If scientists had sacred objects, this would be one of them: a single, closely guarded 137-year-old cylinder of metal, housed in a vault outside of Paris. It is a prototype that precisely defines a ...

Nick van Remortel demystifies natural unit systems — and advises what to do when you see a mass expressed in GeV. Several unit systems for describing the natural world exist. The International System ...

Wondering why the United States measures things in inches and pounds? The answer will definitely surprise you All countries use the metric system to varying degrees. Most of the world has adopted the ...

Taking the first steps of what would be a major historical advance in the science of measurement, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is participating in a worldwide effort to ...

SI Units: In our daily lives, we use measurements constantly, whether it is checking the temperature, weighing vegetables, or measuring the distance between two places. But imagine how confusing it ...

The NIST-4 Kibble balance, an electromagnetic weighing machine that is used to measure Planck's constant, and in turn, redefine the kilogram. Jennifer Lauren Lee / NIST Locked in a vault that requires ...

Have you ever noticed that systems of measurement tends to change when you leave the United States? Weight is typically measured in kilograms instead of pounds, distance is measured in kilometers over ...