“Precise measurements are among the most profound innovations in the entire history of science,” John Marburger, the president’s science adviser, said at the 21 June dedication ceremony of NIST’s new Advanced Measurement Laboratory in Gaithersburg, Maryland. “The facility … is an important part of the technical means the US government must deploy to maintain its leadership in the world’s economy,” said Marburger.
NIST hopes to encourage the development of high-tech products by opening the nearly 50 000-square-meter laboratory not only to its researchers but to hundreds of visitors from academia and industry. More than 100 research projects, from measuring the strength of a chemical bond between an antibody and a virus to studying the properties of Bose–Einstein condensates at temperatures near absolute zero are already moving into the building. “The main emphasis will be on research at the atomic scale,” says NIST spokesperson Michael Baum.
The $235 million...