This residential home on NIST’s campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland, bustles with activity, despite having no flesh-and-blood inhabitants. Its residents are electrical devices run by software, simulating a family of four. In the living room, kitchen and main bedroom, electric resistors mimic the heat released by human bodies. Humidifiers in the kitchen give off moisture as people would. Sensors measure temperature, humidity, chemicals and more. Software controls when water boils in the kitchen, how long showers last, when lights flip on and off. What you see in this video is NIST’s net-zero house. NIST researchers and collaborators designed this unique laboratory in the early 2010s with the goal of generating all the energy it would consume during a year — something accomplished by few U.S. buildings at the time. The net-zero house has helped scientists study how energy-saving technology impacts air quality, water quality and other essential features of a house. #NetZero #NetZeroHome #Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Research Services
Gaithersburg, MD 381,281 followers
Measure. Innovate. Lead.
About us
We are the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce. For more than a century, NIST has helped to keep U.S. technology at the leading edge. Our measurements support the smallest of technologies to the largest and most complex of human-made creations. NIST's mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life. See what innovative work we’re doing to support it: https://www.nist.gov/
- Website
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http://www.nist.gov
External link for National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
- Industry
- Research Services
- Company size
- 1,001-5,000 employees
- Headquarters
- Gaithersburg, MD
- Type
- Government Agency
- Founded
- 1901
- Specialties
- Standards, Metrology, Advanced Communications, Artificial Intelligence, Bioscience, Chemistry, Physics, Fire, Forensic Science, Environment, Cybersecurity, Mathematics and Statistics, Manufacturing, Electronics, Energy, Construction, Public Safety, Nanotechnology, Materials, Information Technology, Neutron Research, Health, Infrastructure, Buildings, Resilience, Transportation, Climate, and Performance Excellence
Locations
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Primary
100 Bureau Drive
Gaithersburg, MD 20899, US
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325 Broadway
Boulder, CO 80305, US
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331 Ft. Johnson Road
Charleston, South Carolina 29412, US
Employees at National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
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Krishna Sankar
SVP/Distinguished Engineer − Generative AI Red Teaming, Guardrails & Explainability @ U.S.Bank
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Charles Clark
Chief Research Scientist @ Aspen Quantum Consulting | NIST Fellow Emeritus
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Peter Mell
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Jonathan Bates
Not looking for work or accepting consulting projects — engaged until April 2026
Updates
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What is entanglement? Entanglement is the quantum phenomenon where the properties of two particles are intertwined even if they are separated by great distances from each other. Picture this: You are looking for a set of gloves. If you found the right glove alone in your closet, you can be certain the missing glove would fit your left hand. The two gloves could be described as entangled, as knowing something about one would tell you something important about the other that isn't a random feature. As we develop better computers, sensors, and communication, entanglement is a very important to NIST. #Quantum #Physics #NIST #IYQ2025 #QuantumPhysics
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“Since 1967 the second has been defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of cesium’s resonance frequency. In other words, when the outer electron of a cesium atom falls to the lower state and releases light, the amount of time it takes to emit 9,192,631,770 cycles of the light wave defines one second.” NIST Researchers spoke with Scientific American about the definition of a second and the future of time. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eriHePvY #Time #Technology #TechNews #ScienceAndTechnology
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In our connected world, information systems must agree on at least one thing to operate properly: the time. NIST provides official U.S. time over the internet so that users and customers can have a traceable, unbiased reference. The best part is that a time request is quick, easy and free for everyone. No wonder the NIST Network Time Service receives approximately 1 million web requests per second, which makes it the most requested service provided by the U.S. government. Users of the NIST Network Time Service include many financial institutions and federal departments, including the United States Department of Defense, USDA, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the U.S. Department of State. Additionally, at least 16 state governments use the time service for general government operations.
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Thermodynamics provides the laws governing the flow of energy, which were used in the Industrial Revolution to describe systems such as steam engines. Quantum mechanics, in contrast, describes the physical behavior of the smallest particles in the universe and underlies the operation of 21st-century devices, such as quantum computers. In her work at the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science, fellow Nicole Yunger Halpern is exploring what these two fields have in common. She’s learned some surprising things that run counter to our everyday experiences. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eRU-AxMm #Thermodynamics #Quantum
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Get a good look at our million pounds-force deadweight machine. It produces, as the name indicates, one million pounds (4.45 meganewtons) worth of force. The load cells calibrated with this machine are used to measure things such as the thrust of a rocket or jet engine. For more information, take a look at our article explaining how you measure rocket thrust: https://lnkd.in/eGtvA_J #Rocket #Technology #Instrument #Calibration
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NIST has a lot of love for quantum research. Quantum concepts can feel very intimidating to those who don’t work with them daily. One of those “confusing” topics is called quantization. In our everyday world, objects appear to move in a continuous path. Water rises steadily in a bathtub. A NIST employee on an elevator to their floor moves between floors. But in the quantum realm, things jump and jitter. An electron can instantly leap from one orbit to another, essentially disappearing from the original orbit and reappearing at the new one. And while a NIST employee continuously changes their gravitational energy while riding an elevator, electrons in an atom make quantum hops up and down a fixed set of energies, like appearing on different stair steps. At NIST we use quantization in our atomic clocks and in the building blocks for quantum computers. #IYQ2025 #QuantumCurious #QuantumFuture #QuantumYear #STEMEducation
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Remember that childhood song that talks about the hole in the bottom of the sea? Each verse of the song piles another item into the hole at the bottom of the sea, culminating in something ridiculous. A physics student at Washington University in St. Louis remembered that song as he collaborated with NIST to pack scientific equipment into a large refrigerator and then launch it into the sky on a balloon (safely). While it sounds silly, the goal is serious: to learn about our universe and what it can teach us about fundamental physics. Learn more in our latest Taking Measure blog post: https://lnkd.in/evXUEZup #Technology #Physics
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Show and tell: NIST physicist Howard Yoon holds up the triple point of water, the point at which water exists simultaneously as a solid, liquid and gas in thermal equilibrium (when the water has no net gain or loss of heat). For many years all around the globe, the triple point of water defined the metric system’s unit of temperature (the kelvin). But there were slight differences from one lab to the next. Concentrations of the hydrogen and oxygen isotopes in the water changed depending on where in the world the measurements were happening. Then, scientists agreed upon a fixed value for the triple point of water. They based it on the Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (a specific chemical composition of distilled ocean water, a standard formulation established by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna). Nowadays, the unit of temperature is defined by a constant of nature known as the Boltzmann constant. But the triple point of water is still used to ensure the accuracy of platinum resistance thermometers, a gold standard in temperature measurement. The accuracy of these thermometers trickles down through calibration labs and comparisons to the thermometers that measure, for example, your room temperature or the heat behind manufacturing processes. #Temperature #Thermometry #Thermometer #Metrology
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NIST wants to help you get the best bang for your buck! Unit pricing is the pricing of goods based on the cost per unit of measure. Next time you’re at the grocery store, take a moment to look for the unit pricing on shelf tags. Unit pricing labels typically display the product name and size, the price, the price per unit (e.g., how much you pay per gram, liter, or ounce). Unit pricing is the best way to see if you’re really getting the best deal! NIST recently published a guide with the best practice approach to ensure that unit price labels are easy to read, informative, and understandable. Learn more about unit pricing by reading https://lnkd.in/eP9yPFKe #SmartShopping #UnitPricing #ConsumerAwareness
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