The world depends on a collection of strange items. They're not cheap
This government warehouse keeps our entire society up to standard. Part of this video was sponsored by Google Domains. Take the first step to get online with a domain name from Google Domains - go to domains.google/veritasium to get 20% off your first year. #GoogleDomains
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Thanks to Rich Press and NIST for the great visit.
Thanks to Dr. Steve Choquette, Dr. Ben Place, and Dr. Johanna Camara for teaching us about the world of Standard Reference Materials.
You can check out all the cool work going on at NIST here: www.nist.gov/
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References:
NIST (2022). Standard Reference Materials. - ve42.co/WhyStandard2022
Montgomery, R. & Bercik, I. (2022). NIST Standard Reference Materials 2022 Catalog. - ve42.co/SRMCatalog
Vincent, J. (2022). Made to measure: why we can’t stop quantifying our lives. The Guardian -
ve42.co/Vincent2022
Proffitt, A. (2022). NIST Develops Monkeypox Reference Materials, Sees Growing Role in Outbreak Response. Diagnostics World. - ve42.co/Proffitt2022
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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:
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Written by Derek Muller & Emily Zhang
Edited by Trenton Oliver
Animation by Ivy Tello & Mike Radjabov
Filmed by Derek Muller, Trenton Oliver, and Emily Zhang
Additional video/photos supplied by Pond5 & Getty Images
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang
They need to get that "most average person in the country" and have them live there just to 100% the collection
*freeze dried and made into a fine, light grey powder
Then that wouldn’t be a very average place to live, would it?
@@conk444 ❤❤
Finally. My time has come
Or for court cases they’ll need a collection of “reasonable persons”
As a cybersecurity engineer, I cannot hype up NIST enough. They maintain this security database that contains all known software vulnerabilities in existence. Every major company, government and military is using this database to check for vulnerabilities in their infrastructure. Thank you NIST.
That’s actually pretty scary. They have more power than than the government itself
Come to mysore it is cybersecurity capital of india
@@areascoda2912 -- I buy my bath soap from the factory in Mysore. Great stuff!
@@KCGeno I love that soap. The only thing I use along with Dr. Bronner's castile hemp soaps.
@@KCGeno Mysore sandal soaps. It's pretty popular in India too. The smells lovely
As a scientist, I really appreciate this. These guys are the ubernerds working behind the scenes to make sure us ordinary nerds can have the tools to do our jobs.
So how does this relate to what you do? There's a dozen kinds of peanut butter on the shelf in Walmart, what's the point off having some standard in a government warehouse somewhere?
@@phaedrussmith1949did you not watch the video? To make sure the peanut butter doesn’t fall above the known standard level of carcinogens
@@Amaling Of course I did and that's not what he said. What he said is that they get some company - probably Jiff or Skippy - to make some kind of peanut butter and then this place says "This is peanut butter" and then that's what peanut butter is. But, as I said, there are at least a dozen different kinds of peanut butter on the shelf of the market, and many of them are different than the others. So what's the standard? Not having poison in it (or, conversely and more likely, how much poison will be allowed in it)? This sounds much more like the alliance between big corporations and the government.
@@phaedrussmith1949the reference material isn't supposed to be _the_ definitive peanut butter, it's to calibrate equipment so they can accurately measure levels of aflatoxins in their peanut butter
@@Osama-Bon-Jovi-01 So how do they know what they are calibrating against? Doesn't something have to have measured the aflatoxins first to know what the level of aflatoxins in the sample should test as? One can't calibrate equipment unless it is done against a known quantity.
Didin't stop NileRed from making his cookie lmao
I got a couple minutes into Nile's video and then directly came back here to see if I was correct, and I was..
As someone in the analytical chemistry field, these standards are vital. It is how analytical labs are able to charge such a price for what seems to be them just analysing a sample.
Sounds bunch of BS. Disagree This guy thinks he clever and has big brain and should eduecate us all??? He sounds so condescending!!!
@@MrUssy101 Sounds like you need to read a book. Perhaps work on your grammar too!
Lol that doesn't justify it's existence, only it's high cost.
@@MrUssy101 What? No he doesn't sound condescending. Where did you get that from?
I am disgusted after watching this -- The only way a place like that get funding from the governent is that its not public knowledge of their bloated out of control budget/ spending. This place needs real oversight and would probably be shut down if omre stories like this aired. Nothing in that place or in the name of science, justifies the price tag of those materials or having what I imagine is equally overpriced staffers.
this just might be the crappiest product ive ever seen
Indeed, indeed
Nice
This guy thinks he clever and has big brain and should eduecate us all??? He sounds so condescending!!!
hey it’s mr red stone
Andy Sixx agrees
Fun fact: the Calories on the nutrition label is calculated by setting the food on fire! The Cal is a measure of energy released heating 1 g of water, the sample is placed in a sphere surrounded by water then ignited. The temperature difference of the surrounding water determines how much energy the food contains, as the stomach works just like a combustion engine or.... something like that
Yesss, we did this in 5th grade using a dehydrator and bananas 😊
I’m an analytical chemist, and anyone who works in any lab or in most manufacturing operations definitely knows and appreciates the vital importance of reference standards to calibrate our instruments and ‘test our tests.’ Now NIST isn’t the only game in town that provides SRMs, but you might consider them the ‘standard of standards.’
Handling a 50 micron spherical ruby single crystal from NIST to calibrate X-ray diffraction equipment has been one of the scariest experiences I ever had as a researcher... I had nightmares about dropping it on the floor and losing it
How about accidentally breathing it in, lol
I don’t even get how you handle something that small, I assume you have special tools to hold it but what’s stopping you from accidentally inhaling it lol
It's kind of like fumbling the at 1 yard line. Go Vikings! 😎
Umm isn't 50 microns less than the width of a human hair ?!?
@@Ze_Moose Honestly it's not even remotely close to goofing around with a ball on a field. If you're determined to stick with the football frame of reference, it would be like shooting a football through a cannon a few miles away, detonating a flashbang grenade in your face, and then trying to find the football while in a hurricane.
I love how passionate that guy is about his job. You can tell he loves so much about what he does, and he is so excited about it and it makes me really happy to see.
I want his job so badly, but mostly because I desperately want to know what "typical diet" srm TASTES like.
@@nefariousyawn it tastes like matter
A man that truly has found his shelf, I loved his passion also, and he seemed like a great boss
it's always great to see someone enjoying what they do isn't it? it's inspiring for sure
It's the salary... Not the job he's excited about.
NIST are the hero's behind the scenes. I've done work in reliability engineering. Theses people deserve all the praise
It was a year ago, but: heroes. No apostrophe for plurals. Live and learn.
The existence of "Powdered Domestic Sludge" makes me immediately think of someone using it for a prank and not realizing they're commiting bioterrorism.
NIST also played a pivotal role in standardizing internet communication protocols. Without them, the Internet would be a much more chaotic and much slower
Ofc the one who knows it is Indian..
@@farrel_ra and why is that
Because the internet was such a chaotic place before national government overwatch?
@@jordan9604 Give me an internet run by big government over an internet run by big media, any day.
@@farrel_ra dude stop being racist and dick riding me
I work for a company that produces every type of analytical measurement instrument you could ever think of. We use NIST reference materials every day to qualify our instruments. We call them SARMs though, standard analytical reference materials. We use NIST steel spheres to calibrate our density measurement machines. They produce a great product, and are vital to industries like mine. Keep up the good work guys!
thanks for this. explains more than I got from the vid
Millionaires and billionaires sure buy this peanut butter.
I feel like the lawyers are to thank for this xD
Gymbro: "Someone said SARMs"
Do you make flow injection analyzers? Because HACH is kinda leaving us out to dry over in the environmental chem field...
They prolly got the best weed
factual
it's actually a standardized amalgamation of all known weed. in other words, it's mids
I'd digress and say they have the most average weed.
go to canada go to any indigenous reserve store that's the best weed
@@dunkie5863 Michigan or Oklahoma has the best weed by far lmao, every other dispo has fuckin fire in the shelf
They're on a 100% item collecting run
Earth completionists be like
NIST is one of, if not the, most under appreciated of all US government agencies. I was lucky to be able to tour their metrology lab in Gathersburg, MD in 2007. It was just mind blowing.
That had to be cool to see. It's mind blowing how accurately we can measure things and their work ensures we can do it accurately.
I could not disagree more
@@chucktaylor6939 Why?
Do they just let people come look? I'd enjoy seeing that place.
@@Deathranger999 Don't feed the trolls. They're just looking for unearned attention by saying the opposite of what you'd expect.
I'm a pharmacist and always ensured my students knew that the temperature monitoring devices (basically a thermometer) for the refrigerator/freezer that holds medications must have a certificate of calibration tracing its accuracy back to NIST, as well as ensuring they knew those devices do in fact "expire" and should be re-calibrated or, more practically, replaced. Great video to get to see the rest of NIST's world!
Even weights need to be checked if you're working within fine enough tolerances. It gets even wierder with timing stuff, as thats influenced by the speed its moving. A clock has to be perfectly accurate in a satellite for a gps to work, but they also lose 7 millionths of a second per day or something just because its moving faster.
Girl i am so glad i reread that you said PHARMACIST and THOSE students lmao i was about to say i definitely failed that class! 😂😂😂😂
@@bibsp3556 Its more the fact its further out of earths gravitational field than the speed. The %difference of gravity is more significant than the %difference of the speed of light. But yes, they do lose time and that causes errors in the positioning of the satellite and slowly over time will cause the satellite to give wrong coordinates to a gps if not recalibrated.
@Golden Hate Space-Time & Gravity are so mind blowing. Simulation theory is getting really interesting too.
@@randomname4726 eh, simulation theory to me is more a philosophical question. I've not really seen anything beyond hypothesising that the planc length and speed of light might be some.sort of processor limit, but it's not convinced me really. As the guy said above correctly said though, it's more the gravity, but yeah it's fascinating. Crazy out there
I work in a polymer manufacturing laboratory and I cannot stress the importance of standards enough! Such an interesting clip!
When he says "I wouldn't recommend eating it" because the peanut butter may be very old, that suggests a problem. When a perishable item "goes off" that is because of a chemical reaction of some kind (possibly from oxidation, or just biological contamination). In order for that jar of peanut butter to be a standard for the calibration of equipment, shouldn't it be 1 to 1 identical to the product that you are trying to produce? If the oils in it have gone rancid due to age, then how can it be a viable benchmark?
Well said
Just makes me think that, in general, there's so many people with really deep knowledge and skills that are working away constantly to keep our world safe and operational. It's very useful to remember how we're all so dependent on people like this.
*🔝🔝🔝Congratulations you have been selected among our lucky winners 🏆🏆 kindly send a message to the telegram above name to claim prize now
And then there are conspirancy theorists, which know basically nothing, but think they know everything, making the world much worse and chaotic place.
@@TimorDa I see you've read the other comment threads on this video too, lol
@@TimorDa Yeah, it seriously depresses me, the amount of people, especially older people who simply can’t fathom trusting others. I suppose it can be hard. Though as Roger said, it is comforting knowing that there are people who are out there who are extremely skilled, and do what they do for the common good.
@8pija well I get most conspiracys are nuts... but you can't deny that many have become truth
I used to work as a chemist in a materials testing lab, and we used NIST metallic standards constantly. Our machine shop even machined a lot of those charpy standards for NIST!
I didn't quite understand the Charpy test: What use is it? Don't they just measure the force required to break that Charpy? How does that measure anything from the manufactured steel? Or is the Charpy made from the steelmill's steel?
@@RevCode you have some made from your steel and their steel has all the information known so it lets you test your machine .
@@RevCode It's made from BOTH. You run the test twice as to test your own test. That's what the word calibration means.
@@RevCodein simple word, that Charpy sample is so homogeneous and properly made (according to ISO 148 part-1) that all the Charpy samples prepared in a lot are having almost same results. So if u test one sample and have the result, say 40 joules, and the actual value of the Charpy sample (which is known to these NIST guys, coz they tested it before) is 39 joules, then by statistical analysis it can be found out how perfect your machine is calculating the impact value. Basically comparing apple with another known apple 😂
@@thugpug4392 Oh I see, so they calculate the baseline from the standardized one and then know their steel's strength. If I wasn't so dumb I guess I could have guessed that by the name "reference material" alone - thank you for enlightening me, that was not my brightest moment :)
This video confirms what I've recently learned that NIST touches every aspect of our lives, from the accuracy of your metric ruler to the accuracy of the compounds that go into a jar of peanut butter. I first learned about NIST in 1977 (known back then as the National Bureau of Standards) when I was about 7 years old, and at the time, I figured all they did all day was make sure clocks ran accurate right down to the nanosecond.
This is so interesting! I worked at an environmental testing lab and we did get standards from NIST but it was for our yearly test to maintain our certifications. Always super stressful to do those tests and hope you get the right answer because we don't have the certification he showed early on in the video. It's so neat to have a face and fuller understanding of a government body that put fear and terror in my heart lol.
Working in the lab of a sewage treatment plant, was interesting for a while, but then became insanely boring, but one neat thing was the fact that the more accurate our scales were, and also our ability to dispense the necessary items for testing, the smaller the test sample could be, and therefore the less of those necessary items would be used as well. Our scale was so accurate that we could weight our fingerprints. We would have elementary school kids tour the plant from time to time, and we would pick one to pickup a beaker while we turned our back, then we could correctly tell them how many fingers they used to pick it up with. We did have to instruct them to use the pads of their fingers not the tips to make it fair, but as long as they played fair, we had a 100% correct “guess”, and the kids absolutely loved it. We also typically picked a kid that was somewhat socially awkward, which made them the big shot hoping to help them socially.
This is so cool!
❤️
This guy gets it ^
@@lindboknifeandtool Hey, how's Brian doing now?
@@Pudji.Toucan Brian’s great other than idk who that is
I work in an analytical lab here in Brazil and I use a lot of this peanut butter reference material as a quality control for mycotoxins, fatty acids and metal ions in food. It smells so good though! And thanks a lot for these people that work at NIST and make this reference materials. You guys rock!
Have you ever tried to taste it?
Except for the 9/11 NIST report, which made such dramatic changes to the structural properties of concrete and steel that, were they true, large swaths of the frozen north would be unable to build structures taller than 3 stories. I wonder if this is the guy that approved the expansion rates of steel and concrete under heat for the 9/11 NIST report?
@@unifiedtheoryoflife9922 there are no high rises in the “frozen north” that you speak of that even closely reaches the height that the trade centres did lmfao
@@Tmktrsf The number is 3 floors - and the north is anything that freezes in the winter. NIST 9/11 report changed the known expansion rate of steel and concrete by so much that you could not buld a 4 story building in Chicago, because the 4th floor would need to be steel, and the steel and concrete apparantly separate under office fire heat, so imagine what 100 degrees the other direction (0F) does. It makes Chicago a one stop light town
@@unifiedtheoryoflife9922 reality: a building collapses due to a +500F delta you: hOW CAn BuilDInGs EvEn WiThSTanD a -100F DeLTa TheN? Genius. Besides, contraction vs expansion are different. Materials have different strength in tension vs compression. And when looking at a structure as a whole, crushing the structure vs tearing it apart is pretty different.
"so, what do you collect?" "everything." "..."
I had a good chuckle when I watched this episode. In the 90's the laboratory I worked at ordered a sample of the reference limestone from the NIST. Some where along the way the one unit turned in to many. All total there was about 1/2 a cubic metre of boxes in the middle of the lab floor. We returned most of the reference limestone. A short time later I received a phone call stating that reference limestone could not be ship because it was deemed hazardous material as it had "lime" in it.
I love how literal the names are. No companies no nicknames just "peanut butter", "blueberry", "meat hamogenate"
There is a brand that sells named literally as the article itself. Like Water would be named "Water". I think you would like this company and its products lol. It's called No Name and is located in Canada.
@@googlelocoelgoog So, SRMs are kind of the premium products of No Name?
fucked up in the crib eating "meat hamogenate" 😩
It's like walking into a grocery store in a world that has marketing outlawed.
@@electrogestapo I could see that as a good thing, sometimes.
As someone working in the steel industry, I can vouch for the importance of the steel standard reference material.
My dad was a steelworker for about 40 years. They sent him to get qualified as a metallurgist before taking up his head foreman role. It's a fascinating subject! As a one-time geology student, I found the identification of the ores to be really interesting. Maybe his own real interest in the subject is where my son got his inbuilt fascination for chemistry (he's now a PhD medical biochemist! He's way, _way_ smarter than me lol!).
@@y_fam_goeglyd If your child is better and smarter than you you did a fantastic job!
@@tracyfollowell6747 I disagree. Raising smarter chlidren won't change a thing in the world. Raising kinder children MIGHT improve the world.
@@wernerbkerner9690 Why not both?
Then the steel industry should fund it not the taxpayer who must fund a government which has run us $30+ Trillion in debt.
This is so amazing. Mundane but so perplexed at the same time. Kudos to the team at NIST & to you for bringing this to light.
I was TMDE in the Marine Corps for a few years, and this was something I learned existed. National Standards and why we have them. Pretty interesting stuff; great video!!
It's amazing how complex our world is and how we depend on systems that 99.9999% of us have no idea exist and can't possible be thankful for. Thanks for giving me this knowledge and sharing such important research with the world Derek. :)
Yeah, that is pretty interesting. Even something you are an expert in is based on a totally different thing you might have not much idea about. Eg- a software developer might not have great knowledge on how computers are working behind the scenes, meanwhile a computer engineer will. These computer engineers might not fully understand how the materials they use (semiconductors) work but the material scientist will. This is just one example. Even for something less ‘hi tech’ there is so much that is done by others we don’t understand fully how they work, we just know what it does and how to use it. This is good so different people can become experts in different areas via specialisation.
@@anntakamaki1960 As a software dev myself, I can relate :)
@@anntakamaki1960 reminds me of a stand up comedy bit about how dumb the avg person is. "We're not smart. We just use stuff made by smart people". The big punchline was "if I sent you into the woods with a hatchet and a lighter, how many years till you could send me an email?"
It's terryfying
Yep - my father is a soil chemist that runs quality control programs for soil testing labs. There's way more of these labs than you think, because they're used by farmers to determine what kind of fertilizer to put on their fields (among many other things). What's fascinating is that because the QC program is so large, the excess soil is highly desirable by labs to use as reference and calibration material for equipment. And that's how he ended up selling buckets of dirt internationally.
One of my favorite things about NIST is that the roads of their main campus are aligned to be parallel with lines of latitude and longitude. It's particularly noticeable on maps, as it doesn't mesh with the surrounding roads.
I want to work there now
Have any kind of citation/reference/location? A quick look on google earth didn't find anything like that. Would love to see it!
@@StevenSkoczen Try the full name: National Institute of Standards and Technology It's located in Gaithersburg, MD.
Looking at map and seeing NIST Sound Building, which I guess deals in standard sounds. Satellite view shows intersection of Sound Road and West Drive is torn up, so does that mean NIST offers a Standard Traffic Obstruction? Hmm, there is a NIST Child Care Center, do they have Standard Children?
I wish all places were aligned like that LOL
This place reminds me the "Developers Room" that's (secretly) present in most of Bethesda games. It's a room that has every material used in the game. NIST is the IRL version of this xD
So when Nile did his pure cookie video... he bit into a cookie made of extremely old ingredients.... welp at least he didnt swallow.
I have been worried for so long about how there wasn't a real chemical definition of what the kinds of food we eat are because I didn't know NIST existed, but now I can eat in peace knowing there is a standard jar of peanut butter out there that the peanut butter I'm eating should at least have been made in reference to.
SURELY YOU JEST!
@@michelleholman4287 Am I missing something? I am beyond confused
@@hoyounlee9193 Translation: Surely you’re being sarcastic
@@zen8704 got that part, but in regards to what?
@@hoyounlee9193 in regards to the fact that most people wouldn’t ever genuinely worry about a standardized jar of pb?
One of those things we take for granted...... but if you stop and think about how big, wide and "standardized" the world is, it's amazing. It makes it possible to eat some manufactured food and then wait 10 years, travel to another part of the world and eat the same food and have the exact same experience. I remember a local craft brewer saying he had a lot of respect for Budweiser for making millions of gallons of beer, over the course of decades and having it always be consistent and predictable.
I made a snarky comment about Budweiser beer to a well skilled craft brewmaster during a tour a few years ago. He immediatly informed me that Budweiser is actually a fantastically brewed beer for this exact reason. Humbling moment.
@@9ZERO6 Budweiser is fantastically brewed piss water if anything. Utter trash. The fact that they can reproduce garbage to such an exact standard doesn’t impress me. It caters to a brand loyalty crowd and little more.
@@9ZERO6 What exactly did you say? I hope you remember :)
I can't stand budweiser it's too weak tastes like sparkling water
@@vwr32jeep sounds like you could use a beer man.
Strangely comforting to know this exists. A big government bunker full of things that define what those things are, by a standard. Some things cannot be standardized though :(
Be pretty boring if everything *could* be standardized
@@H8njibut good to have standards uwu
@@ligma212 Having standards =/= being standardized. We have standards for people’s behaviour but we don’t expect everyone to act the same way. Also, what’s an “uwu?” Just a shot in the dark, but is it an onomatopoeia used by terminally online degenerates who believe that everything, regardless of its nature, should be veiled under a layer of cuteness much like how Japan puts on a socially cohesive facade to masquerade its underlying social problems? Or am I being too cynical, passive-aggressive, and “it’s not that deep bro?”
@@H8njiI have a feeling YOU spend too much time online yourself, over analyzing a damn emoji and all mate.
@@gigachin4181 Nah but it's cringe as hell when people use animal noises in discussions that don't revolve around furry role-play sex.
the guys that work there seem genuinely happy & enthusiastic. nice to see.
As someone who worked at NIST for a while doing metrology and spectroscopy, I can tell you. That place is freaking awesome. The impact it has on the world is really quite incredible.
NDA notwithstanding
Not to be rude but how does collecting human turds then breaking it down to dust help the planet?
In an ideal future, they'd be shielded from budget cuts. But republicans are likely to retake and cut funding to them without any care for the appreciation of the sciences.
@@TooRiskyHD standards for measurements are critical. When the industrial revolution kicked off standardization became critical between industries. Gauge blocks were born as a means for checking measurements against one another quickly. I dont know if that was the first "standard" but it is necessary for there to be standards out there otherwise we would be doing a lot of guessing. That rotor you bought to replace your breaks might be too big or too small, the holes maybe got drilled incorrectly. Hope you understand the necessity for standards based on those couple examples.
@@tokin420nchokin yeh it makes sense to have matrix of something infact it’s smart I just never understood the poop part but you’ve went into detail about and it actually explains a lot I appreciate that thank you!
I learned two things today. 1. These people's work is definitely underrated. Now I understand how some foods and products can exist for years and taste the same. Consistency is key and these people are definitely helping with that. 2. I'm never eating peanut butter anymore. 😅 Never again.
would you still eat peanut though?
Why aren't you eating peanut butter anymore?
Everything you buy to eat is allowed to have a tiny, yet measurable, proportion of various disgusting contaminants such as cockroach heads (and other insect parts), rat poop, rat hairs, mold, mites... even maggots (ugh), and "other foreign matter".
@@voguyrus probably the calorie content
Pb2!!
I like how the comment section is comprised of: 1. Fellow chemists, scientists, nerds, and industry professionals talking about how much they respect the amount of effort that goes into the NIST. 2. Laypersons who just think the video is cool. 3. Conspiracy theorists that think this is a sign of the end times(?) or "big government bad". 4. Just 3 again, but even more incoherent. Edit: 5. Praising soap from some random place in India??? Edit 2: 6. ???? 9/11 ???????
Another important question would is: How do they ensure the products dont degrade over time? Some contents like vitamins are really volatile. Also: Over time the composition of things like house dust etc. changes as we use different materials at home (new types of plastic, etc.)
It depends on the vitamins and for most vitamins, there are more and less shelf-stable compounds, so I'd assume they use more stable compounds and likely do have expiration dates on less shelf-stable items. As for things like the house dust, those are probably dated by year, if not month and year and they likely have more than one version. Not to forget that those samples aren't being used directly to identify problem areas, but are only made to calibrate the machines that are used to analyse samples, so they don't necessarily need to contain every potential contaminate. If there are a few different plastics in the house dust calibration sample, that should give a good reference as to whether the machines are able to detect carbon-hydrogen-polymers. Even if it isn't the exact plastic that was found in the sample from NIST, all plastics are essentially made from the same materials.
They definitely have storage directions. Like the animal and tissue samples in the liquid nitrogen. Ya can't just pop that in your fridge when you get home.
The director of NIST seems to me to be one of the most approachable and likeable civil servants of whom I've ever had any exposure. You're a cool dude, sir! Your general state of apparent happiness is enviable.
He did seem too happy. Something is up with him
@@billted3323 Or.... or. He's a nerd who likes his job.
@@CS-zb7hx Thats the vanilla theory , But something dosen't smell right
7:43
@@stylo8845 i noticed that too
This man loves his job and I am so happy he's around to do it.
I'm happy that you're happy that he's happy!
happy loop 😁
@@-Sean_ im happy that you're happy that he's happy that he's happy!
if a job is fun, the worker will be happy. most jobs are not fun =/
I am from South Africa, and one of the recent articles I read pointed out that our government has defined a new standard to define a Boerewors (Famous South African 'sausage'). I could not understand why this was necessary; this video just made me realise why that is.
For several years, I worked right across the street from NIST in Gaithersburg, but I never knew that they had a warehouse in there! I certainly am aware of what they're doing in general, but was completely oblivious of this. Neat!
I interned at NIST in 2018 and saw the standard jar of peanut butter among lots of other things. It’s really cool to see the organization being covered here since they’re so important to so many businesses!
Please tell me you made a PB&J with one, lol.
@@KJ4EZJ Unfortunately not. Like the guy said in the video, none of the standards are for human consumption, but I was and still am very curious about how it would taste
Just imagine the first day on the job and some intern is cracking open a $1000 jar of peanut butter to make a PB&J sandwich 🤣
@@fredwerza3478 "No, not the good peanut butter! Use the jar in the break room!"
There’s a great story you’re (usually) told during NIST orientation for new employees about the Great Baltimore fire of 1904. Lots of FDs from surrounding municipalities and states came to try to help, but at the time, there was no industrial standard for hoses/couplings, so it turned into quite a mess, and more injuries and damage arguably resulted. Those items are now standardized across the country. The HR folks are better storytellers, but still demonstrates the importance of the work of standardization
Standards are something that you don't realize you need unless you don't have them.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 Things you can say about your work and also about your ex!
Then proceeds with "let's use Imperial units". Didn't you people dumped tea and fought a war to get rid of the "imperial" stuff?!
@@ylstorage7085this is the dumbest comment i've read in a while, also we use metric in the united states alongside imperial units
They should tell the story about how people quit nist and joined architects and engineers for 9/II truth because of the fake garbage they made them produce.
Now they just have to get a sample of everything in there and blend it up to make the most average sample NIST has
Fascinating! Also: I love Nerds! And the Scientist/Videographer is a hoot. Love his smile as he’s filming and asking questions.
I like how human civilization eventually came up with such a system. We frequently do not realize how amazing some of these quality of life things are since we're so used to it being a background part of our everyday lives (which is good)
I disagree. It merely complicates a system needlessly. Do you not know what is in peanut butter? Do you not know what a fish is?
@@1cont tell that when u have liver cancer since ur peanut butter producer doesn't have a good standard for how much aflatoxin they had in their mixture of peanut butter
@@farrel_ra yeah right. The peanuts are what make your liver sick. Not the alcohol and the decades of sugary diet. You morons deserve to be sick if you think the government is keeping you healthy.
@@1cont This is probably the dumbest and most ignorant comment I have seen in years. Did you not watch the video? 99% of the people who watch the video will realize how insanely important organizations like NIST are. You have to be the top 1% of bruh moment to not get this imo.
@@goodiesohhi I watched the whole video. Needless complication. Just as I stated. If you are too stupid to know that grinding up peanuts makes peanut butter, then you are stupid enough to be impressed with such needless complication.
Analytical chemist here. From academic research to drug development to drug safety testing, every position I've ever worked makes heavy use of NIST standards (though usually all with their own internal acronyms). These are absolutely vital for almost any calibration or measurement which requires high degrees of certainty.
Well this answered a years-old question I've always had about nutrition standards. Glad I found this randomly in my feed.
NiST aren't the only ones responsible for SRMs but they're definitely the gold standard.
As someone who poops, I can vouch for the importance of a standard poop sample
I poop too! We're part of the brotherhood.
Here here. I also poop, and have many times contributed my part to the great, strained effort to achieve new levels of poop standardization.
Woah, such coincidences, I happen to poop as well!
@@anmolagrawal5358 bro everyone does
@@CalmBeforeTheStorm76 dude everyone poops
Thank you for highlighting the important work the team at NIST performs. A fine example of functional government and a team dedicated to their work.
This system ends up making everything they control more expensive for the consumer, and gives the consumer less choice. Among many other glaring issues. We can have transparency and certificates etc without total government control. Functional force is still force.
@@adamscrivener9574 I think you may be confusing the NIST with a regulatory body. NIST is a science laboratory setup by Congress to bring US standards up to world standard at the time. Trusted standards allow for improved safety, quality, and a plethora of other things. How the standards are to be applied and who enforces them is another ball of wax.
@@adamscrivener9574 I don't think you understand what NIST is. Without them, businesses would have to spend more money when trying to calibrate their equipment. Also, just from a broader perspective outside of what NIST does, regulation is necessary. We tried giving businesses free rein during the early 20th century and a bunch of kids lost arms in factory equipment. Businesses have no concern other than money they will hurt or exploit people for profit if left to their own devices.
@@adamscrivener9574 You clearly fall into the weird "GOVERNMENT BAD, NO EXCEPTIONS" camp. Free market capitalism is a race to the bottom. Capitalism needs standards and regulation. These standards save a ton of money and save a lot of lives. I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that it makes things more expensive or gives less choice. That makes zero sense. Even with regulations and standards, companies are constantly caught cutting corners which often times result in a loss of life. NIST is a service that is invaluable to the global economy.
@@adamscrivener9574 it's amazing how much propaganda and disinformation that Trumpers like you are spreading
Damn, I was aware of the important work NIST does, but apparently had no idea how many standards they maintain. That's amazing.
I love Steve Choquette. He seems to genuinely love his job. Both how it generates a profit, but also how it benefits the world. He's also very much aware of how ridiculous the job appears at first glance. He's not defensive. He embraces the absurdity. At the end of the video, when asked how much human feces was collected to be powered and measured, he simply said, "a crap load." Good stuff.
Met a guy on a game I was playing the other day who was an airbag engineer. One of the most down to earth people I’ve ever had the joy of interacting with, although our interaction was brief. It’s always the most important things you forget has to be thought of, designed, created, tested, redesigned again and again until it was just okay enough.
OK enough.. Sounds great
@@samthunders3611 For scientists perfect does not exist. That's what standards are for - _"Does this system or object meet the standards to do the job?"_ Stuff like NIST is why you can buy a bag of concrete, follow the directions, and actually get the same results as the factory did. Or brownie mix, or any number of most of the things we buy today.
@@LabGecko I'm a chef bakerbwho was also involved with the manufacturing industry There's nothing you can tell me And you dint want to hear a quarter of the things I know It's all bussness no matter what's being sold
Hopefully he works for "Takata".. so they dont have to keep recalling, already recalled & "fixed" airbags. Like the one in my Subaru WRX
There are also groups trying NOT to standardize things. The most troubling being the vitamin industry. Vitamins in the USA and Canada have no standards so vitamins can have whatever in them. Some even don't contain the vitamin on the label at all. It just goes to show why standards are important.
They need to be regulated before they can be standardized
thats ridiculously insane lmao, how on earth doesnt this fall under some other legislation? false advertising etc
"Suppliments"
@@HappyDragneels_page it’s not false advertising when the company indicates that the claims have not been evaluated by the FDA
Vitamins can't be standardised because vitamins aren't vitamins.
I think these guys just beat the entire German system in being obsessed with norms Also, this kinda feels like they're the old school "scientist", dealing with absolutely every industry and scientific concept, gaining general knowledge about everything. Generalists instead of specialists
I am not a science nerd or in any profession that depends on this kind of information and I was fascinated and amazed by this information. Thanks for making this available to your average little old lady. We are never too old to learn.
I love your name! Lol
Yeah me too. My mind was blown. Really well put together video too. Veritasium is great.
I wonder if they have an average old lady sample
@@madhououinkyoma - well if they do not - as it happens - I have made arrangements to donate my entire body to science when I die - so - they can have their bit for the good of the world - if it is needed. I do hope they do not come to think of it - because that would mean there is a human component to any number of products - like hot dogs.
I've never come across something more mundane and more fascinating than this video.
This is really interesting. How very important this is. Just amazing. Thank you to everyone working so hard at NIST.
I love how in the shot at 7:30 you can see a reflection of Derek being pushed in an office chair in the shiny shelves, a great improvised dolly.
As a NIST Guest Researcher, it is so cool to see you visit our institution that too few know about!
U r doing a great job. Dont ever feel worthless that many people dont know about these things . Becoz of people like u , our society is functioning well.
@@theabuzerbharuchi . . . except when it comes to steel framed building collapse
I just saw this right after Nile Red’s pure cookie video
lol same
This is the weirdest but totally makes sense thing I've learned YTD. Thank you!
As someone who basically did the same thing for several years, just across the pond (Germany), I'm so glad this important field of research finally get some coverage. The federal institution I used to work for provides the reference alloys for Euro coins, alcohol in water (calibrate breathalyzer's), also a lot of food and environmental samples with toxins or heavy metals and much more. I worked in the food team and alongside homogenization, stability is one of the major concerns. Grinding it into a nice powder is great for homogenization, but simultaneously creates so much surface area for chemical reactions. And even though they are not used as a food, you don't wanna an Oil to become rancid and so on. So many products are stored in a freezer, but what to do if e.g. the cold chain is broken during transport? The devil is in the detail^^ And that's even before you come to the most difficult question: How to make sure NIST and all the other CRM providers are able to measure correctly themselves? :D
That's where intercomparisons come into play. Also a reason why it's important that every reference is implemented by several national labs. When you are alone with a reference (as is the case with some of what PTB is doing) it's very difficult to be confident that you have not messed something up ;)
how is this institution called in germany?
@@stefankuttenreich8668 PTB, Short for Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt
These are some of the problems that we in the bio fisheries face. You have to take into account the influx and outflow of water and what that water holds. We take our shipping containers almost too seriously. Wipe out all life inside the bag, measure what the water does to the bag and vice versa. Then place the fish into the bag, measure and record. For everything, and I mean like a full 2 days worth of testing for a single fish. Meanwhile that 1 single fish has required about 150 hours of work just to maintain a stable environment. Then when you ask for $3500 for a fish that someone could throw a net out in the river and catch thousands in an hour... Cheezus.. Some people just don't care to realize the effort that was put forth and call just to complain about the price for a perfect lab fish. They don't want one, just call to criticize us for the price of a river minnow. They want a dozen for $10. Sorry, we are not that kind of business.
Thanks, answered my question if there are other countries doing the same 👍🏻
Veritasium a day keeps ignorance away. Thanks for making amazing stuff for so long now.
- 🤓
@@Bonu5epic -🤓
Disagree This guy thinks he clever and has big brain and should eduecate us all??? He sounds so condescending!!!
yesss!!!
@@nezukochan471 - 🤓🤓
NIST is what most people don't know about, but who keep our daily lives and basics in touch and up to date, God bless them!
Awesome video! The domestic sludge reminded me of when my Environmental Science class went on a field trip to a waste treatment facility. It was actually really interesting and my anosmia came in handy too lol!
I love how that guy has a whole list of jokes he's hoping he gets to tell at any given moment 😂
😄😄😄
a list of standard jokes for the standard items
@@financialdecimation So he can accuratelly measure response. This is also where they order canned laughter from. Only thanks to them they can add just the right dose on laugh track or be certain they read test audiences' reaction accurately. (Test audiences of course consist of standard moviegoers. Those are stored frozen coz being exposed to outside influences they change their taste incredibly quickly.)
When government wastes trillions of dollars every year, it MUST be made into a joke, so that people don't cry.
@@trentp151 nist is useful, but I agree government has lots of waste lol
Great work, Derek, as always. True story: Back in the early 70s I worked in a radio maintenance shop at McConnell AFB, Ks and some of the radios we maintained were in the HF band (3 - 30 MHz). The NIST runs a radio station call sign WWV which operates on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz and continuously broadcasts the current time. We used to tune the radios to WWV to confirm that they were tuning properly. We also would set our watches to WWV so we always had very accurate time on our watches. One evening the wife and I were in a mall window shopping (as a junior enlisted we didn't have the money to actually BUY anything) when some guy asked me for the time. I told him the time to the second. He said "That isn't right!" To which I replied, "Yes it is. I set my watch by WWV just this morning." "What's WWV?", he asked. " It's the national time standard. You know? The same folks who establish the standards for everything in the U.S." I told him. He then asked, "What makes THAT right?" Honestly, I didn't have a comeback. How would you answer someone who questions the National Institute of Standards and Technology? (I'm really hoping you answer my question. I was at a loss.)
Lol. Nothing, in a sense. It's just a reliable institution that everyone can go to to help them synchronize their devices that need to be synchronized. You could make your own competing timekeeping service, but good luck making it as reliable, so nobody would bother with it if they really *needed* it.
It’s funny, because there really isn’t anything that makes it right. It’s like how the standard weight of a gram is just a little hunk of metal in a lab and everyone agrees “yeah that’s a gram” because who else is defining a gram? Or how most world currencies only have value due to the people agreeing that they do. It’s a little arbitrary, but it negates arbitration. Which is weird lmao
Thus,the phrase “does anybody really know what time it is. Does anybody really care ?”
In some cases a standard is just an authority meaning we simply have to agree to not disagree. But in fact most standards have agreeable metrics. Ones that would cost more to derive in our own sample than it would to buy a NIST sample and test that. These standards also should be designed so they give you some useful information. Note how NIST only makes these samples at the request of companies.
A little Googling would have revealed that NIST uses THE time standard, a Cesium Atomic clock.
I often wondered how they calibrate stuff and assumed they must have a standard reference system. Yet another curiosity resolved by Derek! Thanks dude!
You've heard of standard weights and measurements? NIST took that idea and just *ran* with it.
Amazing. Standards of units and measure protocols turned into to an interesting video. I really hope you get your own syndicated TV series.
This entire concept is amazing. Rather than speculating about the invisible laws of the universe or what lies far away in space, being able to understand the things we interact with on a day-to-day basis seems strangely way cooler to me.
Yeah, it brings all the science right back to every day reality. Such an awesome window into our world
So much more meaningful to human existence than measuring galaxies billions of lightyears away.
@Nad Senoj - The things NIST is doing are quite obviously beneficial to humanity. I'm going to need some real convincing why looking at barely discernable images of galaxies 13 billion lightyears away really helps mankind. The things NIST is doing are important and helpful right here and right now.
i wouldn't agree that it sounds way cooler lol, but it's a field of research i didn't expect to be so interesting for sure
"What's is the ultimate origin of everything that exists?" Is this not a question worth pondering on?
I’ve worked at NIST and many other research labs ( university, industry, etc). Scientists at NIST are the most meticulous by far.
Interesting
Have you seen the arguments that A&E911 has made against NIST and there statements about building 7? In my opinion NIST and our government still have alot of explaining to do about the demolition of the three towers that day. Your statement about scientists being most meticulous made me comment.. If you didn't catch it I think nist is dogwash
How do people at NIST account for things that change their composition with the time? e.g. metals that rust by oxidation or wine/cheeses that "ages"?
I’m a chemist in a consumer goods testing lab, how in the world do you get that job? It’s so fascinating to me
Even as an analytical chemist, where being meticulous about everything is essential to everything I do at work, I could never match the level of NIST scientists. The methods they use are absolutely top notch and I'm grateful for their work. I don't believe my lab buys NIST standards as we're not in the US, but I rely the NIST mass spectral libraries every single day.
I took a few classes in college where we used mass spectrometry to determine the amount of caffeine in various coffees
Thank you for showing science in action with exceptional production values, superior dialogues, excellent editing, and great videography. You've created and produced one of the world's best introductions to the essentials of science, engineering, and technology. Well-written, well-produced: 5-star one and all, so far. Thank you! PS: is there a National Bureau of Standards offical "crap-load" measurement, as described? Is that a unit of domestic waste volume or mass? Perhaps it's related to the classic "RCH" measurement of sub-millimeter distances by rocket technicans (RCH = Red C_ _ t Hair, a unit of measurement)
I'm a medical lab tech, and I find NIST to be fascinating. We use standards (we call it QC) to make sure that our analyzers and methods are working properly and giving accurate results so that you get the care you need next time you're in a hospital. Our stuff's not cheap either.
Im a tech in a lab who makes QC materials for hematology chemistry and bodyfluid analyzers! Wonder if you use any of the controls we make!
Can you sell me some "analytical" flurazepam or midazolam Lol
A friend of mine once said: “Better than perfect is standardised”. This video shows that that’s true. Great video! Keep up the good work :)
@gridsleep Standards are perfect because they are standard (thus why SRMs are used as references to determine product integrity), and they are standard because we have deemed them to be adequate enough for a certain product. They are a PERFECT template to ensure the quality of a certain product. So I say that perfection is quite definable.
I remember that quote from a technology connections video!
Z89om
Yes. Standards are great. Let's have a lot more of them! 😊
@@teslacoil5378 Absolutely right! And one can say that standard dust collected in an American standard city is only standard in the US. Global dust must be collected globally, but that probably wouldn't make much sense, except for aliens collecting dust to make "standard inhabited planet dust"
7:36 love the reflection of you on the office char being pushed through the ware house :D
Imagine how much of a breakthrough it would be if this facility was discovered in the future where they may not know about us much
A legitimate government function. It's wonderful to see how serious they take their role. And a great story too!
For some reason my mind assigned Ron Swanson's voice to your comment.
I agree it's an essential government function which is why I'm so upset that they function as a private for profit company which literally just increases the cost of, well, everything, so that some owners can earn money doing nothing
@@cuddlingwolf2762 A peanut butter company paying $1000 for the reference is negligible. Could you imagine how many fans would try to buy samples if they were affordable for average people? Your mental model of this is a bit off - consider the US Post office, which loses roughly 10B per year, while FedEX and UPS are profitable. There are many many times the profit motive is a GOOD thing.
@@tomh2914 USPS helps keep costs down for consumers though by offering cheap options to ship and mail letters that Fed Ex and Amazon have to compete with rather than setting their own higher rates. I don't mind my taxes going to mail carriers and keeping mail affordable. Imagine a world in which you couldn't afford to send a letter because FedEx or Amazon bought up all their competition and controlled the country wide shipping networks.
@@cuddlingwolf2762 Something as important as NIST shouldn't be held back or held ransom by the budgetary concerns of whatever administration is in charge. Charging for the products ensures a sustainable enterprise that can work with industry to produce the reference materials they need. It also keeps people from the whole "but mah taxes!" argument. MANY (most?) government agencies charge for their services and products. Try ordering a government publication (printing). It's going to cost you money. Try renewing your driver's license or getting a Designated Pilot Examiner (FAA employee) to do a pilot check ride. It all costs money.
*"a standard jar of peanut butter"* sounds like something the 'Millionaire Who Lost Everything But Is Slowly Learning To Appreciate The Simple Things In Life' character in a movie would try to buy the first time they go grocery shopping by themselves.
I've seen you using the molecular modeling objects, but could not figure out what they were called or where to find them. Snatoms! And you invented them! So cool...
Thank you for this. I literally had no idea about NIST and the awesome stuff they are doing
I work in a geochemical analysis lab, and standards really are a critical part of our work, letting us find, diagnose and correct any errors and deviations and confirm when data is on point. Thanks, NIST, for your tireless diligent work!
@@PersonalStash420 just because someone may be paid to do a job doesn’t mean you can’t be appreciative and thankful of their work.
@@PersonalStash420 Soldiers, doctors, and firemen are also paid for their work.
@@PersonalStash420 "Fighting for a country" is silly. It's also impossible. it's a super silly idea to oversimplify a violent scheme.
@@PersonalStash420 Why do you believe fireman and cops get paid enough?
I remember taking a field trip to NIST and hitting up Dogfish Head brewery. Amazing place
This is one of my favourite videos of yours, ever! Soooo interesting, and I learned things I never thought about that now gives me immense satisfaction just knowing. Thank you, Derek & the wonderful people at NIST!
You have managed to make interesting what 3 years of undergraduate study in materials engineering could not
That’s so interesting. I didn’t know that companies had to check simple things thoroughly.
How you described these amazing people just shows you are a great person
This video explained how so many things work. People would say they found trace amounts of a certain chemical in a city's water supply, and you'd think "How?" well this is very enlightening. Also always wondered how in shows like CSI they could tell if a bullet was fired from a specific firearm. This is what i subscribed for.
Nah, you’re just stupid dude. A majority of people know that already….
Also, in relation to your specific example about the water supply, a lot of places periodically take samples of their water and store it for later for purposes like that!
I was so confused at first but it makes total sense. Reminds me of that video you made on that perfect spherical ball that's our reference standard for weight. I calibrate lasers at my job and we have to check customers laser trackers against our reference tracker and if the results are outside of 0.0003mm we have to re-tune them. It's pretty neat. (Edit: I had originally said 0.00003 microns but it's .0003mm or .3 microns)
0.00003 microns would be 30 picometers (0.03 nanometers). That's less than an atom. Are you working on LISA?
@@caiocc12 I think I added an extra zero lol. But there are different specs for different companies & trackers since everyone uses the trackers differently so some allow for larger margins of error. It's pretty neat but honestly I'm not quite that knowledgeable yet, only been here 4 months and I'm just an art school drop out who got lucky(my brother works here as an engineer tech)
@@ahetzel9054 Stick at that job and you will go places, such opportunities are incredibly rare and I will admit that I am a little jealous of what you get to do as a job, but, I am equally glad that you are doing a job that you seem to genuinely enjoy doing which is always a positive. Work hard and you'll be set for life.
That ball is not used as a reference. They don't use artifacts to define weight, and that ball was a candidate for defining the kilogram, but they went with a procedural definition using a watt balance and defining physical constants
@@pyropulseIXXI I think that went over my head lol. I thought that ball was the standard for 1 kilogram but it wasn't based on it's weight and instead the amount of atoms or molecules that it was made of? Or something like that? That video was a while ago so I don't entirely remember
My fiance just asked "does NIST have a standard reference hamburger?". We love you Derek!
"Everything comes down to poop!" *JD and Turk singing*