'Global Confidence Through SI Traceability'

摘要

Editor's Note: It seems that World Metrology Day is a bigger event globally than in the U.S. In recognizing that fact, NCSLI will be working in 2006 to take more note of that important day. Meantime, Andrew Wallard's BIPM organization published this important recognition of an event we all should be interested in promoting to the general public and the technical community. On 20 May 1875, 17 States became the founding Members of the Metre Convention. The Convention is the second oldest intergovernmental treaty arrangement and set the scene for what is now 130 years of achievement and success in the establishment of a global infrastructure for precise, accurate and traceable measurement. Today there are 51 Members of the Convention and 17 Associate States and Economies of the General Conference on Weights and Measures. The first members of the Convention and the staff of the Bureau International des Poidset Mesures (BIPM) started with the metre and the kilogram as reference standards. However the work of the Convention now extends to a much greater number of international measurement standards and is making its presence felt in fields as diverse as biological standards and nanotechnologies.