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Internet
Online Version
of Math Functions Handbook in the Works
If
you were going to be stranded on a desert island and could take
only one book with you, which one would you choose?
When
New Scientist magazine put that question to some of the
world’s leading scientists a few years ago, Sir Michael Berry,
a distinguished British physicist, said he would take the Handbook
of Mathematical Functions.
The
handbook, first published by NIST in 1964, has become a classic
reference work for scientists and engineers around the world.
While it does not make for light reading, it contains a wealth
of information about functions—mathematical entities used for
all manner of scientific calculations. A physicist stranded on
an island could use the functions to explain how light scattering
produces a stunning rainbow. In the real world, they aid computation
and analysis in areas as diverse as astronomy, atmospheric modeling
and underwater acoustics.
NIST
is launching a project to conduct an exhaustive survey of all
relevant published literature, and then produce a brand new compendium
on mathematical functions. The new work will be published on the
World Wide Web and will be known as the Digital Library of Mathematical
Functions.
NIST
mathematicians and computer scientists are working on a variety
of ways to make the Digital Library especially useful in the Internet
age. Advanced search engines will help scientists find the right
mathematical formulas. Downloading of formulas in a variety of
formats will be just a mouse click away. Guidance for the construction
and testing of mathematical software, and examples of typical
usage of functions in scientific fields, will be built in. Viewers
will be able to use web browsers that incorporate Virtual Reality
Modeling Language to manipulate graphical representations of functions.
Some
of the world’s leading mathematicians—from the United States,
England, France, the Netherlands and Austria—are participating
in the project. They are responsible for much of the core material.
NIST is exercising editorial control, as well as developing and
maintaining the web site as a free public resource. The agency
also will publish the handbook in a paper version.
The
project is being funded in part by a $1.3 million grant from the
National Science Foundation and will take four years to complete.
A
mockup of the Digital Library may be viewed on the World Wide
Web at http://math.nist.gov/DigitalMathLib/.
Media
Contact:
Philip
Bulman, (301) 975-5661 
Technology
Partnerships
Evaluating
the ATP: The Experts Go On the Record
The
Advanced Technology Program
was created in 1988 to foster economic and social benefits on
a national scale by encouraging high-risk, high-payoff, technology
research. As the first ATP projects approach their 10th anniversary,
many in government, industry and academia are asking the question:
Is the program working?
A
number of independent studies have strongly indicated that the
answer is yes. The ATP, they report, has spurred numerous R&D
projects that otherwise would have been shelved and significantly
accelerated work on many others. Additionally, the ATP has an
ever growing list of successful cases of technology development
to its credit, from improved auto manufacturing technologies to
tools for high-performance software to DNA analysis chips, but
analysis of the long-range impacts of the program remains a challenging
task.
In
March 1999, the National Research Council began its contribution
to the growing numbers of groups and individuals assessing the
impact of the ATP. The Council’s Board on Science, Technology
and Economic Policy held a special symposium to review the history,
operations and economic analyses of the ATP as the first step
in a larger evaluation.
Today,
the opinions gathered seven months ago from experts in technology
development, industry-government collaborations and economics
were issued in a new report. The document, The Advanced Technology
Program: Challenges and Opportunities, is the annotated proceedings
from the March 29, 1999, meeting. This report compiles for the
first time a broad array of perspectives on the ATP and the government’s
role in supporting high-risk R&D, from venture capitalists and
small high-tech business owners to Capitol Hill policy makers
and academic researchers in economics.
Copies
of the report, The Advanced Technology Program: Challenges
and Opportunities (ISBN 0-309-06775-8), are available from
the National Academy Press, Box 285, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20055, (800) 624-6242. Review copies are available
to the news media. Contact Michael Baum at (301) 975-2763.
Media
Contact:
Michael
Baum, (301) 975-2763
Trade Infrastructure
International
Measurements Will No Longer Be Beyond Compare
The
United States and 37 other nations agreed recently to launch a
system for assessing the accuracy and reliability of measurements
made worldwide, aiding efforts to resolve technical and regulatory
differences that impede global trade flows.
Efforts
to link national measurement standards within a global framework
were formalized in a “mutual recognition arrangement” signed by
NIST Deputy Director Karen Brown and representatives of other
countries participating in the 21st quadrennial meeting of the
Conference on Weights and Measures earlier this month.
The
arrangement calls for a systematic series of “key” measurement
comparisons among the signing countries’ national metrology institutes
(known as NMIs). These comparisons will establish how closely
a particular measurement (of voltage, for example) performed at
one NMI agrees with results achieved in other countries. Levels
of agreement among NMIs establish the basis for linking measurements
across international borders.
Such
measurement traceability should make it easier for exporters to
demonstrate compliance with measurement requirements embodied
in nations’ regulations and voluntary standards.
Results
of key comparisons will be recorded near an Internet-accessible
database hosted by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures
near Paris. All nations can participate in the new system. Through
its membership in one of the world’s six regional metrology organizations,
any NMI can list its measurement capabilities in a portion of
the database, subject to review by expert committees.
The
database system was developed at NIST, a strong proponent of efforts
to strengthen measurement traceability on a global basis. NIST
will maintain and further develop the system.
Information
on the mutual recognition arrangement is available on the World
Wide Web at www.bipm.fr/enus/
8_Key_Comparisons/key_comparisons.html. For more information
on the International Comparisons Database, contact NIST’s Robert
L. Watters, Jr., Senior Scientific Advisor, (301) 975-4122.
Media
Contact:
Mark
Bello, (301) 975-3776
Manufacturing
Steps to
STEP Documented in New Publication
Not
long after manufacturers first got a taste of computer-aided design
and computer-aided manufacturing in the 1970s, they recognized
that a key to the new technology’s success would be the development
of a universal, unambiguous language for exchanging product information.
The chronicle of the public-private effort that brought that language
to life and standardized its use can be found in STEP: The
Grand Experience, a new publication from NIST.
STEP
(the STandard for the Exchange of Product model data also known
as ISO 10303) enables companies and suppliers to digitally express
and share a product’s design, manufacturing and support processes
via computer in a standard format. The new 185-page book takes
its readers from the definition of a drawing exchange capability
(the Initial Graphics Exchange Specification, or IGES) in 1979
through to the future plans for the international STEP specification.
In between, the story of STEP’s emergence and worldwide acceptance
is divided into topical areas such as “Modeling,” “Conformance
and Interoperability Testing” and “Managing the Process to Achieve
the Product-Standards.”
Other
milestones and accomplishments detailed in the text include:
Additionally,
the book features a detailed glossary of STEP-related terminology
and an extensive bibliography.
A
single copy of NIST Special Publication 939 is available from
NIST’s Manufacturing Engineering
Laboratory by sending an electronic message to debras@nist.gov.
An Adobe Acrobat version on the World Wide Web is expected in
the near future.
Media
Contact:
Michael
E. Newman, (301) 975-3025
Physics
California,
Massachusetts Professors Win NIST Grants
Elisabeth
Gwinn, associate professor of physics at the University of California
Santa Barbara, and Protik Majumder, assistant professor of physics
at Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., are the winners of NIST
Precision Measurement Grants for the year 2000. Each will receive
$50,000 for their experimental work on precision measurements.
The awards may be extended for an additional two years at the
discretion of NIST for a total of $150,000.
NIST
awards Precision Measurement Grants to promote fundamental research
in measurement science in U.S. colleges and universities.
Gwinn’s
grant will help support an experiment aimed at creating a new
standardization scheme for electric current by integrating the
Josephson and quantum Hall effects in a new way.
In
her experiment, Gwinn proposes to combine the quantum Hall effect
and the AC Josephson effect in a cryostat with a polarity reversing
switch. Her scheme would improve accuracy for electrical current
measurement and pave the way for future high-precision tests of
the relation between certain fundamental constants. It also will
lead to two new semiconductor devices: a new type of Josephson
array and a cryogenic semiconductor switch that may benefit other
precision measurement experiments.
Majumder’s
grant will help support a series of precise atomic structure measurements
in atomic thallium. He proposes to create a new experiment to
search for possible new symmetry-violating forces in nature. Specifically,
he will probe time-reversal violating and parity-conserving interactions
in thallium, an element currently used to test the standard model
of physical forces.
Majumder
will probe a high-flux thallium beam with the aid of a high-finesse
laser ring cavity to improve experimental sensitivity to this
class of symmetry violating forces by four to five orders of magnitude.
For
more information on the Precision Measurement Grants, contact
Barry
N. Taylor, NIST, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8401, Gaithersburg,
Md. 20899-8401, (301) 975-4220, or go to physics.nist.gov/ResOpp/grants/grants.html
on the World Wide Web.
Media
Contact:
Linda
Joy , (301) 975-4403
Editor:
Michael Newman
HTML conversion: Crissy
Robinson
Last updated: November 2, 1999
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