Early glass Bunsen Burner |
Measuring
is a changing and dynamic field of interest. Metrology is the science
of measurement and is a fundamental tool in all aspects of science and
everyday living. Even industry needs to have guidelines to make sure the
units they used conform to international standards. Calibration of
equipment that measures is a thriving business to make sure companies conform
to industry standards. There is actually an “International Committee on
Weights and Measures” and each country has their own “Measuring Police.” In
the United States we have a National Bureau of Standards and Technology
and each state has its own bureau to make sure consumers get the amount of
product that they paid for. As new technologies arise there are more
standards to create and calibrate
Measurement involves a comparison of an
unknown to a known quantity. These known quantities are actually standards
derived by international agreement in 1959. There is no magic in a meter, a
yard, a foot, or a kilometer. These lengths were arbitrary. They
were used as a way to keep track of distance. For instance, from 1889-1960, a
meter was the distance between 2 marks on a metal bar. Now it pertains to the
distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 second. |
