Home > National Physical Laboratory
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington, near London. It is the largest applied physics organisation in the UK, and has a role similar to that of NIST in the United States. NPL is an internationally respected centre of excellence in measurement and materials science. Since 1900, it has developed and maintained the primary national measurement standards. Today it provides the scientific resources for the National Measurement System financed by the Department of Trade and Industry. The NPL also offers a range of commercial services, applying scientific skills to industrial measurement problems, and broadcasts the MSF time signal.
NPL cooperates with professional networks such as those of the IEE to support scientists and engineers concerned with areas of work in which it has expertise.
Researchers who have worked at the NPL include Paul Baran and Donald Davies, who invented packet switching in the early 1960's, Louis Essen, who invented a more accurate atomic clock than those first built in America, Alan Turing, one of the fathers of modern digital computing, Robert Watson-WattSir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt ( April 13, 1892 December 5, 1973) is considered, by many, the inventor of radar . Biography Early years Born in Brechin in the county of Angus, Scotland, he was a descendant of James Watt, the famous engineer and inventor, generally considered the inventor of radar, Oswald Kubaschewski , the father of computational materials thermodynamicsThermodynamics is the physics of energy, heat, work, entropy and the spontaneity of processes. Thermodynamics is closely related to statistical mechanics from which many thermodynamic relationships can be derived. While dealing with processes in which sys and the numerical analystNumerical analysis is that branch of applied mathematics which studies the methods and algorithms to find (approximate) numerical solutions to various mathematical problems, using a finite sequence of arithmetic and logical operations. Most solutions of n James WilkinsonYou might want James Wilkinson (1757-1825), an American General. James Hardy Wilkinson ( 27 September, 1919 5 October, 1986) was a prominent figure in the field of numerical analysis, a field at the boundary of applied mathematics and computer science par.
A new privately-funded state-of-the-art laboratory for the NPL at Teddington is due to be completed during 2005.
External links
