Tag archives: SI units

Hands-on physics – Sarah Tesh with a replica of the device used to measure temperature at the National Physical Laboratory

By Matin Durrani and Sarah Tesh

Here at Physics World we’re planning to publish special issues later this year on time (in July) and on SI units and measurement (in November). So to find out more about the latest work in these fields, we decided to accept a long-standing invitation to visit the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, just outside London, yesterday.

The NPL is the UK’s national measurement laboratory and, as we found out on our visit yesterday, it’s home to almost 900 staff. Or, to be precise, there are 879 staff – after all, accuracy is the name of the game for the NPL, which provides vital measurement services to industry and plays a key part in global attempts to revise the SI measurement system.

It was a busy day for us and we came away with some useful ideas for possible articles for those two Physics World special issues. But rather than giving you a detailed run-down of everything we saw, here instead are 12 “fun” facts we picked up during our visit. Sometimes it’s those little details that make lab visits so intriguing.

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