Global Engineering Journal

Weights & Measures: Who's Responsible For Uniform Standards?

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology's ability to provide research, measurement tools and technical services has helped to create an advanced science and technology infrastructure. This includes helping to create uniform standards pertaining to weights and measures.

Before delving into this issue, it's useful to look back a bit. NIST has gone by a number of different names through the years. When it opened its doors in 1901, it was called the National Bureau of Standards. Two years later, the word "National" was dropped, only to be added back in 1934. For more than half a century, it was generally referred to as "NBS." Then, in 1988, it formally became the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Weights & Measures
NIST HDBK 44

From its earliest days, NIST has worked for a variety of constituencies, including the American consumer. One of its earliest activities was to create uniformity in the area of weights and measures, an area of significant concern, not only to science and industry, but to the general public as well.

In 1905, Louis A. Fischer, chief of the Metrology Division, convened a conference on the issue of weights and measures. Only 11 representatives of various states participated. Fischer's efforts, though, were rewarded when the members of the group agreed to meet annually, with the goal of creating uniform laws pertaining to the standardization of weights and measures. Fischer's original group evolved into the National Conference on Weights and Measures, and it now has more than 3,000 participants.

ISO 5725
Parts 1-6

NIST is responsible for maintaining U.S. standards on Weights and Measures, by providing calibrations and standards to officials in each of the fifty states. NIST also accredits state standards labs, continues to sponsor the annual National Conference, and provides both testing protocols and professional training. Further, NIST participates in an ongoing comparison and updating process overseen by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, based in France. Forty-eight nations in all collaborate in this process under the terms of a diplomatic treaty.

NIST's efforts in this vitally important area were formally recognized by the SIM Council, which represents 34 nations in the Western Hemisphere. Their recent resolution reads, in part:

"The Council of the Inter-American Metrology System (SIM) recognizes the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for its pioneering... Internet-based pilot project, which will enable National Metrology Institutes throughout the Americas to work more closely together. This unique effort will certainly speed up and develop greater confidence in the measuring systems of all SIM nations, thereby fulfilling a cardinal requirement for establishment of the Free Trade Area of the Americas."

NEXT MONTH: The Electronic Kilogram and Other Electrical Issues

NIST's Electricity Division wants to, "Provide an alternative definition of the SI unit of mass which instead of the present physical artifact, is based on measured quantities determined by fundamental physical constants of nature." In short, we'll get acquainted with the electronic kilogram and take a look at some of this division's other projects.

JOIN IN! We'd like to know how you feel about weights and measures. Please e-mail me at the address below. Tell us who and where you are, and what position you hold. Then, kindly answer the following questions:

1. What kinds of standards are most important to you in your work?
2. How do you use them?
3. Are they updated on a timely basis?
4. What is YOUR definition of a "good" standard?

We will print a representative sampling of the answers we receive, and, unless notified otherwise, we will provide attribution. Please let us know if you do not wish to be identified and/or to have your employer's name listed if you're among the people whom we quote.

Thanks,
Jaren Green, Editor
jaren.green@ihs.com
Global Engineering Documents, A Division of IHS Engineering

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