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Metrology

News and Updates

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NIST Neutral as Butter War Spreads

January 6, 2017

In 1917, NIST physicists Irwin Priest and Chauncey Peters were drawn into the so-called Butter War, an early 20 th century commercial and political spat between...

How Sweet It Is: NIST Metrology and the Maple Syrup Industry

January 4, 2017

NIST is frequently asked to provide unusual, sometimes downright exotic, measurements and calibrations in support of U.S. commerce. But even old hands in the...

How To Tell When a Nanoparticle is Out of Shape

December 20, 2016

Nanoparticles -- those with diameters less than one-thousandth the width of a human hair -- are increasingly prevalent in high technology, medicine, and...

Harry Keegan seated at mechanical calculator CIE color coordinates of standard sources, 1958

Calculating Color

December 14, 2016

Harry Keegan of NIST’s Photometry & Colorimetry Division using a mechanical calculator in 1958 to compute color coordinates for standard sources.

NIST Debuts Dual Atomic Clock — and a New Stability Record

November 28, 2016

What could be better than a world-leading atomic clock? Two clocks in one. Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have combined...

Man standing behind big silver equipment

Disseminating the New Kilogram: An International ‘Dry Run’

November 28, 2016

When the kilogram, the world’s basic unit of mass, gets a new definition in 2018, it will be based not on a physical artifact but a constant of nature. However...

Artifact with six reflective spheres at each end used in NIST’s new standard test method for evaluating the performance of optical tracking systems.

New Standard Helps Optical Trackers Follow Moving Objects Precisely

November 22, 2016

Throwing a perfect strike in virtual bowling doesn’t require your gaming system to precisely track the position and orientation of your swinging arm. But if you...

Universe’s Constants Now Known with Sufficient Certainty to Completely Redefine the International System of Units

November 22, 2016

Fundamental constants are physical quantities that are universal in nature. For example, the speed of light in vacuum and the charge of a single electron are...

National Aviation History Month: NIST Chemist Wins Air Races

November 16, 2016

In 1927 chemist Johanna Busse became the first female section chief at NIST when she was appointed to head the Thermometry section. Busse was also a licensed...

Seeing Light’s Effect on Atoms — Within Picoseconds

November 16, 2016

For the first time in a laboratory setting, NIST scientists have made stop-action x-ray measurements of the way visible light interacts with atoms and molecules...

Big G Redux: Solving the Mystery of a Perplexing Result

November 16, 2016

If you spend time in physics research circles, you may have heard of the big G controversy. The universal constant of gravitation, G – affectionately known as...

Noise, Temperature, and the New SI

November 15, 2016

NIST has recently made substantial improvements to its Johnson-noise thermometry system, which is playing a vital role in the worldwide effort to determine the...

NIST Unveils Forensic Technique to Measure Mechanical Properties of Evidence

November 1, 2016

You may have seen it on CSI: The star examines hair from a crime scene and concludes its color or texture looks like the defendant’s hair, or maybe his dog’s...

Screenshot of an animation of a superradiant laser

JILA’s Superradiant Laser May One Day Boost Atomic Clocks and ‘Rulers’ for Space

October 14, 2016

BOULDER, Colo. – JILA physicists have demonstrated a novel laser design based on synchronized emissions of light from the same type of atoms used in advanced...

Novel 3-in-1 “Rheo-Raman” Microscope Enables Interconnected Studies of Soft Materials

October 4, 2016

An innovative three-in-one instrument that allows scientists to correlate the flowability of soft “gooey” materials such as gels, molten polymers and biological...

NIST Organizes Challenge to Uncover Impacts of Federal Lab Research

September 27, 2016

From GPS to genetics, sensors to cell phones, many of today’s technological advances have been enabled or developed through federal research programs. Of the...

Supported by Granite, New SURF Beamline Is Real Heavyweight

September 21, 2016

If your work involves sensing, measuring or using ultraviolet light, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has great news for you: Granite...

Meet Bob, PML's Second "Primary" Coordinate Measuring Machine

September 21, 2016

Until recently, if a company wanted the best measurements in the world for the physical dimensions of one of its dimensional standards, it had to book time on...

NIST and Navy Tests Suggest Telecom Networks Could Back Up GPS Time Signals

September 8, 2016

Precision time signals sent through the Global Positioning System (GPS) synchronize cellphone calls, time-stamp financial transactions, and support safe travel...

Counting Down to the New Ampere

August 25, 2016

After it's all over, your lights will be just as bright, and your refrigerator just as cold. But very soon the ampere -- the SI base unit of electrical current...

Measuring Tiny Forces with Light

August 24, 2016

Photons are bizarre: They have no mass, but they do have momentum. And that allows researchers to do counterintuitive things with photons, such as using light...

NISTmAb: Portrait of an "Anchor Molecule"

July 28, 2016

Companies will continue to generate and maintain their own in-house standards for each specific monoclonal antibody therapeutic drugs, but the new NIST...

An Extraordinary Standard: New NIST Protein Could Spur Biopharmaceutical Innovation

July 28, 2016

GAITHERSBURG, Md.—The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued one of the world's most intricate measurement standards: an exhaustively...

student wearing helmet with multi-colored wires

Detecting Brain Waves with Atomic Vapor

July 26, 2016

It's really hard to hear what the brain is saying. Neural impulses -- currents of ions moving through channels between the brain's 100 billion neurons at a...

NIST's Newest Watt Balance Brings World One Step Closer to New Kilogram

June 21, 2016

A high-tech version of an old-fashioned balance scale at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has just brought scientists a critical step...

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