SOME REASONS FOR THE DESIRABILITY OF STANDARDIZATION IN THE NUCLEAR FIELD

As you have just learned from Alan Duff, the American Standards Association is actively engaged in developing standards in the nuclear field. A standard is not necessarily an ideal specification or ideal product, because it is impossible to satisfy everybody completely. But a standard is something that is desirable to duplicate for the benefit of the majority, and is therefore made the criterion to which duplication must conform. The standard yard, standard meter, standard pound, and other primary standards that are preserved with meticulous care, are described in the literature with such minute detail as to imply that standards are prepared for the purpose of determining how precisely they can be measured, and what precautions should be observed in making such measurements. As a matter of fact, however, the principal standardizing agencies, namely, the National Physical Laboratory and the Greenwich Observatory in England, the German Reichanstalt and Technische Bundesanstalt, the various Bureaux in France, and later the United States National Bureau of Standards were originally founded and directed to establish standards of length, weight, measure, and specifications for articles in order to save money for merchants. Then as now, the protection of the consumer was a secondary objective. Then as now, technical and academic considerations are subordinated to economic pressures. The greatest realization of the economic incentive for standardization is the mass production techniques of American industry.