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Physical Measurement Laboratory

News and Updates

Displaying 476 - 500 of 1533
acceleration video teaser image

Measuring Acceleration with Light

Most people have never seen an accelerometer -- a device that measures change in velocity -- and wouldn’t know where to look. Yet accelerometers have become
girl with paint on face

A Standard for Lighting Color Preference?

One of the goals of artificial lighting is to make things look natural. White light can make an otherwise appetizing sandwich look like garbage, if the reds
lumber

Making Sure that Lumber Measures Up

For some, it is a shocking revelation. But most Americans eventually come to accept the fact that a “two by four” board is actually 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches (38
NIST researcher Jodie Pope with the big blue ball

Better Flowmeters with the Big Blue Ball

Last year, upwards of 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas were delivered to customers in the United States, and when it changed hands, nearly every cubic foot
solitons

Mystery of the Dark Solitons

When your heart beats, blood courses through your arteries in waves of pressure. These pressure waves manifest as your pulse, a regular rhythm unperturbed by
PROSPECT detector diagram

In Search of ‘Sterile’ Neutrinos

Lately, neutrinos – the tiny, nearly massless particles that many scientists study to better understand the fundamental workings of the universe – have been
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