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1960
Automating the Census
Without realizing
it, most Americans adults likely have had some of their household
information scrutinized by FOSDIC.
The Film Optical
Sensing Device for Input to Computers, which scanned microfilm of
handmarked forms and converted the markings into electronic form,
was developed by NIST for the U.S. Bureau of the Census in the early
1950s. Updated versions of the device processed data collected in
the censuses held every 10 years from 1960 until 1990, introducing
automation to this massive survey.
Before FOSDIC,
census data were key-punched into cards. FOSDIC enabled the switch
to multiple-choice documents and, by 1970, self-enumeration by the
public, a cost-saving measure. Scanning with a cathode ray tube
under the direction of a computer program, the first FOSDIC translated
up to 10 million “answer positions” per hour into computer
input. The last model used in the 1990 census operated at 20 times
this rate.
Twelve different
versions of FOSDIC were developed and put into service from 1954
through 1998. Various models were used by or for federal agencies
to process data on fallout shelters, atmospheric pollutants, medical
records, postal mail volume, and other surveys. The machines also
were used to scan microfilms of archival weather data and special
films made in underwater instruments. Among census-related applications,
the machines collected data on which the nation’s unemployment
figures were based for more than 30 years.
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1961
Synchrotron Sheds New Light on Research
Today’s
scientists compete for time on synchrotrons—large, donut-shaped
facilities that produce a unique type of radiation. The technology
is used, for example, to analyze protein structures as a basis for
designing new drugs. But back in 1961, this research tool was little
more than a curiosity outside of NIST, where the first regular experiments
using synchrotron light were carried out.
Synchrotron
radiation is emitted by electrons that are accelerated in a magnetic
field. In the early 1950s, NIST found itself with an electron accelerator
that another federal lab did not want. At the time, physicists were
most interested in the particles (electrons) circulating in the
device. It was also known that the electrons emitted light, which
interested NIST because of the potential for an absolute radiometric
standard—in effect, a “national standard light bulb.”
Among its advantages, the radiation is continuous across the spectrum
and can be “tuned” to the desired wavelength.
Robert Madden,
who became director of the Institute’s Synchrotron Ultraviolet
Radiation Facility (SURF), was hired in 1961 along with another
spectroscopist, Keith Codling, to develop the NIST facility into
a light source. Their groundbreaking studies of the energy-absorption
spectrum of helium, and later other noble gases (neon, argon, krypton,
and xenon), revealed new interaction mechanisms among the gases,
radiation, and free electrons. The results startled scientists around
the world and influenced the direction of atomic physics for some
time. The research also affected fields such as astrophysics, where
the new processes had to be taken into account in stellar models.
Perhaps most importantly, Madden and Codling proved how useful synchrotron
radiation could be.
An upgraded
SURF remains in operation today, supporting work by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration and the microelectronics industry.
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1964
Mathematics Handbook Becomes Best Seller
From making
a military map to explaining the knock in gasoline engines or the
light scattering that produces a rainbow, many technical and scientific
challenges are best solved with the aid of mathematical functions.
Such functions are so important that a national project devoted
to compiling tables of them was established in the late 1930s. Thus
began a NIST tradition of publishing mathematics reference data.
The invention
of computers threatened to make the tables obsolete. But at a national
conference in 1954, it was agreed that computers merely changed
how the tables should be designed. For instance, for use in programming
computers, the figures would need to be more accurate than before.
So Milton Abramowitz and Irene A. Stegun of NIST produced an updated
compendium, an effort that took eight years.
More than 1,000
pages long, the Handbook of Mathematical Functions was first
published in 1964 and reprinted many times, with yet another reprint
in 1999. Its influence on science and engineering is evidenced by
its popularity. In fact, when New Scientist magazine recently
asked some of the world’s leading scientists what single book
they would want if stranded on a desert island, one distinguished
British physicist said he would take the Handbook.
The Handbook
is likely the most widely distributed and most cited NIST technical
publication of all time. Government sales exceed 150,000 copies,
and an estimated three times as many have been reprinted and sold
by commercial publishers since 1965. During the mid-1990s, the book
was cited every 1.5 hours of each working day. And its influence
will persist as it is currently being updated in digital format
by NIST.
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1966
An Early Spreadsheet
More than a
decade before spreadsheet software helped to launch the boom in
personal computers (PCs), NIST published Omnitab, a computer program
for statistical and numerical analysis that had many attributes
of a spreadsheet.
Conceived by
the Institute’s Joseph Hilsenrath and based in part on colleague
Joseph Wegstein’s earlier work on a tabular computing scheme,
Omnitab was written to automate routine programming tasks—such
as handling data input and output and producing graphs—for
NIST physicists, chemists, and engineers, who were thus freed to
concentrate on higher level science. Omnitab proved so helpful that
its use extended far beyond NIST. For about 10 years after its 1966
publication, it was popular with statisticians in agricultural research,
private industry, and universities. Foreign-language editions appeared
as well; the program could accept simple commands in French, German,
and even Japanese.
Omnitab was
like a spreadsheet because it had an extensive and accurate math
facility, a macro language, and a graphical output. Most importantly,
it created a tableau in which the entries were calculated from input
values. However, operations were defined for entire columns. VisiCalc,
the “killer application” business spreadsheet unveiled
in 1979 for PCs, allowed functions to be entered in individual cells
and was more
dynamic and interactive.
Omnitab initially
used an old programming language and did not migrate to PCs until
after its heyday. But its influence persists today in the form of
Minitab, a PC-based commercial software package for teaching statistics
and for research in business and manufacturing.
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1967
Learning from Structural Failures
By understanding
the history of structural failures, NIST engineers and materials
scientists help to make sure they aren’t repeated.
So it was in
1967, when the Point Pleasant Bridge linking West Virginia to Ohio
suddenly collapsed, dumping vehicles into the Ohio River and killing
46 people. Transportation officials asked NIST to send an investigator,
and after he arrived, John Bennett found a shallow crack that appeared
to initiate a fracture in a key piece of the bridge suspension system.
This system was made of a relatively new carbon steel that, as was
later learned, tended to crack. Many other cracks were found, all
in areas of heavy corrosion.
The investigation
underscored the importance of basic research in materials science
and engineering. It also led to safer bridges nationwide. An identical
bridge was closed in West Virginia, and federal highway officials
then investigated cracks in all U.S. highway bridges.
Other high-profile
failure analysis cases focused on ships and buildings. In the 1940s,
a number of U.S. “Liberty” ships that had been welded
together (instead of riveted) cracked apart when exposed to frigid
water. NIST test results led to the use of better materials in supertankers.
In 1981, NIST
was asked to investigate the collapse of walkways in the Kansas
City Hyatt Regency Hotel—the nation’s worst building collapse,
which killed 114 people and injured more than 200.
(In the photo
on the right, NIST researchers test a part from a Hyatt Regency
Hotel walkway.) Among the major conclusions: Critical connections
in two walkways were capable of supporting less than one-third of
the load expected under the local building code. This condition
resulted from a change by the fabricator in the original design,
and subsequent approval of that change by the design engineer, without
further analysis. As a result of this case, the American Society
of Civil Engineers adopted a document assigning, for the first time,
responsibility for various aspects of the construction process.
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1967
Assuring Quality in Tests and Materials
Before 1967,
it was difficult to know whether a person really had high cholesterol.
That’s because U.S. cholesterol tests were off by as much as
23 percent—resulting in either unnecessary treatment or an
increased (and unacknowledged) risk of death.
Things changed
for the better after 1967, when NIST produced its first Standard
Reference Material® (SRM®) for clinical applications. This
pure, crystalline material, laboriously measured and analyzed, was
used by manufacturers and clinical labs to calibrate instruments
for analyzing cholesterol. By 1969, the uncertainty in cholesterol
tests had fallen to 18 percent. It fell further to about 5 percent
in 1995, thanks to new and improved renewals of blood serum SRMs
for cholesterol values, as well as other factors.
In recent decades,
NIST has produced more than 60 different clinical chemistry standards,
which help to assure the accuracy, reliability, and consistency
of a wide variety of laboratory tests, from the amount of lead or
glucose in blood to “DNA fingerprinting.”
The clinical
standards are just one category of SRMs, which date back to 1906
(when they were called standard samples). The program began when
the Institute was asked to settle disputes regarding the carbon
and sulfur contents of various irons and steels used by the railroad
industry. At the time, virtually no technical information existed
on the physical properties of these materials, and there were few
standard test methods or calibrated measurement tools. NIST produced
its first standard sample when the American Foundryman’s Association
requested standardized iron for its member industries. Today, some
35,000 units of SRMs are sold each year.
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1969
An
Out-of-This-World Experiment
In their pioneering
moon landing on July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 crew left behind a
briefcase-sized array of reflectors that bounce back a powerful
laser pulse aimed at it from telescopes on Earth. By measuring the
round-trip travel time for the pulse (about 2.5 seconds), scientists
defined the distance between the Earth and moon to better than 2.5
cm (1 inch). The experiment—one of the space program’s
longest running and most cost effective—was suggested by James
Faller of JILA, a Boulder, Colo., research institute jointly operated
by NIST and the University of Colorado. He also provided the initial
design for the Apollo 11 array and the two additional reflector
arrays that were left by later missions, Apollo 14 (shown on right)
and Apollo 15. The experiment, which is still active today, continues
to provide new insights into the length of the Earth’s day;
knowledge of the moon’s orbit, the lunar tides, and the combined
mass of the Earth and moon; and an important test of gravitational
theories.
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Date created:
11/2/00
Last updated: 11/7/00
Contact: inquries@nist.gov
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