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.

Taking Measure

Just a Standard Blog

Metrology

Atlantic Salmon Hormones, Trapping Molecular Ions, Lasers for Greenhouse Gas Measurements: Postdocs Share Their Stories on NIST Social Media

January 19, 2021

As the Feb. 1, 2021 deadline approaches for early-career researchers to join the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Research Council

Need Some Good News? NIST’s 2020 Highlights

December 22, 2020

2020 has been a challenging year, but we at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have worked as hard as we can to fulfill our mission for

The New NIST Fire Calorimetry Database Is Available to Answer Your Burning Questions

December 16, 2020

Several centuries ago, scientists discovered oxygen while experimenting with combustion and flames. One scientist called it “fire air.” Today, at the National

Key Comparisons: Transmitting Correct Measures All Around the World

December 9, 2020

New employees at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are often surprised to learn that our agency is part of the Department of Commerce

The Virtuous Cycle of Making and Measuring Nanostructures

October 9, 2020

In his 1959 lecture “ There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” Richard Feynman invited us to enter a new field of physics. He envisioned, with remarkable

‘The Last Artifact’ Brings Metrology to TV

September 10, 2020

Remember that documentary you saw that finally explained metrology and why measurements are critical to practically every aspect of modern life? Yeah, neither

Keeping Time at NIST

June 23, 2020

Einstein is reported to have once said that time is what a clock measures. Some say that what we experience as time is really our experience of the phenomenon

World Metrology Day: Measurements for Medicine

May 20, 2020

Today is World Metrology Day. Have you put up the decorations and baked a cake yet to celebrate?! You should! Metrology, the science of measurement, makes

Journeying From Laboratory Research to Documentary Standards

March 24, 2020

“Wow, that’s cool, but the meter was defined a long time ago, so what is really there for you to do?” This is the response I get from people when I tell them

The Vara: A Standard of Length With a Not-So-Standard History

October 11, 2019

By the 1850s, the United States had annexed nearly all of what are now its southwestern states from Mexico, and with the region, its peoples. Though the U.S

The 'Gang of Five' and the SI Revolution

May 20, 2019

Although I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, I was never a gang member there. My gang membership came much later and in an entirely unexpected way. No, more

Defending Against Nuclear and Radioactive Threats: A Q&A with NIST's Leticia Pibida

May 9, 2019

Leticia Pibida, a physicist in the Radiation Physics Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has been chosen as a finalist for a

Linking the World Through Chemical Measurements

April 23, 2019

Our modern world depends on global connections. For instance, how can you be sure that the nutrition labels are correct on imported food products such as that

What To Do When Measurement Methods Produce Different Answers

April 2, 2019

What are you looking to measure? This is one of the central questions for a metrologist (a measurement scientist) and is usually answered before measurements

Chasing Paper: Adventures in Fiber Analysis

March 19, 2019

Growing up in New Orleans, Louisiana, I had no scientific aspirations as a child. I do remember being entertained by science, relishing public television

The Case for Building Beautiful Instruments

March 26, 2019

I discovered my affinity for attractive instruments while working a job previous to my coming to NIST. My boss then had a love affair with the common hose clamp

Top NIST Images of 2018

February 6, 2019

There’s nothing quite like a captivating image to make you want to learn more. And nowhere is that more apparent than when it comes to sometimes hard-to

For All Times, For All Peoples: How Replacing the Kilogram Empowers Industry

November 27, 2018

Two unusual things happened on Nov. 16, 2018. Fifty-four nations from every continent (except Antarctica) agreed on something, and metrology, the science of

Reason and Measurement, Suits and Ties: My Personal Journey to the New SI

October 30, 2018

On Nov. 16, 2018, the General Conference on Weights and Measures, the governing body of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, will hold a gathering

Unidentified Museum Objects, Vol. III

April 17, 2018

Much like your attic, garage or basement, the NIST archives are home to quite a number of arcane objects of unclear origin and purpose. We periodically collect

Proving Our Mettle: NIST and the Boltzmann Constant Competition

December 21, 2017

How tall are you? How old? How much do you weigh? Do you care? Is it important to you that the measurements for height, age and weight are accurate? What about

What, Then, Is Time?

November 6, 2017

When asked to contribute an essay on some aspect of timekeeping, I had a flashback to the first day of my senior year in high school in Princeton, New Jersey

Pirates of the Caribbean (Metric Edition)

September 19, 2017

To save his own life, Joseph Dombey had an idea. As two pirate ships surrounded the ship he was on in the Caribbean Sea in 1794, Dombey scrambled below deck

Image of a napkin that has written on it the names of researchers involved in the project and their guesses for the value of Planck's Constant

A Massive Bet: The Planck Napkin

August 25, 2017

So, a bunch of metrologists walk into a bar. In late December 2013, a group of NIST researchers met at the local watering hole across the street from NIST’s

NIST scientist with jars of baby food and scientific equipment

(Baby) Food for Thought: The Limits of Detecting Toxic Elements

July 27, 2017

As the seasoned mom of three grown children, I’m happy to say that they all made it through babyhood without any major health issues. While I worked as an

7 Ways Measurements Help You Get Around

May 19, 2017

With International Firefighters’ Day behind us and World Turtle Day looming, you might not think you’ve got time for another international day in May. But don’t

Teaching Metrology Abroad as a Fulbright Specialist

March 8, 2017

It seems that I have been a teacher nearly my entire life. One of my first jobs as an early teen was helping to teach gymnastics to elementary students. Before

Measuring Up to the Task

March 3, 2017

Even though I have spent my entire professional career at NIST, until a year ago it would never have entered my mind that I would become the chief of the NIST

Saving Marie Curie’s Last Radium Standard

February 22, 2017

Marie Curie is perhaps the most famous woman of 20th-century science. Major motion pictures and best-selling biographies have chronicled her discovery of the

Developing the APTitude to Design New Materials, Atom-by-Atom

January 12, 2017

Cars, buildings, computer chips, you and me and the air we breathe, everything is made of atoms. We learn this in elementary school, because, well, it’s an

Our Science in Your Inbox

Subscribe to our weekly emails.