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Taking Measure

Just a Standard Blog

Jason Stoughton

Jason Stoughton

In addition to being an unabashed science fanboy, Jason Stoughton is a writer, photographer, video producer and former director of NIST internal communications (now working at the National Science Foundation). Before coming to NIST he worked in broadcast television and video production in a variety of roles from creative director to night shift dub room technician, somehow winning 11 Emmy awards in the process. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and daughter.

from left to right, a a metal cylinder, a telescope, and a device with rubber bushings on a spindle

Unidentified Museum Objects V

In celebration of National Inventors Month 2019 (yes, it’s a thing) we’re highlighting some curious inventions currently cooling their heels in the NIST museum
smoke billows from the open doorway of a burning test storage room

Rescuing Our History from the Ashes

What strikes terror in the hearts of museum curators everywhere? Budget cuts, surely. But worse yet, the prospect of precious, irreplaceable relics being
a gearbox with multiple "legs" attached

Unidentified Museum Objects IV

The underground storage shelves of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Museum are filled with loads of charmingly weird objects accrued
Image of a napkin that has written on it the names of researchers involved in the project and their guesses for the value of Planck's Constant

A Massive Bet: The Planck Napkin

So, a bunch of metrologists walk into a bar. In late December 2013, a group of NIST researchers met at the local watering hole across the street from NIST’s