National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)
Established | 1900 |
---|---|
Research type | Applied Physics |
Field of research | Metrology |
Chief Executive Officer | Peter Thompson |
Staff | c. 1,000[1] |
Address | Hampton Road, Teddington, TW11 0LW, England, UK |
Location | 51°25′35″N 0°20′37″W / 51.42639°N 0.34361°W |
Operating agency | Department for Science, Innovation and Technology |
Website | www |
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national
Founded in 1900, the NPL is one of the oldest metrology institutes in the world. Research and development work at the laboratory has contributed to the advancement of many disciplines of science, including the development of early computers in the late 1940s and 1950s, construction of the first accurate atomic clock in 1955, and the invention and pioneering implementation of packet switching in the 1960s, which is today one of the fundamental technologies of the Internet.[2][3][4] The former heads of NPL include many individuals who were pillars of the British scientific establishment.[5][6]
NPL is based at Bushy Park in Teddington, west London. It is managed under the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and is one of the most extensive government laboratories in the United Kingdom.
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 created and expanded physics 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.[7]
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".[8] 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.[9]
Late 20th century
Administration of NPL was contracted out in 1995 under a Government Owned Contractor Operated (GOCO) model, with Serco 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.[10][11]
NPL procured a large state-of-the-art laboratory under a
21st century
The new laboratory building, which had been maintained by Serco, was transferred back to the DTI in 2004 after the private sector companies involved made losses of over £100m.[12]
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.[13] The date of the changeover was later postponed for a year.[14] The candidates for lead academic partner were the Universities of Edinburgh, Southampton, Strathclyde and Surrey[15] with an alliance of the Universities of Strathclyde and Surrey chosen as preferred partners.[16]
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.[17][18]
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.[19]
Notable researchers
Researchers who have worked at NPL include:
Metallurgist Walter Rosenhain appointed the NPL's first female scientific staff members in 1915, Marie Laura Violet Gayler and Isabel Hadfield.[25]
Research
NPL research has contributed to
Atomic clocks
The first accurate atomic clock, a
Computing
Early computers
NPL has undertaken computer research since the mid-1940s.
Packet switching
Beginning in the mid-1960s, Donald Davies and his team at the NPL pioneered packet switching, now the dominant basis for data communications in computer networks worldwide.[33] Davies designed and proposed a national commercial data network in his 1965 Proposal for the Development of a National Communications Service for On-line Data Processing.[34] Subsequently, the NPL team (Davies, Derek Barber, Roger Scantlebury, Peter Wilkinson, Keith Bartlett, and Brian Aldous) were the first to implement packet switching in the local-area NPL network in 1969,[35][36] which operated until 1986. They carried out work to analyse and simulate the performance of packet-switched networks, including datagram networks. Their research and practice influenced the ARPANET in the United States, the forerunner of the Internet, and other researchers in the UK and Europe, including Louis Pouzin.[37][38][39][40]
NPL sponsors a gallery, opened in 2009, about the development of packet switching and "Technology of the Internet" at The National Museum of Computing.[41]
Internetworking
NPL
Scrapbook
Scrapbook was an information storage and retrieval system that went live in mid-1971. It included what would now be called
Secure communication
In the early 1990s, the NPL developed three formal specifications of the
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.[59]
Metrology
The National Physical Laboratory is involved with new developments in metrology, such as researching metrology for, and standardising, nanotechnology.[60] It is mainly based at the Teddington site, but also has a site in Huddersfield for dimensional metrology[61] and an underwater acoustics facility at Wraysbury Reservoir near Heathrow Airport.[62]
Directors of NPL
-
W. L. Bragg
-
Peter Clapham
Directors of NPL include a number of notable individuals:[63]
- Sir Richard Tetley Glazebrook, 1900–1919
- Sir Joseph Ernest Petavel, 1919–1936
- Sir Frank Edward Smith, 1936–1937 (acting)
- Sir William Lawrence Bragg, 1937–1938
- Sir Charles Galton Darwin, 1938–1949
- Sir Edward Victor Appleton, 1941 (acting)
- Sir Edward Crisp Bullard, 1948–1955
- Reginald Leslie Smith-Rose, 1955–1956 (acting)
- Sir Gordon Brims Black McIvor Sutherland, 1956–1964
- John Vernon Dunworth, 1964–1977
- Paul Dean, 1977–1990
- Peter Clapham, 1990–1995
Managing Directors
- John Rae, 1995–2000
- Bob McGuiness, 2000–2005
- Steve McQuillan, 2005–2008
- Martyn Sené, 2008–2009, 2015 (acting)
- Brian Bowsher, 2009–2015
Chief Executive Officers
- Peter Thompson, 2015–present[64]
NPL buildings
-
The Darwin building
-
New building with preserved gates from the original entrance on Queen's Road
-
Part of the new building
-
Painting of the laboratory by Lee Campbell, resident artist there in 2009
-
Ground floor plan of Bushy House in 1901/1902
-
Basement plan of Bushy House in 1901/1902
See also
- Outline of metrology and measurement
- List of UK government scientific research institutes
- National Institute of Standards and Technology in the United States
- National Physical Laboratory of India
- VAMAS
References
- ^ "About us". NPLWebsite. Archived from the original on 23 July 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
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This was the start of 10 years of pioneering work at the NPL in packet switching. ... At that lecture he first became aware that Paul Baran, of the RAND Corporation, had proposed a similar system in the context of military communication. His report was not as detailed as Davies's design and had not been acted on.
- from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 10 January 2020.
Donald W. Davies, who proposed a method for transmitting data that made the Internet possible
- ^ Harris, Trevor, Who is the Father of the Internet? The case for Donald Watts Davies, archived from the original on 10 October 2021, retrieved 10 July 2013
- ISBN 978-1-4746-0277-8. Archivedfrom the original on 18 August 2020. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-139-91661-5. Archivedfrom the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
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- ^ "history". National Physical Laboratory. Archived from the original on 26 June 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ "Development of the NPL Site 1900-1970.pdf" (PDF). 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ Labs under the microscope – Ethos Archived 18 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Ethosjournal.com (2 February 2012). Retrieved on 12 April 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-215-03047-4.
- ^ a b "The Termination of the PFI Contract for the National Physical Laboratory |National Audit Office". nao.org.uk. 2013. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ "Microsoft Word - Briefing document 26 March 2013_final - establishing-a-new-partnership-for-the-npl-briefing-note.pdf" (PDF). 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ Escape, The. "Serco". Serco. Archived from the original on 24 January 2021. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
- ^ "Future operation of the National Physical Laboratory | National Measurement System | BIS". bis.gov.uk. 2013. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ "Press Release – Universities of Surrey and Strathclyde selected as strategic partners in the future operation of the National Physical Laboratory" (PDF). NPL. 10 July 2014. p. 5. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
- ^ Willetts, David (2013). "Announcement of £25 million Advanced Metrology Laboratory at NPL". bis.gov.uk (Press release). Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ "National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, United Kingdom, TW11 0LW - aml-letter-july2013.pdf" (PDF). 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ "Future operation of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). Retrieved 24 March 2015". 10 July 2014. Archived from the original on 15 April 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
- ^ "Notable Individuals". National Physical Laboratory. Archived from the original on 17 October 2017. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^ Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
- ^ "Professor Sir James Lighthill FRS". Imperial College London. Archived from the original on 30 September 2020. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
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- ^ "James (Jim) Hardy Wilkinson". IEEE Computer Society. Archived from the original on 6 May 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
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- ^ "Research". National Physical Laboratory. Archived from the original on 17 October 2017. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^
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- ^ "60 years of the Atomic Clock". National Physical Laboratory. Archived from the original on 17 October 2017. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
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- ^ "What Is International Atomic Time (TAI)?". Time and Date. Archived from the original on 18 July 2020. Retrieved 6 May 2018.
- ^ "History of NPL Computing". National Physical Laboratory. Archived from the original on 17 October 2017. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^ from the original on 17 March 2019. Retrieved 19 October 2017.
- ^ Smith, Ed; Miller, Chris; Norton, Jim (2017). "Packet Switching: The first steps on the road to the information society". National Physical Laboratory.
- ^ Davies, D. W. (1966), Proposal for a Digital Communication Network (PDF), National Physical Laboratory, archived (PDF) from the original on 13 July 2017, retrieved 3 October 2017
- S2CID 25341056.
The first packet-switching network was implemented at the National Physical Laboratories in the United Kingdom. It was quickly followed by the ARPANET in 1969.
- ^ Haughney Dare-Bryan, Christine (22 June 2023). Computer Freaks (Podcast). Chapter Two: In the Air. Inc. Magazine. 35:55 minutes in.
Leonard Kleinrock: Donald Davies ... did make a single node packet switch before ARPA did
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- ISBN 9781476708690. Archivedfrom the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 27 October 2020.
- ISBN 9781135455514. Archivedfrom the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
- ^ Stewart, Bill (7 January 2000). "UK National Physical Laboratory (NPL) & Donald Davies". Living Internet. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 12 May 2008.
- ^ "Technology of the Internet". The National Museum of Computing. Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 3 October 2017.
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- ^ Scantlebury, Roger (25 June 2013). "Internet pioneers airbrushed from history". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 1 January 2020. Retrieved 1 August 2015.
- ^ Scantlebury, Roger; Wilkinson, Peter (8 January 2020). "How we nearly invented the internet in the UK". New Scientist. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
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- ISBN 9781483160931. Archivedfrom the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
- ^ "EIN (European Informatics Network) – CHM Revolution". www.computerhistory.org. Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
- ISBN 978-0-262-51115-5. Archivedfrom the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
- ISBN 978-3-540-00559-9. Archivedfrom the original on 10 October 2021. Retrieved 4 June 2020.
- ISSN 1558-0857.
The authors wish to thank a number of colleagues for helpful comments during early discussions of international network protocols, especially R. Metcalfe, R. Scantlebury, D. Walden, and H. Zimmerman; D. Davies and L. Pouzin who constructively commented on the fragmentation and accounting issues; and S. Crocker who commented on the creation and destruction of associations.
- ^ a b Ward, Mark (5 February 2010), Alan Turing and the Ace computer, BBC News, archived from the original on 10 October 2021, retrieved 17 February 2021
- ^ David Yates talks about 'Scrapbook'. National Physical Laboratory via YouTube. 10 December 2009. Archived from the original on 12 December 2021. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
- ISBN 978-0901805942
- ^ Lai, M. K. F. (1991). A Formal Interpretation of the MAA Standard in Z (NPL Report DITC 184/91). Teddington, Middlesex, UK: National Physical Laboratory.
- ^ Munster, Harold B. (1991). LOTOS Specification of the MAA Standard, with an Evaluation of LOTOS (PDF) (NPL Report DITC 191/91). Teddington, Middlesex, UK: National Physical Laboratory.
- ^ Parkin, Graeme I.; O’Neill, G. (1990). Specification of the MAA Standard in VDM (NPL Report DITC 160/90). National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex, UK.
- .
- ^ Lampard, R. P. (1991). An Implementation of MAA from a VDM Specification (NPL Technical Memorandum DITC 50/91). Teddington, Middlesex, UK: National Physical Laboratory.
- ^ Researchers use microwaves to measure signs of dehydration, 2020, retrieved 8 March 2021
- ^ Minelli, C. & Clifford, C.A. (2012). "The role of metrology and the UK National Physical Laboratory in Nanotechnology". Nanotechnology Perceptions. 8: 59–75.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "Dimensional Specialist Inspection and Measurement Services : Measurement Services : Commercial Services : National Physical Laboratory". npl.co.uk. 2013. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ "Calibration and characterisation of sonar transducers and systems : Products & Services : Underwater Acoustics : Acoustics : Science + Technology : National Physical Laboratory". npl.co.uk. 2013. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
- ^ "Directors". National Physical Laboratory. Archived from the original on 6 March 2019. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
- ^ "New CEO for National Physical Laboratory : News : News + Events : National Physical Laboratory". npl.co.uk. 2015. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
Further reading
- Campbell-Kelly, Martin (1987). "Data Communications at the National Physical Laboratory (1965-1975)". Annals of the History of Computing. 9 (3/4): 221–247. S2CID 8172150.
- Claxton, J K (1983). "The National Physical Laboratory – A History". Physics Bulletin. 34 (9): 395. ISSN 0031-9112.
- Macdonald, Lee T. (2018). "University physicists and the origins of the National Physical Laboratory, 1830–1900". History of Science. 59 (1): 73–92. S2CID 53792127.
- Moseley, Russell (1978). "The Origins and Early Years of the National Physical Laboratory: A Chapter in the Pre-history of British Science Policy". Minerva. 16 (2): 222–250. S2CID 144283941.
- Yates, David M. (1997). Turing's Legacy: A History of Computing at the National Physical Laboratory 1945-1995. National Museum of Science and Industry. ISBN 978-0-901805-94-2.
- Vigoureux, P. (1988). "Electric units at the National Physical Laboratory, 1900-50". Papers Presented at the Sixteenth I.E.E. Week-End Meeting on the History of Electrical Engineering: 9–12.
External links
- Official website
- The birth of the Internet in the UK Google video featuring Roger Scantlebury, Peter Wilkinson, Peter Kirstein and Vint Cerf, 2013
- NPL Video Podcast
- Second Health in Second Life
- NMS Home Page
- NPL YouTube channel
- NPL Sports and Social Club
- [1]
- The National Physical Laboratory apprentices[permanent dead link]
- Benjamin Stone MP & the NPL – UK Parliament Living Heritage