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Taking Measure Blog Posts

Physics

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Displaying 151 - 165 of 165
Woman and man talking beside wall with several square illustrations of science art

Finding Art in Science

October 24, 2016
Kelly Irvine
I’m a graphic designer, or, in the language of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, a "Visual Information Specialist." For the past 18 years I’ve been working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a federal laboratory where some of the best and brightest scientists
Photo of purplish black sky with a streak of bright lightning

In Pursuit of Plasma Power: Hot Stuff, Snowstorms, and Starry Skies

September 15, 2016
Yuri Ralchenko
Do we really need hot stuff? I’m not talking about Donna Summer’s disco hit of 1979 or global warming. I’m not talking about anything so lukewarm as the surface of our sun—a mere 6,000 kelvins. I don’t even mean something as hot as 1,000,000 kelvins. No, the kind of hot stuff I’m talking about is
Connected gray boxes with x's at each intersection of red and yellow and yellow arrow across the design

Revolution by Design: The Materials Genome Initiative

August 17, 2016
Jim Warren
The creation of a new material has long been either an accident or a matter of trial and error. Steel, for instance, was developed over hundreds of years by people who didn’t know why what they were doing worked (or didn’t work). Generations of blacksmiths observed that iron forged in charcoal was
three weapons on a blue checked background

Women’s Body Armor: Staying Ahead of the Curves

August 1, 2016
Jennifer Huergo
As I peer into the cardboard box NIST researcher Amanda Forster holds out for me, I can’t help thinking that this mild-mannered materials scientist has an impressive collection of shivs. The handmade prison weapons include a ballpoint pen with a razor embedded in the shaft and a toothbrush
Mushroom cloud from nuclear explosion

Know Nukes: Reference Materials for Nuclear Forensics

July 25, 2016
Jacqueline Mann
Legwarmers, preppies, yuppies, Molly Ringwald, nuclear paranoia … the 1980s were my favorite decade. I was in junior high school in New Jersey when I saw The Day After, a 1983 TV movie that depicted a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The focus of the movie, however, was
researcher in lab holding brain tissue

If I Had a Hammer … I’d Do Impact Testing

July 8, 2016
Steven Mates
Right now, scientists all over the world are trying to understand how we get injured when our bodies are subjected to strong, dynamic loads – a hard body-check on the hockey rink, a tackle on the football field, a car crash, or even a bomb blast. Fortunately, I haven’t had any experience with bomb
Blonde-haired man standing by bookcase

Science, Science Fiction, and Superheroes

June 2, 2016
James K. Olthoff
I’m a physicist, and as anyone who watches the popular TV series “ The Big Bang Theory” knows, it’s a commonly held conception that there is a strong connection between being a scientist and being enthralled with all things science fiction, fantasy, and superheroes. Anyone who walks into my office
shiny metal objects

World Metrology Day: Kilogram in the Balance

May 20, 2016
Jon Pratt
It was Monday, April 25, 2016, and I was going to meet mass experts Pat Abbott and Eddie Mulhern of NIST’s Mass and Force group as part of my frantic preparations for a 5:21 p.m. flight to Paris. Pat and Eddie were the appointed custodians of the four 1 kilogram masses that I was to transport to the
John Cahn standing by blackboard smiling

My Memories of John Cahn

April 28, 2016
Dan Shechtman
This article was written in response to the March 14, 2016, death of John Cahn , one of the world’s foremost materials scientists, who worked at NIST from 1977 to 2006. Cahn received the National Medal of Science in 1998 and the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology in 2011 . I first met John Cahn in
solar panels reflecting the clouds and blue sky

Directing My Energy Toward a Sustainable Future

April 22, 2016
Ted Heilweil
Have you ever wondered what might happen if we run out of fossil fuels? How do you think we will be able to survive without the resources we need to heat and cool our homes and buildings or the raw materials we use to create all the plastics that make up our modern world? Indeed, if we continue to
White balls in a row

A Slice of Math Functions for Pi Day

March 14, 2016
Sandy Ressler
Happy Pi Day! No, not pie day, Pi Day. That Greek character pi, π, that you’ve heard of but aren’t quite sure what the big deal is. Pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. As yawn-inducing as that may sound, it’s an important ratio because pi is the same no matter the size of
Hubbard/Meggers Periodic Chart of the Atoms

The Periodic Table: It’s Elementary!

February 12, 2016
C.W. Clark
Of all the many useful and interesting periodic tables on the Internet—the periodic tables of the animals, vegetables, and minerals—and U.S. Presidents, Vienna® Chicago-style hot dog condiments, SQL server dynamic management objects, and paleo food—the original Periodic Table of the Elements remains
Photo of scientists checking vaccine temperatures.

Sticking Point: Temperature Control Vital to Vaccine Viability

January 21, 2016
Michal Chojnacky
Flu season typically peaks between December and February, but by the time the winter holidays roll around, many of us will have already waited in line at area clinics, grocery stores, and pharmacies to get our annual flu shot. The Centers for Disease Control reports that U.S. vaccination efforts
Howard Yoon with the NIST standard of spectral irradiance, a bright light, well-calibrated light bulb..

Lighting the Way Toward Better Measurements

January 15, 2016
Howard Yoon
As a physicist who explores ways to measure light more accurately, it should come as no surprise that I’m fascinated by even common optical phenomena that we see all around us. For instance, rainbows occur because light travels through water and air at different speeds and because different colors
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