The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national
measurement standards laboratory
Metrology is the scientific study of measurement. It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial in linking human activities. Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution's political motivation to standardise units in Fr ...
of the United Kingdom. It is one of the most extensive government laboratories in the UK and has a prestigious reputation for its role in setting and maintaining physical standards for British industry.
Founded in 1900, it is one of the oldest
metrology
Metrology is the scientific study of measurement. It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial in linking human activities. Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution's political motivation to standardise units in Fran ...
institutes in the world.
Research and development
Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...
work at NPL has contributed to the advancement of many disciplines of science, including the development early computers in the late 1940s and 1950s, construction of the first accurate
atomic clock
An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. It is based on atoms having different energy levels. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels, and in transitions betwe ...
in 1955, and the invention and pioneering implementation of
packet switching
In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the p ...
in the 1960s, which is today one of the fundamental technologies of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
.
The former heads of NPL include many individuals who were pillars of the British scientific establishment.
NPL is based at
Bushy Park in
Teddington, west London. It is under the management of the
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is a department of His Majesty's Government. The department was formed during a machinery of government change on 14 July 2016, following Theresa May's appointment as Prim ...
.
History
Precursors
In the 19th century, the
Kew Observatory was run by self-funded devotees of science. In the early 1850s, the observatory began charging fees for testing meteorological instruments and other scientific equipment. As
universities in the United Kingdom
Universities in the United Kingdom have generally been instituted by royal charter, papal bull, Act of Parliament, or an instrument of government under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 or the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. ...
created and expanded
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
departments, the governing committee of the Observatory became increasingly dominated by paid university physicists in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. By this time, instrument-testing was the observatory's main role. Physicists sought the establishment of a state-funded scientific institution for testing electrical standards.
Founding
The National Physical Laboratory was established in 1900 at
Bushy House in
Teddington on the site of the Kew Observatory. Its purpose was "for standardising and verifying instruments, for testing materials, and for the determination of physical constants". The laboratory was run by the UK government, with members of staff being part of
the civil service. It grew to fill a large selection of buildings on the Teddington site.
Late 20th century
Administration of NPL was contracted out in 1995 under a Government Owned Contractor Operated model, with
Serco
Serco Group plc is a British company with headquarters based in Hook, Hampshire, England. Serco primarily derives income as a contractor for the provision of government services, most prominently in the sectors of health, transport, justice, ...
winning the bid and all staff transferred to their employment. Under this regime, overhead costs halved, third-party revenues grew by 16% per annum, and the number of peer-reviewed research papers published doubled.
NPL procured a large state-of-the-art laboratory under a
Private Finance Initiative
The private finance initiative (PFI) was a United Kingdom government procurement policy aimed at creating "public–private partnerships" (PPPs) where private firms are contracted to complete and manage public projects. Initially launched in 19 ...
contract in 1998. The construction was undertaken by
John Laing.
21st century
The maintenance of the new laboratory building, which was being undertaken by
Serco
Serco Group plc is a British company with headquarters based in Hook, Hampshire, England. Serco primarily derives income as a contractor for the provision of government services, most prominently in the sectors of health, transport, justice, ...
, was transferred back to the
DTI in 2004 after the private sector companies involved made losses of over £100m.
It was decided in 2012 to change the operating model for NPL from 2014 onwards to include academic partners and to establish a postgraduate teaching institute on site. The date of the changeover was later postponed for a year. The candidates for lead academic partner were the Universities of
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
,
Southampton
Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
,
Strathclyde and
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...
with an alliance of the Universities of Strathclyde and Surrey chosen as preferred partners.
Funding was announced in January 2013 for a new £25m Advanced Metrology Laboratory that will be built on the footprint of an existing unused building.
The operation of the laboratory transferred back to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (now the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) on 1 January 2015.
Notable researchers
Researchers who have worked at NPL include:
D. W. Dye who did important work in developing the technology of
quartz clock
Quartz clocks and quartz watches are timepieces that use an electronic oscillator regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks and watches are at leas ...
s; the inventor Sir
Barnes Wallis
Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attac ...
who did early development work on the "Bouncing Bomb" used in the "Dam Busters" wartime raids;
H.J. Gough, one of the pioneers of research into
metal fatigue, who worked at NPL for 19 years from 1914 to 1938; and
Sydney Goldstein and Sir
James Lighthill who worked in NPL's aerodynamics division during World War II researching
boundary layer
In physics and fluid mechanics, a boundary layer is the thin layer of fluid in the immediate vicinity of a bounding surface formed by the fluid flowing along the surface. The fluid's interaction with the wall induces a no-slip boundary cond ...
theory and
supersonic aerodynamics respectively.
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...
, known for his work at the
Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
to decipher German encrypted messages, worked at the National Physical Laboratory from 1945 to 1947. He designed there the
ACE (Automatic Computing Engine), which was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. Dr Clifford Hodge also worked there and was engaged in research on semiconductors. Others who have spent time at NPL include
Robert Watson-Watt
Sir Robert Alexander Watson Watt (13 April 1892 – 5 December 1973) was a Scottish pioneer of radio direction finding and radar technology.
Watt began his career in radio physics with a job at the Met Office, where he began looking for accura ...
, generally considered the inventor of radar, Oswald Kubaschewski, the father of computational materials
thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...
and the
numerical analyst James Wilkinson
James Wilkinson (March 24, 1757 – December 28, 1825) was an American soldier, politician, and double agent who was associated with several scandals and controversies.
He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, bu ...
.
Metallurgist
Walter Rosenhain
Dr. Walter Rosenhain ForMemRS (24 August 1875 – 17 March 1934) was a German-born Australian metallurgist.
Early life
Rosenhain was born on 24 August 1875 in Berlin, German Empire, the son of Moritz Rosenhain, a merchant, and his wife Friede ...
appointed the NPL's first female scientific staff members in 1915,
Marie Laura Violet Gayler and
Isabel Hadfield.
Research
NPL research has contributed to
physical science
Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences".
Definition
Phys ...
,
materials science,
computing
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...
, and
bioscience
''BioScience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. It was established in 1964 and was preceded by the ''AIBS Bulletin'' (1951–19 ...
. Applications have been found in
ship design,
aircraft development,
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...
,
computer networking
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
, and
global positioning.
Atomic clocks
The first accurate atomic clock, a
caesium standard
The caesium standard is a primary frequency standard in which the photon absorption by transitions between the two hyperfine ground states of caesium-133 atoms is used to control the output frequency. The first caesium clock was built by Louis ...
based on a certain transition of the
caesium-133
Caesium (55Cs) has 40 known isotopes, making it, along with barium and mercury, one of the elements with the most isotopes. The atomic masses of these isotopes range from 112 to 151. Only one isotope, 133Cs, is stable. The longest-lived radioiso ...
atom, was built by
Louis Essen
Louis Essen FRS O.B.E. (6 September 1908 – 24 August 1997) was an English physicist whose most notable achievements were in the precise measurement of time and the determination of the speed of light. He was a critic of Albert Einstein' ...
and Jack Parry in 1955 at NPL. Calibration of the caesium standard atomic clock was carried out by the use of the astronomical time scale ''
ephemeris time'' (ET). This led to the internationally agreed definition of the latest
SI second being based on atomic time.
Computing
Early computers
NPL has undertaken computer research since the mid-1940s. From 1945,
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical ...
led the design of the
Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) computer. The ACE project was overambitious and floundered, leading to Turing's departure.
Donald Davies took the project over and concentrated on delivering the less ambitious
Pilot ACE computer, which first worked in May 1950. Among those who worked on the project was American computer pioneer
Harry Huskey. A commercial spin-off,
DEUCE was manufactured by
English Electric Computers and became one of the best-selling machines of the 1950s.
Packet switching
Beginning in the mid-1960s,
Donald Davies and his team at the NPL pioneered
packet switching
In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the p ...
, now the dominant basis for data communications in
computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
s worldwide. Davies designed and proposed a commercial national data network based on packet switching in his 1965 ''Proposal for the Development of a National Communications Service for On-line Data Processing''. Subsequently, the NPL team (Davies, Derek Barber,
Roger Scantlebury, Peter Wilkinson, Keith Bartlett, and Brian Aldous)
developed the concept into a local area network which operated from 1969 to 1986, and carried out work to analyse and simulate the performance of packet-switched networks, including
datagram
A datagram is a basic transfer unit associated with a packet-switched network. Datagrams are typically structured in header and payload sections. Datagrams provide a connectionless communication service across a packet-switched network. The deliv ...
networks. Their research and practice influenced the
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
in the United States, the forerunner of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
, and other researchers in the UK and Europe, including
Louis Pouzin.
NPL sponsors a gallery, opened in 2009, about the development of packet switching and "Technology of the Internet" at
The National Museum of Computing
The National Museum of Computing is a museum in the United Kingdom dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems. The museum is based in rented premises at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire and opened in 2007. ...
.
Internetworking
NPL
internetworking
Internetworking is the practice of interconnecting multiple computer networks, such that any pair of hosts in the connected networks can exchange messages irrespective of their hardware-level networking technology. The resulting system of interc ...
research was led by Davies, Barber and Scantlebury, who were members of the
International Networking Working Group (INWG).
Connecting heterogeneous computer networks creates a "basic dilemma" since a common host protocol would require restructuring the existing networks. NPL connected with the
European Informatics Network
In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the p ...
(Barber directed the project and Scantlebury led the UK technical contribution) by translating between two different host protocols; that is, using a
gateway. Concurrently, the NPL connection to the Post Office
Experimental Packet Switched Service used a common host protocol in both networks. NPL research confirmed establishing a common host protocol would be more reliable and efficient. The EIN protocol helped to launch the proposed INWG standard.
Bob Kahn and
Vint Cerf acknowledged Davies and Scantlebury in their 1974 paper "''A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication''".
Scrapbook
Scrapbook was an information storage and retrieval system that went live in mid-1971. It included what would now be called
word processing,
e-mail and
hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references ( hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically ...
. In this it anticipated many elements of the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
. The project was managed by David Yates who said of it "We had a community of bright people that were interested in new things, they were good fodder for a system like Scrapbook" and "When we had more than one Scrapbook system, hyperlinks could go across the network without the user knowing what was happening". It was decided that any commercial development of Scrapbook should be left to industry and it was licensed to Triad and then to BT who marketed it as Milepost and developed a transaction processor as an additional feature. Various implementations were marketed on
DEC,
IBM and
ITL machines. All NPL implementations of Scrapbook were closed down in 1984.
Network security
In the early 1990s, the NPL developed three formal specifications of the MAA: one in
Z, one in
LOTOS, and one in
VDM. The VDM specification became part of the 1992 revision of the International Standard 8731–2, and three implementations in
C,
Miranda, and
Modula-2
Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It ...
.
Electromagnetics
A 2020 study by researchers from
Queen Mary University of London and NPL successfully used microwaves to measure blood-based molecules known to be influenced by dehydration.
Metrology
The National Physical Laboratory is involved with new developments in
metrology
Metrology is the scientific study of measurement. It establishes a common understanding of units, crucial in linking human activities. Modern metrology has its roots in the French Revolution's political motivation to standardise units in Fran ...
, such as researching metrology for, and standardising,
nanotechnology
Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal ...
. It is mainly based at the Teddington site, but also has a site in
Huddersfield
Huddersfield is a market town in the Kirklees district in West Yorkshire, England. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement in the Kirklees district. The town is in the foothills of the Pennines. The River Holme's confluence i ...
for
dimensional metrology
Dimensional metrology is the science of using physical measurement equipment to quantify the physical size, form, characteristics, and relational distance from any given feature.
History of metrology
Standardized measurements are essential to t ...
and an
underwater acoustics
Underwater acoustics is the study of the propagation of sound in water and the interaction of the mechanical waves that constitute sound with the water, its contents and its boundaries. The water may be in the ocean, a lake, a river or a tank. Ty ...
facility at
Wraysbury Reservoir near
Heathrow Airport
Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others be ...
.
Directors of NPL
Directors of NPL include a number of notable individuals:
*
Sir Richard Tetley Glazebrook, 1900–1919
* Sir
Joseph Ernest Petavel, 1919–1936
* Sir
Frank Edward Smith
Sir Frank Edward Smith (14 October 1876 – 1 July 1970) was a British physicist and Acting Director of the National Physical Laboratory between 1936 and 1937.
Biography
Smith was born in Aston Manor, Birmingham on 14 October 1876, the four ...
, 1936–1937 (acting)
* Sir
William Lawrence Bragg, 1937–1938
* Sir
Charles Galton Darwin
Sir Charles Galton Darwin (19 December 1887 – 31 December 1962) was an English physicist who served as director of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) during the Second World War. He was a son of the mathematician George Howard Darwin a ...
, 1938–1949
* Sir
Edward Victor Appleton
Sir Edward Victor Appleton (6 September 1892 – 21 April 1965) was an English physicist, Nobel Prize winner (1947) and pioneer in radiophysics. He studied, and was also employed as a lab technician, at Bradford College from 1909 to 1911.
He ...
, 1941 (acting)
* Sir
Edward Crisp Bullard, 1948–1955
* Dr
Reginald Leslie Smith-Rose, 1955–1956 (acting)
* Sir
Gordon Brims Black McIvor Sutherland, 1956–1964
* Dr
John Vernon Dunworth, 1964–1977
* Dr
Paul Dean, 1977–1990
* Dr
Peter Clapham, 1990–1995
Managing Directors
* Dr John Rae, 1995–2000
* Dr
Bob McGuiness, 2000–2005
*
Steve McQuillan, 2005–2008
* Dr
Martyn Sené, 2008–2009, 2015 (acting)
* Dr
Brian Bowsher, 2009–2015
Chief Executive Officers
* Dr Peter Thompson, 2015–present
NPL buildings
Image:Npl bushy house 2.JPG, Bushy House
Image:Npl building2.JPG, The Darwin building
Image:Npl new building module1.JPG, Part of the new building
File:NPL colour Lee Campbell.JPG, Painting of the laboratory by Lee Campbell, resident artist there in 2009
File:PSM V60 D136 Bushy house ground plan.png, Ground floor plan of Bushy House in 1901/1902
File:PSM V60 D136 Bushy house basement plan.png, Basement plan of Bushy House in 1901/1902
See also
*
List of UK government scientific research institutes
*
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...
in the United States
*
National Physical Laboratory of India
*
VAMAS
VAMAS is the Versailles project on advanced materials and standards that aim to establish the scientific foundation for standardised measurements, testing, specifications, and standards through international collaborative projects. VAMAS promotes ...
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Official websiteThe birth of the Internet in the UKGoogle video featuring Roger Scantlebury, Peter Wilkinson, Peter Kirstein and Vint Cerf, 2013
NPL Video PodcastSecond Health in Second LifeNMS Home PageNPL YouTube channelNPL Sports and Social ClubThe National Physical Laboratory apprenticesBenjamin Stone MP & the NPL – UK Parliament Living Heritage
{{authority control
National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom),
1900 establishments in the United Kingdom
Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Bushy Park
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Laboratories in the United Kingdom
Metrology
Organisations based in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Physics laboratories
Research institutes established in 1900
Research institutes in London
Science and technology in London
Serco
Standards organisations in the United Kingdom
Teddington
Alan Turing