User:Milton Beychok/Sandbox: Difference between revisions

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{{Image|Samuel W. Stratton.jpg|right|200px|Samuel W. Stratton}}


==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 accordance with that, in June 1836, 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]]<ref>Later renamed as the [[U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey]] (USCG&S)</ref> within the [[U.S. Department of the Treasury]].<ref>There were some time periods during which the [[U.S. Army]] and/or the [[U.S. Navy]] administered the USCG&S</ref> [[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.<ref>[http://www.dean.usma.edu/math/about/history/hassler.htm Ferdinand Rudolph Hessler]</ref><ref>[http://www.azdwm.gov/Default.aspx?tabid=269 A Historic Review of Weights and Measures in the United States]</ref>
In 1899, [[Henry Smith Pritchett]] (then head of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey) was determined to bring the Office of Weights and Measures into line with the changing industrial and scientific needs for standards other than simply weights and measures. To that end, he asked [[Samuel W. Stratton]], a physics professor at [[Chicago University]] (later to become president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), to help reorganize the Office of Weights and Measures. Stratton developed a comprehensive report on the need for a well-equipped national bureau of standards and outlined plans for establishing it.<ref>{{cite book|author=David F. Noble|title=America by Design: Science, Technology, and The Rise of Corporate Capitalism|edition=|publisher=Oxford Press|year=1979|id=ISBN 0-19-502618-7}}</ref><ref>''Science'', [[American Association for the Advancement of Science]], Vol. 21, January - June 1905, page 162</ref> The U.S. Congress adopted his ideas and enacted the Bureau of Standards Act in March 1901
which abolished the Office of Weights and Measures and created the [[National Bureau of Standards]] (NBS) within the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Stratton was appointed as its first director and he remained there for twenty-one years.<ref>[http://libraries.mit.edu/archives/mithistory/biographies/s-stratton.html Samuel Wesley Stratton, 1861-1931] from the libraries of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology</ref>
In February 1903, the NBS was transferred to the [[U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor]] and renamed as the Bureau of Standards. In 1913, it was transferred to the [[U.S. Department of Commerce]]. Then in 1934, the word "National" was again affixed to its name. For more than 50 years, it remained as the National Bureau of Standards. Finally, in 1988, it became the National Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as NIST.<ref>[http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/167.html Records of the National Institute of Technology] from the website of the U.S. National Archives</ref><ref>[http://www.100.nist.gov/directors.htm From NBS to NIST] from the NIST website</ref>

Revision as of 22:40, 1 March 2010

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