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The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national measurement standards laboratory
Measurement standards laboratory

A measurement standards laboratory is a laboratory of metrology which establishes standards for a country or organisation....
 for the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, based at Bushy Park
Bushy Park

Bushy Park is the second largest of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London and most of it is open to the public....
 in Teddington
Teddington

Teddington is in London, England on the north bank of the River Thames, between Hampton Wick and Twickenham. It stretches inland from the River Thames to Bushy Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames....
, London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
. It is the largest applied physics
Applied physics

Applied physics is a general term for physics which is intended for a particular technological or practical use. "Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination of factors such as the motivation and attitude of researchers and the nature of the relationship to the technology or science that may be affected by the work....
 organisation in the UK.

NPL is an internationally respected centre of excellence in measurement and materials science. Since 1900, when Bushy House
Bushy House

Bushy House is a former royal residence in Teddington in South West London, on the site of the National Physical Laboratory, UK, overlooking Bushy Park....
 was selected as the site of NPL, 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 for Innovation, Universities and Skills
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is a Departments of the United Kingdom Government created on 28 June 2007 to take over some of the functions of the disbanded departments of Department for Education and Skills and Department of Trade and Industry....
.






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The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the national measurement standards laboratory
Measurement standards laboratory

A measurement standards laboratory is a laboratory of metrology which establishes standards for a country or organisation....
 for the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, based at Bushy Park
Bushy Park

Bushy Park is the second largest of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in south-west London and most of it is open to the public....
 in Teddington
Teddington

Teddington is in London, England on the north bank of the River Thames, between Hampton Wick and Twickenham. It stretches inland from the River Thames to Bushy Park, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames....
, London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
. It is the largest applied physics
Applied physics

Applied physics is a general term for physics which is intended for a particular technological or practical use. "Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination of factors such as the motivation and attitude of researchers and the nature of the relationship to the technology or science that may be affected by the work....
 organisation in the UK.

NPL is an internationally respected centre of excellence in measurement and materials science. Since 1900, when Bushy House
Bushy House

Bushy House is a former royal residence in Teddington in South West London, on the site of the National Physical Laboratory, UK, overlooking Bushy Park....
 was selected as the site of NPL, 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 for Innovation, Universities and Skills
Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills is a Departments of the United Kingdom Government created on 28 June 2007 to take over some of the functions of the disbanded departments of Department for Education and Skills and Department of Trade and Industry....
. NPL also offers a range of commercial services, applying scientific skills to industrial measurement problems, and manages the MSF time signal. NPL has carried out work in the area of micro-optics including microlens
Microlens

Microlenses are small lens , generally with diameters less than a millimetre and often as small as 10 micrometres . The small sizes of the lenses means that a simple design can give good optical quality but sometimes unwanted effects arise due to optical diffraction at the small features....
es and microlens arrays.

Teddington was also home to the UK National Chemical Laboratory but this was closed in 1965 and some of its work was transferred to NPL.

NPL cooperates with professional networks such as those of the IET
Institution of Engineering and Technology

The Institution of Engineering and Technology is a United Kingdom professional body for those working in engineering and technology in the United Kingdom and worldwide....
 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
Paul Baran

Paul Baran was one of the three inventors of packet-switched networks, along with Donald Davies and Leonard Kleinrock. He was born in Grodno , but his family moved to Philadelphia in 1928....
 and Donald Davies
Donald Davies

Donald Watts Davies, Order of the British Empire Royal Society was a Wales computer scientist who was a co-inventor of packet switching , along with Paul Baran in the United States....
, who co-invented packet switching
Packet switching

Packet switching is a network communications method that groups all transmitted data, irrespective of content, type, or structure into suitably-sized blocks, called packets....
 in the early 1960s; D. W. Dye who did important work in developing the technology of quartz clock
Quartz clock

A quartz clock is a clock that uses an electronic oscillator that is regulated by a quartz crystal to keep time. This crystal oscillator creates a signal with very precise frequency, so that quartz clocks are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than good mechanical clocks....
s; Louis Essen
Louis Essen

Louis Essen was an England physicist whose most notable achievements were in the accuracy and precision measurement of time and the determination of the speed of light....
, who invented a more accurate atomic clock
Atomic clock

An atomic clock is a type of clock that uses an atomic resonance frequency standard as its timekeeping element. They are the most accurate time and frequency standards known, and are used as primary standards for international Time dissemination, and to control the frequency of television broadcasts and GPS satellite signals....
 than those first built in America. Others who have spent time at NPL include Harry Huskey
Harry Huskey

Harry Douglas Huskey is an United States computer designer pioneer.Huskey was born in the Smoky Mountains region of North Carolina and grew up in Idaho....
, a computer pioneer; Alan Turing
Alan Turing

Alan Mathison Turing, Order of the British Empire, Fellow of the Royal Society was a British mathematician, logician and Cryptanalysis....
, one of the fathers of modern digital computing who was largely responsible for the early ACE computer design; Robert Watson-Watt
Robert Watson-Watt

Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, Fellow of the Royal Society FRAeS , is considered by many to be the "inventor of radar". Radar development was first started elsewhere , but Watson-Watt worked on some of the first workable radar systems, turning the theory into one of the most important World War II weapons....
, generally considered the inventor of radar, Oswald Kubaschewski, the father of computational materials thermodynamics
Thermodynamics

In physics, thermodynamics is the study of the conversion of heat energy into different forms of energy ; different energy conversions into heat energy; and its relation to macroscopic variables such as temperature, pressure, and volume....
 and the numerical analyst
Numerical analysis

Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms for the problems of continuous mathematics .One of the earliest mathematical writings is the Babylonian tablet YBC 7289, which gives a sexagesimal numerical approximation of , the length of the diagonal in a unit square....
 James Wilkinson
James H. Wilkinson

James Hardy Wilkinson was a prominent figure in the field of numerical analysis, a field at the boundary of applied mathematics and computer science particularly useful to physics and engineering....
.

A new state-of-the-art laboratory for the NPL at Teddington was completed in 2007.

Directors of NPL

  • Sir Richard Tetley Glazebrook
    Richard Glazebrook

    Sir Richard Tetley Glazebrook Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order Fellow of the Royal Society was a physicist born in Liverpool....
    , 1900-1919
  • Sir Joseph Ernest Petavel, 1919-1936
  • Sir Frank Edward Smith
    Frank Edward Smith

    Sir Frank Edward Smith Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire Fellow of the Royal Society was a uK physicist....
    , 1936-1937 (acting)
  • Sir William Lawrence Bragg
    William Lawrence Bragg

    Sir William Lawrence Bragg, Companion of Honour, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Military Cross, Royal Society was an English people physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915 with his father William Henry Bragg....
    , 1937-1938
  • Sir Charles Galton Darwin
    Charles Galton Darwin

    File:Charles G. Darwin, Bain News Service photo portrait.jpgSir Charles Galton Darwin, Order of the British Empire, Military Cross, Fellow of the Royal Society was an England physicist, the grandson of Charles Darwin....
    , 1938-1949
  • Sir Edward Victor Appleton
    Edward Victor Appleton

    Sir Edward Victor Appleton, Order of the British Empire, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, Fellow of the Royal Society was an English physicist....
    , 1941 (acting)
  • Sir Edward Crisp Bullard
    Edward Bullard

    Sir Edward "Teddy" Crisp Bullard was a geophysics born into a wealthy brewing family in Norwich, England. He studied Natural Sciences at Clare College, Cambridge....
    , 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
  • Dr John Rae
    John Rae

    John Rae may refer to:* John Rae , Scottish journalist and biographer of Adam Smith* John Rae , Scottish economist and author of Statement of Some New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy...
    , 1995-2000
  • Dr Bob McGuiness, 2000-2005
  • Steve McQuillan, 2005-2008
  • Dr Martyn Sené, 2008-2009 (acting)
  • Dr Brian Bowsher, 2009-Present


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