An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Static force, such as the weight of a person standing motionless on a bathroom scale or the force that an office full of equipment exerts on a high-rise floor
Space-time ripples, exploding stars, colliding black holes …. and the National Institute of Standards and Technology? NIST doesn’t exactly come to mind when
Mechanical engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have just finished calibrating several dozen large metal masses, which will be
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have proposed a novel method for finding dark matter, the cosmos’s
It images single atoms. It maps atomic-scale hills and valleys on metal and insulating surfaces. And it records the flow of current across atom-thin materials
Just as a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, the deformations and fractures that cause catastrophic failure in materials begin with a few
Lasers play roles in many manufacturing processes, from welding car parts to crafting engine components with 3D printers.* To control these tasks, manufacturers
What drives cells to live and engines to move? It all comes down to a quantity that scientists call “free energy,” essentially the energy that can be extracted
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have been developing a novel way of measuring laser power. Their device, called the
A decade before an iceberg shattered the hull plates of the Titanic and half a century before a plague of brittle fractures started sinking Liberty ships during
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
BOULDER, Colo.-- Biophysicists at JILA have measured protein folding in more detail than ever before, revealing behavior that is surprisingly more complex than
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
An innovative three-in-one instrument that allows scientists to correlate the flowability of soft “gooey” materials such as gels, molten polymers and biological
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
The last few bolts were tightened just weeks ago – by hand. Now fully restored, NIST's 4.45 meganewton (one million pounds-force) deadweight machine – the
It's official: NIST's 4.45-million newton (equivalent to one million pounds-force) deadweight machine – the largest in the world – is back in one piece after a
For the first time in half a century, NIST's 4.45-million newton (equivalent to one million pounds-force) deadweight machine – the largest in the world – is