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Heute das Volt, Morgen das Kilogramm!
Sep. 14th, 2005 06:17 pmI am pleased to see that Dr. Dick Steiner, who was my lab partner at Notre Dame in many of our physics classes, has made the news with new, more precise results for measuring the kilogram electronically.
Note that Dick's face is lurking behind the apparatus in the picture.
Dick has been in the business of precision electrical measurements at NIST for a long time; for a while, he was Keeper of the Volt. Probably this involves wearing special ceremonial robes.
Most men would have been satisfied. But Dick had massive ambition.
For some years he has been hoping to improve this watt-balance method so the kilogram can be defined in purely electrical terms. That platinum-iridium slug in the vault in Paris gets a little lighter every time they dust it, after all.
I like to think that I helped give him his start-- or at least that I didn't slow him down very much.
Note that Dick's face is lurking behind the apparatus in the picture.
Dick has been in the business of precision electrical measurements at NIST for a long time; for a while, he was Keeper of the Volt. Probably this involves wearing special ceremonial robes.
Most men would have been satisfied. But Dick had massive ambition.
For some years he has been hoping to improve this watt-balance method so the kilogram can be defined in purely electrical terms. That platinum-iridium slug in the vault in Paris gets a little lighter every time they dust it, after all.
I like to think that I helped give him his start-- or at least that I didn't slow him down very much.
