Most results in google scholar refer to the unit, not the device (see ). Vpab15 (talk) 10:54, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Rolling mill micrometer
Male 42.107.192.226 (talk) 13:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Micrometer (device)