The article discusses the importance of light in various measurement standards and technologies. NIST researcher Howard Yoon explains how light’s properties are used to define and measure SI units, including the meter, candela, and mole. He describes how light-based technologies like GPS, fiber optics, and LIDAR rely on precise measurements of light’s properties. Yoon also discusses NIST’s work on redefining the kilogram using a watt balance and the kelvin using acoustic thermometers. The article concludes by emphasizing the power of light to enable better measurements and technologies, and the potential for quantum effects to revolutionize measurement standards in the future.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/blogs/taking-measure/lighting-way-toward-better-measurements
Keywords: photons, laser, interferometer, quantum, metrology, temperature, kelvin
