National Institute Of Standards And Technology

What Does National Institute Of Standards And Technology Mean?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a measurements standards laboratory, a non-regulatory agency working under the U.S. Department of Commerce. The agency aims to improve innovation and competitiveness through the advancement of technology, standards, and measurement science as well as improve quality of life and enhance financial security.

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Between 1901 and 1988, this agency was known as the National Bureau of Standards (NBS).

Techopedia Explains National Institute Of Standards And Technology

As a unit of the Department of Commerce, NIST must develop and promote standards in order to facilitate innovation and stability due to standardization. This has been the quest of NIST ever since its inception in 1790, when President Washington declared in his first message to Congress that the uniformity of currency and weights and measurements must be seen to. He ordered the then Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to prepare a plan for this. NIST itself (originally known as NBS) came to being in 1901, with its predecessor, the Office of Standard Weights and Measures doing the job since 1830 as part of the U.S. Treasury Department.

NIST’s headquarters is in Gaithersburg, Maryland with another operational facility in Boulder, Colorado. Its operations are separated as laboratory programs and extramural programs. As of October 1st, 2010, there are six laboratory units:

· Information Technology Laboratory (ITL)

· Engineering Laboratory (EL)

· Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML)

· Material Measurement Laboratory (MML)

· NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR)

· Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST)

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Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…