CONTENTS Resistance Ratios. Voltage. Current Ratio Standards. New Compensated Current Comparator. Absolute Electrical Meas- Low-Frequency Calibration. High-Frequency Electrical Stand- ards. High-Frequency Impedance Standards. High-Frequency Nuclear Data. Atomic and Molecular Data. Solid State Data. Thermodynamics and Transport Data. Chemical Kinetics. Col- Nuclear Properties. Atomic and Molecular Properties. Solid State Properties. Thermodynamics and Transport Properties. Chemical Kinetics. Colloid and Surface Properties. Mechanical THE DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT NBS AN EVOLVING INSTITUTION Ever since its establishment by Congress in 1901 the Bureau has been characterized by a dynamic adaptation of its programs to the changing needs of science and industry. The Organic Act of 1901 as revised in 1950 authorized the Bureau to carry out the following basic functions: 1. Development and maintenance of the National standards of measurement and the provision of means for making measurements consistent with those standards; 2. Determination of physical constants and properties of materials; 3. Development of methods for testing materials, mechanisms, and structures, and the making of such tests as may be necessary, particularly for Government; 4. Cooperation with other governmental agencies and with private orga nizations in the establishment of standard practices incorporated in codes and specifications; 5. Advisory service to Government agencies on scientific and technical problems; 6. Invention and development of devices to serve special needs of the Government. Subsequent legislation, Executive Orders, and other actions added to these functions and assigned new responsibilities. Although the measurements-standards mission has remained fundamental to the Bureau's programs since its inception, the Bureau has engaged in a wide variety of activities which did not directly stem from its measurement responsibilities. Generally, these programs have been undertaken to meet the specialized needs of other Government agencies, or to provide scientific and engineering data for various segments of private industry and commerce which were not in a position, at the time, to maintain research activities of their own. The exponential growth of U. S. scientific and technological activity has increased the Bureau's workload in measurement and related fields many fold. At the same time, several new responsibilities have recently been assigned to it. Among these are: • To serve as the focal point within the Federal Government for stimulating the application of science and technology to the economy. Apart from fostering a viable national measurement system, this function involves an increased effort in the dissemination of technical information and in the development of engineering measurements and standards, which provide the technical base for performance criteria of goods and services. • To set up and operate the National Standard Reference Data System. NBS has been assigned the task of directing the centralized collection, evaluation, organization, and distribution of standard reference data. • To establish and expand a Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information. Here, the product handled is not data as such but R&D documents, the entire unclassified output of the considerable Federal scientific and technological complex. These documents help keep industry abreast of current technological developments. To set up and operate a central technical analysis service to conduct cost-benefit studies for our own, and other Commerce bureaus and Federal agencies on request. • To establish a central and major Government resource in the automatic data processing field. Under this heading we will be providing the technical base for standardization in the computer field and developing ways of using computers for new tasks and for using them more efficiently on old tasks. The last two responsibilities were assigned to us during fiscal year 1965. • Our Central Radio Propagation Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado has also been given major additional responsibilities. It has been asked to provide the nation with space environment information and prediction services and to extend its support to the nation's telecommunications industry to cover the infra-red and optical portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. On the other hand, this important part of the NBS is scheduled, during fiscal year 1966, to become a key component of a new agency, the Environmental Science Services Administration, created by the President's Reorganization Plan No. 2, which was presented in fiscal year 1965. The Bureau once again has made a major contribution in the creation of a new scientific facility. All of these recently assigned or expanded missions are described in greater detail in Section 3. These assignments are in addition to our traditional measurement responsibilities, which in the meanwhile have grown extensively. There are |