Accurate weights and measures affect everything from scientific research to international trade. Courtesy | Timothy Dolch
Michael Tripepi, assistant professor of physics, will be teaching a seminar this spring about a field that intersects the scientific and business world in America.
PHY 393: NIST and the Constitutional Mandate for Physics will cover the National Institute of Science and Technology — a group of government laboratories responsible for establishing all measurements across America — and the history of metrology, the scientific study of measurement.
“NIST is an excellent intersection between physics, economics, government, and even history,” Tripepi said.
NIST draws its authority over measurement directly from the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress the responsibility to standardize weight, measure, time, volume, and other abstract values, according to Tripepi.
“This ability to have well defined standards is a moral obligation, an economic necessity, and involves physics,” Tripepi said.
Companies like drug manufacturers require precise measurements to correctly balance their scientific compounds for standardized formulas and honest marketing, according to Tripepi.
Standardized measurement is also necessary to maintain an honest trade environment, Tripepi said.
“It’s a moral obligation when we’re pursuing commerce that when we’re selling a pound, it is in fact a pound,” Tripepi said.
The course will emphasize NIST’s scientific advances as well as the high standard of expertise it has produced, including five Nobel laureates, according to Tripepi.
“It’ll be a seminar-style course involving readings about the history of metrology and the physical underpinnings, and also looking at what NIST does,” Tripepi said. “It asks a lot of practical questions and also has a lot of theoretical considerations, especially the way we define the unit of mass now that it’s not dependent on a specific object.”
Sophomore Joseph Petullo said he will also be attending the Tripepi’s seminar.
“I’m excited about him teaching a seminar,” Petullo said. “He has a background that makes him very qualified to teach a topic like this.”
Petullo is currently taking two classes with Tripepi.
“He’s a difficult teacher, it’s demanding and he asks a lot of you, but Dr. Tripepi’s doors are always open,” Petullo said. “If you have any questions, you can always go in and ask.”
Petullo is a physics and applied math double major whose main interests are engineering and experimentation. He said precise measurement is an essential aspect of all science.
“It’s part of being an informed citizen to know how this research is done,” Petullo said. “People make decisions on these things. Policy makers may change people’s lives based on scientific experiments.”
Paul Hosmer, associate professor of physics and physics department chair, is involved in setting the schedule for physics courses every semester. Hosmer said he and Tripepi had previously discussed offering physics seminar-style courses for students not majoring in science.
“I think it’s important for students to be exposed to more science, specifically physics,” Hosmer said. “The topic is chosen so students can see the effects of physics to a range of different areas: politics, commerce, religion, and honest weights and measures.”
This is the first physics course being specifically marketed to those outside of science majors, according to Hosmer.
“We’re trying to make it specially accessible for non-science majors by having it as a one-credit seminar course,” Hosmer said.
For any additional information, students can contact Tripepi at his school email address.
