CZ:Featured article/Current
National Institute of Standards and Technology
by Paul Wormer, Milton Beychok and John R. Brews
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce.[1] The institute was founded in 1901 with the aim to advance measurement science, standards, and technology. NIST was known between 1901–1988 as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS).
NIST has an operating budget of about $1.6 billion[2] and operates in two locations: Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boulder, Colorado. NIST employs a staff of about 2,900 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support and administrative personnel. About 2,600 associates and facility users from academia, industry and other government agencies complement the staff.[3]
History
Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution grants the U.S. Congress the power to "To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures". In June 1836, almost fifty years after the U. S. Constitution was ratified, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a joint resolution establishing a U.S. Office of Weights and Measures within the U.S. Department of the Treasury. From that date until March 1901, the Office of Weights and Measures was administered mostly by the U.S. Coast Survey, later renamed as the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (USC&GS), within the U.S. Department of the Treasury.[4] Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler, a professor of mathematics, served as the head of U.S. Coast Survey as well as the Office of Weights and Measures from 1836 to 1843.[5][6]
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