New Measurement Will Help Redefine International Unit of Mass | NIST

In December 2013, before NIST began its experiments on its newest Kibble balance, group members wrote their predictions on the value of Planck’s constant they would measure. Shisong Li, a guest researcher from Tsinghua University in China, came closest. His prediction differed by only about 5 parts per billion from the measured result. Credit: NIST

Using a state-of-the-art device for measuring mass, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have made their most precise determination yet of Planck’s constant, an important value in science that will help to redefine the kilogram, the official unit of mass in the SI, or international system of units. Accepted for publication in the journal Metrologia, these new results come ahead of a July 1 international deadline for measurements that aim to redefine the entire SI in terms of fundamental constants of nature.

Source: New Measurement Will Help Redefine International Unit of Mass | NIST