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Taking Measure

Just a Standard Blog

Physics

‘W’eird Signals: Listening in on the Eclipse

August 15, 2017

Two years ago, I had never heard of the WWVB radio station. Today, it’s one of my favorites, but that’s not because it broadcasts a pleasant mix of Top 40 hits

More Power to You, Wonder Woman!

June 16, 2017

First, let me say that I’m totally energized by the good press my dear acquaintance Wonder Woman has been receiving lately. It’s absolutely electrifying to see

Unidentified Museum Objects, Vol. I

June 14, 2017

Right now, the NIST museum in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is displaying a glass globe the size of a large beach ball. When visitors first come upon it, they’re not

What Debbie Jin Meant to Me

May 11, 2017

NIST/JILA Fellow Debbie Jin died of cancer on Sept. 15, 2016, at the age of 47. One of the most prominent researchers at NIST, she won many science awards

The Magnetic Allure of Superconductivity

March 31, 2017

One of my favorite things about being a condensed matter physicist is how broadly defined the subject is. There are lots of interesting phenomena begging for

Pushing the Quantum Limit in the Search for Dark Matter

March 16, 2017

Here’s a surprising fact: We don’t know what makes up 80 percent of the matter in the universe. I don’t mean that the matter is made of atoms, and we just don’t

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

Roundish shape clear ball containing multiple round-ish shapes with red or orange centers

Taking a Seat at the Periodic Table

February 7, 2017

In case you haven’t already heard, if you wanted to give your loved one that special, once-in-a-lifetime gift by naming one of the elements in row 7 of the

Photo of man in white space suite on surface of moon at night.

Mooning Over Measurement

January 31, 2017

I’ve worked with many valuable materials in my career. Precious metals like gold and platinum, rare engineered nanomaterials, and fragile gemstones nearly as

Ideas Whose Time Has Come (and Gone), v. 2017

December 20, 2016

A catchphrase from a popular reality show goes: “One day you're in. And the next day, you're out.” For the purposes of the show, the host is referencing fashion

Finding Art in Science

October 24, 2016

I’m a graphic designer, or, in the language of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, a "Visual Information Specialist." For the past 18 years I’ve been

Photo of purplish black sky with a streak of bright lightning

In Pursuit of Plasma Power: Hot Stuff, Snowstorms, and Starry Skies

September 15, 2016

Do we really need hot stuff? I’m not talking about Donna Summer’s disco hit of 1979 or global warming. I’m not talking about anything so lukewarm as the surface

Revolution by Design: The Materials Genome Initiative

August 17, 2016

The creation of a new material has long been either an accident or a matter of trial and error. Steel, for instance, was developed over hundreds of years by

The NIST Summer Institute for Middle School Science Teachers: An Educator's Journey

August 9, 2016

I was always fascinated with science. However, I steered away from pursuing science beyond high school because there was too much math involved (and “MATH,” a

Women’s Body Armor: Staying Ahead of the Curves

August 1, 2016

As I peer into the cardboard box NIST researcher Amanda Forster holds out for me, I can’t help thinking that this mild-mannered materials scientist has an

Know Nukes: Reference Materials for Nuclear Forensics

July 25, 2016

Legwarmers, preppies, yuppies, Molly Ringwald, nuclear paranoia … the 1980s were my favorite decade. I was in junior high school in New Jersey when I saw The

If I Had a Hammer … I’d Do Impact Testing

July 8, 2016

Right now, scientists all over the world are trying to understand how we get injured when our bodies are subjected to strong, dynamic loads – a hard body-check

World Metrology Day: Kilogram in the Balance

May 20, 2016

It was Monday, April 25, 2016, and I was going to meet mass experts Pat Abbott and Eddie Mulhern of NIST’s Mass and Force group as part of my frantic

John Cahn standing by blackboard smiling

My Memories of John Cahn

April 28, 2016

This article was written in response to the March 14, 2016, death of John Cahn , one of the world’s foremost materials scientists, who worked at NIST from 1977

Directing My Energy Toward a Sustainable Future

April 22, 2016

Have you ever wondered what might happen if we run out of fossil fuels? How do you think we will be able to survive without the resources we need to heat and

A Slice of Math Functions for Pi Day

March 14, 2016

Happy Pi Day! No, not pie day, Pi Day. That Greek character pi, π, that you’ve heard of but aren’t quite sure what the big deal is. Pi is the ratio of a circle

The Periodic Table: It’s Elementary!

February 12, 2016

Of all the many useful and interesting periodic tables on the Internet—the periodic tables of the animals, vegetables, and minerals—and U.S. Presidents, Vienna®

Sticking Point: Temperature Control Vital to Vaccine Viability

January 21, 2016

Flu season typically peaks between December and February, but by the time the winter holidays roll around, many of us will have already waited in line at area

Howard Yoon with the NIST standard of spectral irradiance, a bright light, well-calibrated light bulb..

Lighting the Way Toward Better Measurements

January 15, 2016

As a physicist who explores ways to measure light more accurately, it should come as no surprise that I’m fascinated by even common optical phenomena that we

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