NIST Boulder Labs
Published on Mar 18, 2007 at 2:01 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under travel.
Well, I am back from Spring Break. I really needed that break. I was worn out!
One of the places that I went was Boulder, Colorado. I really like the Boulder area. There is a lot to see and do around there. One place that I got to visit that I’ve wanted to see for years (but have never had the opportunity) was the Boulders Labs of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
As a background, the federal National Bureau of Standards (NBS) was established in 1901 to create a standard of measurements. Until that time, there was not any real standard. A foot or a mile was a different length in different parts of the country. You might weigh so many pounds in one part of the country, and 30 pounds less in another, but not because you’d lost weight. Rather, the pound might be defined differently in other parts of the country. So, NBS was formed. It is part of the federal government (Department of Commerce). But, NBS quickly grew to study more than just weights and measures. They began to study all sorts of things, including electrical properties of materials, radio transmission, computer communications, material reliabilities, light, optics, etc. All of these things, like the weights and measures, need to have a standardization in order to promote commerce. Given its increasing role in doing more than just standards, though, the National Bureau of Standards was changed to be the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1988. In 1954, NBS built its Boulder, Colorado, campus, primarily to study radio propagation properties. But, the Boulder location also quickly became the site for NBS’s time and frequency standards, and is still NIST’s premier time and frequency standard site.
It is very important to have accurate time measurements for many things. This is required for precision navigation, computing, orbital calculations, etc. Frequency is a related concept. Frequency is how many times something happens per second. For example, a frequency of 1.35 GHz means that something is happening 1.35 billion times per second. Naturally, if the definition of the second is not exact, neither is the frequency. And, the frequency needs to be exactly defined in certain circumstances, such as with radio communication. As more and more signals are transmitted by radio waves, we can use more of the radio spectrum by having each signal more exactly defined in terms of frequency.  The scientists in Boulder have created some of the most accurate forms of clocks that we have on Earth. They keep time to better than one second in several million years.
And, the Boulder labs not only have these super accurate clocks, but they also keep the official time for the United States. As part of the NIST mission, this information was made available to the public through short wave radio broadcasts. This broadcast, WWV, is somehting that I’ve used for many years in order to maintain accurate time measurements for astronomy.  NIST also maintains the accuracy of a 60 kHz signal that is broadcast from Colorado. This 60 kHz signal is the signal that so many of the commercially available clocks labeled “atomic clock” use. A real atomic clock is a very large device that sucks down power, is difficult to move and operate, and is very expensive. But, there are a host of commercially available ordinary quartz clocks that have a tiny receiver that will sync up with the official time signal to maintain accuracy. Even you computer can go check the official time! On older computers, there is a program that you can download from the NIST web site that will sync your computer’s clock with the official NIST time. Most recent operating systems, such as the last couple of Windows releases, do this automatically, though you have to go into the settings to tell it to connect to NIST instead of Microsoft. You can do that by right clicking on the time display, click on Adjust Time, and then on the Internet Time tab (for Windows XP).
Needless to say I have been familiar with some of what goes on at NIST’s Boulder Labs for some time. So, when I got to visit, I jumped at the chance. Tours are free. However, you need to register for the tour in advance. They really like at least a week’s advance notice. I heard from one souce at NIST that the tours are only open to US Citizens, but our tour guide indicated that non-citizens might also be able to take the tour, but that they should expect to sign up for the tour several weeks in advance to be cleared. Tours are by appointment only, and they are only held at certain times on Thursdays. So, you need to plan ahead. The web site says that the Boulder site is closed for tours at the moment, but when we called they said that we could still sign up for a tour. You will go through a security screening (including checking your name on government watch lists), and you will need to present a photo ID of some sort. Basically, it is like taking a trip on an airline.
Most of the tour was a demonstration of cryogenics (playing with liquid nitrogen). I did that all through my master’s degree, but it is always fun. If you’ve never seen that sort of thing, though, it is well worth the security hurdles just to see. There’s a small but nice museum that you can look at, and you can pick up lots of useful literature. Then, you get to have an explanation as to how atomic clocks work, you see one, and then get to see the new one. The whole thing lasts a couple of hours.  So, if you are going to be in the Boulder area on a Thursday, check it out! But, remember to plan ahead.
-Astroprof
Andrew on March 19, 2007 at 2:48 pm: 1
Welcome back!!