NIST is working on a big project in a small package.
When you want to weigh something – anything – in the United States, whether it’s a truck full of cargo or a sack of potatoes from the grocery store, you have to use a scale that’s been calibrated. As of May 20, 2019, the calibration relies on a measurement done with a specialized machine in the basement of a laboratory in Maryland, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The machine, called the NIST-4 Kibble balance, is the size of a walk-in closet, and scientists use it to measure a mass of roughly 1 kg to within three millionths of 1 percent.
Introducing the Tabletop Kibble Balance
This tabletop balance is only about the size of a ream of printer paper. But when complete, it should be capable of measuring masses with an accuracy 20,000 times better than a kitchen scale. It's the little sister to NIST's room-sized, ultra-accurate, one-of-a-kind mass measurement machine called the NIST-4 Kibble balance. This smaller, "tabletop" version of a Kibble balance is designed to be cheaper and more robust, though less accurate and for smaller masses, than the big machine. Someday, scientists hope a tabletop Kibble balance like this one can be commercialized and turned into an instrument that engineers can operate as easily as a microwave oven: just plug it in and use it, saving people time and money. Credit: Jennifer Lauren Lee/NIST
Researchers and manufacturers who need accurate mass measurements have to send their physical objects, called artifact mass standards, to NIST periodically to have them calibrated against the Kibble balance. But some people envision a world where, for measurements that don’t requ ..
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