OConnell, Metrology PDF

Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars
Author(s): Joseph O'Connell

Source: Social Studies of Science, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb., 1993), pp. 129-173
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
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0 ABSTRACT
This paper explores the recent suggestion that the universality of technoscience
- its ability to bring facets of the world into the lab, and to move results achieved
in the lab out into the world - is accomplished by expensive and labour-intensive
metrological practices that have hitherto been overlooked in social studies of
science. In three examples, this paper seeks to show how the appearance of
universality is achieved, what resists this achievement, how such resistance is
overcome, and how authority is established for the particular material repre-
sentatives that stand for universal abstract scientific entities in local settings.
Three examples of metrology are considered. the development of machines to
measure body composition; the international standardization of electrical units in
the late nineteenth century; and the influence of the US Department of Defence
on metrological activity in the United States.
Metrology: The Creation of

Universality by the Circulation of
Particulars
Joseph O'Connell
Weather maps, with their isoclines of pressure and temperature and

displays of wind speed and precipitation, are widely read and immed-
iately accepted. We take for granted that 0?Cis the same condition of
temperature in Philadelphia as in Baltimore, and, should the temp-
erature in the two cities be different, we are entitled to interpolate
between them. We assume (correctly) that the measurement systems
for the responses displayed on the weather map are under control and
are adequate for comparative purposes. Or we move to another part
of the country, bring our medical records to a new doctor, and assume
that our weight, blood pressure, and blood chemistry mean the same
in Princeton as in San Diego. There is no doubt that our assumptions
are justified for the uses to which we put them. Enormous effort is
expended to ensure that.' The important question is rather how we
Social Studies of Science (SAGE, London, Newbury Parkand New Delhi), Vol. 23
(1993), 129-73
130 Social Studies of Science
have arrived at such a state - a state in which scientists, engineers,

health nuts, and Pentagon officials have been persuaded (albeit by
different means) to accept particular objects as the representativesof
universal scientific entities.
This paper is about social construction. The emphasis is not on
construction by society, but the construction of certain societies - a
society of health care facilities that share the same measure of body
composition, a society of laboratories that share the same electrical
units, and a society of weapons that share the same electrical and
dimensional standards. After Fleck's 'thought collectives', I will call
these societies material collectives - communities of persons and
institutions mutually exchanging the same representations and mat-
erial representatives for abstract scientific entities.2 With implicit
reference to Fleck, I recognize that to give a satisfying account of a
collective, it is insufficientmerely to state its name and list its members.
The important questions are how the collective was formed, what
resisted its formation, how the resistance was overcome, and how the
authority of its particular material and practical representatives was
established. Three examples are considered: the development of
machines to measure body composition; the international standar-
dization of electrical units in the late nineteenth century; and the
influence of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) on
metrological activity.3
Body Composition
In 1900, you could have discovered the proportion of fatty to lean

mass in your body only by paying a high price. You would have lain
down on a table, allowed yourself to be dissected, had your bones
scraped clean, and had your various parts sorted into dripping piles
that would have been boiled down or dissolved in ether to extract all
vestiges of fat.4Eventually, the piles would have been weighed to yield
a direct realization of the definition of body composition - direct in
the sense that no representativecan take the place of your body parts
on the scale, and a realization because the operation is exactly what it
takes to make the abstract definition of body composition into
something physically real.
The definition of body composition hasn't changed since then. A
body still must be dissected to realize its composition directly, but
body composition has been translated into more easily measured
O'Connell: Creation of Universalityin Metrology 131
quantities that have been accepted as representations of it.5 The first

translation occurred between 1902 and about 1950 in three sets of
experiments in which three, eight, and then twenty-five cadavers
obtained from criminal executions, traumatic injuries, and natural
deaths were dissected and analyzed to determine the densities
of muscle, bone, fat, and other tissue in various people. From
these densities, algorithms were developed to translate whole body
density, a measure that can be taken from a live person, into an
estimate of body composition that is comparable to what could be
obtained directly only by dissection.6 Health professionals widely
adopted the hydrostatic weighing representation of body
composition, accepting that for their purposes it could reliably stand
in place of the dissection that would otherwise be required to realize
the definition directly.
Since the acceptance of hydrostatic weighing as a representation
for body composition and the adoption of this representation by
many sites worldwide, weight-conscious people and athletes have
travelled around the world, been weighed in different places and at
different times and have believed that any difference in the resulting
measurements indicates a real difference in their body composition,
rather than a difference in where or when they were measured. The
circulation of a standard way of representing body composition
throughout the world has constituted a stable collective through
which the weight-conscious people and athletes can now move, rely-
ing on its stability to indicate changes in their person.
Although people did not have to submit to dissection after hydro-
static weighing was developed, they still paid a price to find out their
body composition: they had to take off their clothes, get soaking wet,
and pay money each time they were measured. There was no escaping
that cost, because the only 'language' into which body composition
had been translated was a very wet and troublesome language, and
one for which the existence of local dialects (interlaboratory discrep-
ancies) occasionally made communication difficult. These problems
were tolerable when body composition was interesting only to re-
search scientists and doctors. But in recent years, fitness trainers,
weight-conscious people, and health clubs have all expressed an
interest in body composition, especially if something can be found to
take the place of the troublesome and expensive tank. If only a willing
person could be paid to go in the tank once or twice and somehow
stand for everyone else who wants to know their body composition,
but doesn't want to get wet!
The market would appear ready to accept other representations of

body composition to stand in the place of hydrostatic weighing - or,
at least, it recently appeared this way to two instrument manufact-
urers who have developed competing representations. In the late
1980s, Futrex Inc. of Gaithersburg, Maryland, adapted work that the
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had done to measure the fat,
protein, and moisture content of grains and food to measuring the fat
content of humans by near-infrared reflectance. In 1987, Futrex
produced the FUTREX-5000, a portable measurement instrument
targeted at health clubs, weight-loss centres, and other health institu-
tions. At the same time, Valhalla Scientific of San Diego funded
an eight-university study to develop algorithms which it claims
will allow an AC resistance measurement made between the ankle
and wrist to take the place of hydrostatic weighing in the representa-
tion of body composition. Valhalla built those algorithms into the
'1990B Body Composition Analyzer', a portable measurement
instrument of roughly the same cost and ease of use as the FUTREX-
5000.
In general, claims that one particular instrument, practice, or
material representation can representa scientific entity more authen-
tically than another are hotly contested. Whoever owns the particular
that circulates to form the collective can collect money, prestige, and
other goods from those who wish for access to the collective. The
FUTREX-5000 and the 1990B are similar machines, aimed at the
same rapidly expanding market, at the same time. Both companies
have funded or otherwise supported research, and both present their
case by trained representatives, promotional literature, and by re-
printing scientific papers that support their products. Their claims
and counter-claims offer us an opportunity to study how contests of
authority are waged between different representations that claim to
stand for the same thing.
Futrex supplies enquiring health institutions with a packet of
reprinted scientific papers that describe tests comparing their near-
infrared reflectance method with hydrostatic weighing and other
methods of body composition assessment. These studies uniformly
support Futrex's claim that its unit agrees with hydrostatic weighing
to within 2%. Additionally, Futrex literature compares the FUT-
REX-5000 to other machines, including the Valhalla 1990B - a
machine which they claim is approximately as accurate but is more
difficultto use than the FUTREX-5000, and requiresspecial precaut-
ions to ensure reliable measurements.
When Valhalla began its promotional campaign (about two years

later than Futrex), it faced not only that company's literature, but a
fair amount of published research claiming that the bioresistance
method of estimating body composition (as implemented in earlier
machines made by a differentcompany) is inaccurate when compared
with hydrostatic weighing - either because of inaccuracies in the
bioresistance measurements themselves, or in the algorithms for
translating these to body composition.7 Valhalla's promotional mat-
erial shows an awareness of this critical body of literature and an
attempt to counter it with a unique set of experiments.
Valhalla's experimental and rhetorical strategy is first to acknow-
ledge that it and its competitors are trying to develop low cost
methods that can reliably stand for hydrostatic weighing. Then Val-
halla's promotional literature implies that to represent hydrostatic
weighing, a company must have access to hydrostatic weighing. This
sets the stage for Valhalla to present a unique method of gaining
access to hydrostatic weighing. If Valhalla has the only legitimate
access to hydrostatic weighing, then it can cast doubt upon its
competitors' representations, as well as previous studies that panned
the bioresistance method. Finally, Valhalla offers its 1990B as the
only true representative for hydrostatic weighing:
During the past few years several studies have been conducted to determine the
validity of the Bioresistance method but a number of sources of variation have been
left uncontrolled. The research has been conducted by different laboratories using
different procedures, different populations with instrumentation that may or may
not have been in calibration. Because there has been no standardization in proce-
dure from lab to lab, the data collected thus far has had little or no collective value.
The results from each laboratory have varied a great deal and this has prevented the
validity of the method from being established. In addition, research conducted by
one laboratory carries little weight. It often has difficulty producing similar results
at different locations. To truly define and improve the utility of the bioresistance
method, data must be collected at various locations, using standardized procedures
and instruments that are of known calibration.'
This advertisement contains an implicit theory of how collectives can

be translated legitimately. The root 'collect' is used in two ways in the
third sentence. The first use ('the data collected so far') refers to the
activity of bringing data from many places to one place, while the
second use ('collective value') might be rephrased 'collective-produ-
cing value', referring to the ability of that concentrated data to
produce a new collective when distributed back throughout many
places. Valhalla is arguing here that despite the collecting activities on
the part of other researchers, the collection of data thus formed has
little collective-producing power, because insufficient care was taken
to ensure that the collection was collected from a true collective. At
this point we have to introduce subscripts:collective, is everyone who
uses and accepts the hydrostatic method. Valhalla, Futrex, and the
researchers who are claiming to test new methods all claim to have
access to collective,. Collective2 is what Valhalla and Futrex are
struggling to create - a group of physically dispersed 199OBs or
FUTREX-5000s standing for body composition.
Valhalla claims that to have collective-producing value, research
must collect data at various locations using standardized procedures
and instruments that are of known calibration - that is to say, that
which circulates among them must be immutable, to use Latour's
terms. To fully standardize the measurement procedures and to
establish that a stable collective, exists and shares a method of
measuring body composition, Valhalla picked a man and a woman
and sent them around to eight of the leading laboratories that per-
form hydrostatic weighing, and verified that these objects weren't
changed by their trip.9These two ate very carefully and were whisked
through all eight labs in less than a week, so that their body composi-
tion wouldn't change appreciably. As they rushed from lab to lab,
these immutable mobiles carried not only their precious cargo of
body fat, but a manual describing a common protocol for hydrostatic
weighing which they enforced at each laboratory. 'Each laboratory
using the same procedures measured the same two subjects for body
density, anthropometry and bioresistance."?Protocols were adjusted
until all eight labs produced the same value when measuring these
individuals.
Assured then that a stable collective, existed, Valhalla set out to
characterize that collective, by testing what it would do to hundreds
of different objects sent through it. For this part of their work, 'What
we did was a series of hydrostatic weighing on hundreds of people -
testing their resistance and developing an algorithm correlating their
resistance to their underwater weight'." Customers are asked to
believe that the way in which the hydrostatic collective, acted upon
people was extracted from the collective,, brought back to Valhalla in
numerical form, and distilled into algorithms which translate biore-
sistance measurements into hydrostatic measurements of body com-
position. Independent tests of the 1990B sponsored by Valhalla
showed agreement between its measurements and hydrostatic weigh-
ing to within 3.5 %. More important than the magnitude of this figure,
according to Valhalla, is that the agreement is with a true collective,.

Both Valhalla and Futrex claim a similar level of agreement, but they
claim agreement to different things: Futrex to particular instances of
hydrostatic weighing, and Valhalla to a comprehensively organized
collective, of hydrostatic weighing.
Anthropometric and hydrostatic measurements of body composi-
tion are difficult to perform; a technician requires considerable prac-
tice to attain acceptable accuracy and repeatability. Conversely, the
FUTREX-5000 and the 1990B have been automated to the point
where accuracy depends upon the skill with which the machines have
been designed, rather than on the skill of the human user. One could
describe what has happened by saying that accuracy in measurement
has passed from health care professionals to the machines they use,
and invoke explanations that appeal to the economy and manage-
ability of a de-skilled work force. But another way of describing
Valhalla's skill-full machine is to say that the skill of the handful of
people who made the few hundred measurements that were used to
create the 1990B has been enormously leveraged by its incorporation
into that machine. A uniformly high degree of skill has been achieved
not by training a zillion people to go out and measure in the same
accurate way, but by multiplying the contexts in which a handful of
people virtually perform the same measurement over and over again.
Valhalla's explanation is that taking the skill out of the operator's
hands and building it into the machine minimizes the potential for
site-to-site variations in measurement. Valhalla makes a special point
of this, admitting that other methods of measuring body composition
(like multiple skinfold thickness measurements and other anthro-
pometric approaches) yield greater accuracy at lower cost when
performed by a skilled person, but that for this reason such meas-
urements are not as repeatable from one site to another.
The 1990B and the FUTREX-5000 are purchased by institutions
engaged in healthcare, sports training, weight loss, and public educa-
tion. Valhalla's literature suggests that the value of each 1990B
increases as more sites acquire identical units. In the language adop-
ted from Fleck, the spread of the 1990B from San Diego to the rest of
the world is building a collective2that shares the same representation
of body composition. One of the 1990B'smost-touted selling points is
the long list of members of the collective2 to which a potential
customer is offered membership.
In spatio-temporal terms, customers are offered places on a net-
work if they buy one of the nodes - the quality of which is less
important than the size and conductivity of the network in which the
node is situated. The fact that more than 300 sites share the same
representation lets individuals move away from the machine on
which they were first measured and trust that their measurements can
move with them. With the stable collective2 of representations in
place, weight-conscious people can circulate around the country and
continue to monitor their weight loss, athletes can see how their body
composition is changing, and sports trainers can compare results
obtained on different machines in different places.
This mobility has been achieved through a number of translations,
of which Valhalla's is only the latest. Valhalla's profits come from
people who bring their money to a clinic in exchange for a measure-
ment of their body composition. The clinic cannot go to the dissecting
room for the measurement, so they look for alternatives. The detour
that many have taken through the 1990B means that the clinics and
the customers don't have to go through the underwater weighing
tank, which is itself only the well-worn detour for everyone who
didn't want to go through the dissecting room. Valhalla didn't create
body composition, but took it from the hundreds of representatives
who were weighed at the eight labs. These representatives had been
circulated through the hydrostatic collective, to get body
composition from it. The body composition in this collective, was
only the result of the circulation since the 1950s of accepted ways of
performing hydrostatic weighing, and so Valhalla's achievement
might best be called the translation of one collective, into another,
and the collection of money for doing so.12
The Social History of Electrical Units
Another example that bears crucial similarities to the story just told is
the international standardization of electrical units in the late nine-
teenth century. Though very different, body composition and electri-
cal units have at least one thing in common: they are both abstract
scientific entities for which material collectives have been built by the
circulation of mobile representatives. The history of each includes
contests over whose material representative shall stand for the ab-
stract entity, and in which the winner collected (or will collect) money,
prestige, and other goods.
The history of electrical units is social in two ways. First, in the
traditionally sociological sense, it was forged through intense social
interaction - by an international group of electricians, researchphys-

icists, and industrialists who hotly debated rival standards for a
quarter of a century before reaching settlement. And second, that
settlement sparked the creation of a new society - an internationally
distributed collective of instruments, electrical apparatuses, resistors,
and batteries connected to each other by structured relations of
exchange and authority. The following example presents each social
history in turn: first, the movement from a group of interacting
electrotechnologists and physicists to a particular set of representa-
tives; and second, the circulation of those particulars out to form a
material collective - a new society.
The First Social History
Electrical engineers and physicists had used the terms electromotive

force (emf), potential, capacity, conductivity, and quantity for more
than twenty years before having standard units in which to express
those entities. When the electricians of the 1820s through the 1840s
wanted to share experimental results, or to discuss measurementsthat
depended upon a particular resistance, they simply sent each other
lengths of wire or descriptions of the particular length, gauge, and
material they had used themselves. Likewise, to share electric poten-
tial they explained how to construct the type of battery originally
used, and expressed the potential as a certain number of those bat-
teries. For example, a potential of 50 Daniells would give a sensable
shock, while only a few Daniells were needed to power a telegraph.
Electrical instruments of the time (such as Wheatstone's Bridge) were
of the null type - they indicated the equivalence or ratio of intensities
obtaining between two resistors or sources of potential, rather than
expressing the measure of just one in units of any type.'3
It took the failure of the 1858 transatlantic telegraph cable to
convince British commercial interests of the need to set up a system of
electrical standards. At William Thomson's suggestion in 1861, the
British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) appointed a
committee to perform experiments and choose a standard of resis-
tance to test submarine cable as it was produced and laid. The system
of realizing, representing, maintaining, and disseminating electrical
standards established by this committee has been used to this day
despite modification, and has accordingly received much attention
from historians.'4
The committee considered and rejected many units of resistance

then in use, finding none that met the desired criteria. The most
popular unit at the time was the 'Siemens', proposed by the German
industrialist of the same name; the unit was defined as a column of
mercury 1 mm square in cross section, 1 m high, at 0?C. Like other
units then in use, the materials and conditions employed in its con-
struction were arbitrary- they depended upon particularmaterials or
quantities, unrelated to the materials or quantities constitutive of
other units, and were often chosen originally for unscientific reasons.
The Committee consider that, however suitable mercuryor any other material may
be for the construction or reproduction of a standard, this furnishes no reason for
adopting a foot or a metre length of some arbitrary section or weight of that
material.'
Not only was the Siemens unit arbitrary and therefore philosophi-
cally distasteful, but it was the product of a Germancompany and was
expressed in Frenchunits. There was a certain pride in being a British
telegraph engineer, a British physicist, or in simply being British, that
rankled at this. Of course, introducing an arbitrary British standard
in place of the Siemens would solve neither the philosophical problem
nor the nationalistic problem, since the new standard would have no
more authority than the old. The only way to solve the problems that
an entrenched but arbitrary standard presented was to found a new
standard on something more universal than either Great Britain or
Germany. To Thomson and his associates, this meant creating a unit
of resistance that was part of a system related to the universal concept
of mechanical work.16
The committee was aware of an important precedent to their
situation. In 1832, Carl Friedrich Gauss had first proposed a system
of 'absolute magnetic units'. With Humboldt, Gauss was the organ-
izer of a project to map terrestrial magnetism throughout Europe.
There was no unit for the intensity of magnetism, and English
physicists had taken the intensity at London as the standard. Gauss
argued that it would be more scientific, as well as more practical (and
also, perhaps, less British), if a system was devised that was not
limited to a particular place. Gauss's absolute system defined the unit
of magnetic intensity solely in terms of the units of mass, length, and
time, meaning that a representative of the unit could be created
anywhere that representatives of the fundamental units were avail-
able. Following Gauss, Wilhelm Weber had proposed a system of
similar units for electrical quantities in 1851, showing that because

electricity was a manifestation of mechanical work, it could be ex-
pressed in the same units used to describe mechanical phenomena.'7
Not only was the absolute system easier to work with, but it could
claim a higher authority than possessed by Great Britain, Germany,
or anything else man-made.
In the opinion of the most practical and the most scientific men, a system in which
every unit is derived from the primany units with decimal subdivisions is the best
whenever it can be introduced. It is easily learnt; it renderscalculation of all kinds
simpler; it is more readily accepted by the world at large; and it bears the stamp of
the authority, not of this or that legislator or man of science, but of nature.'8
The BA claimed that its units bore the stamp of nature because they
were expressed solely in terms of mass, length, and time - units the BA
claimed were more fundamental than other units, and which could
form the basis for a system of interconnected units:
The word 'absolute' in the present sense is used as opposed to the word 'relative',
and by no means implies that the measurement is accurately made, or that the unit
employed is of perfect construction; in other words, it does not mean that the
measurements or units are absolutely correct, but only that the measurement,
instead of being a simple comparison with an arbitraryquantity of the same kind as
that measured, is made by reference to certain fundamental units of another kind
treated as postulate. An example will make this clearer. When the power exerted by
an engine is expressed as equal to the power of so many horses, the measurement is
not what is called absolute; it is simply the comparison of one power with another
arbitrarily selected, without reference to units of space, mass, or time, although
these ideas are necessarily involved in any idea of work. Nor would this measure-
ment be at all more absolute if some particular horse could be found who was
always in exactly the same condition and could do exactly the same quantity of
work in an hour at all times. The foot-pound, on the other hand, is one derived unit
of work, and the power of an engine when expressed in foot-pounds is measured in
a kind of absolute measurement, i.e. not by reference to another source of power,
such as a horse or a man, but by referenceto the units of weight and length simply -
units which have been long in general use, and may be treated as fundamental."9
Weber had laid the groundwork for a system of interrelated units

expressed in terms of space, mass, and time. But the committee was
left with the formidable task of converting definitions like 'the unit
length of a conductor moving with unit velocity perpendicularly
across the lines of force of a magnetic field will produce a unit
electromotive force (or difference of potential) between its ends', into
practical experiments that could be performed with accuracy.20Al-
though the committee was confident that practical and scientific
people would regard the absolute system as theoretically superior to

anything arbitrary,they acknowledged that it would only be adopted
on a large scale if, like other standards, it was realized in a form that
could be carried around, readily compared to the resistance of a
telegraph cable, or incorporated into measuring instruments. Con-
sequently, they made plans to realize the unit in material form and
distribute it:
It then became a matter for consideration whether the advantages of the arbitrary
material standard and those of the absolute system could not be combined; and the
following proposal was made and adopted as the most likely to meet every
requirement. It was proposed that a material standard should be prepared in such
form and materials as should ensure the most absolute permanency; that this
standard should approximate as nearly as possible, in the present state of science,
to ten millions of metre/seconds but that, instead of being called by that name, it
should be known simply as the unit of 1862, or should receive some other simpler
name ... that from time to time, as the advance of science rendersthis possible, the
difference between this unit of 1862 and the true ten millions of metre/seconds
should be ascertained with increased accuracy, in order that the error, resulting
from the use of the 1862 unit in dynamical calculations instead of the true absolute
unit, may be corrected by those who require these corrections.2'
Realizing the abstract definition in material form involved a delicate

experiment in which a coil of wire was spun about a hanging magnet.
The angular velocity at which the induced field in the coil caused the
magnet to deflect 450 from its rest position was used to calculate the
coil's resistance. After performing two such realization experiments
in 1863 and 1864, and estimating that the results agreed with each
other to within 0. 16%, and to the true absolute unit by about 0.08%,
the committee chose to incorporate these results into material stan-
dards and distribute them as soon as possible rather than strive for a
closer agreement with the absolute unit:
The amount of probable error in the present determination is so small as to be

insignificant for any of the present purposes of science, and will always remain
insignificant for any practical applications. For these applications it is chiefly
important that every copy of the standard, whatever that may be, should be
accurately made - a condition which is quite unaffected by the greater or less
discrepancy between the standard and true absolute measurement.22
They were aware, also, that ...
... practical standards of resistance are urgently required, and the Committee are
pressed to come to a decision. Defective systems are daily taking firmer root, and
the measurement of currents, quantity, capacity, and electromotive force call

urgently for the attention of your Committee.
Under these circumstances they have decided to rest content with the results of
the experiments now completed, and to commence at once the construction of
standard coils.23
Constructing standard coils meant shutting down the experiments

and creating permanent standards from the silver coils that had been
spun. Because no individual standard could be trusted completely to
maintain the value obtained during the absolute realization, the
committee created a 'parliament' of standards to maintain the unit;
they produced five pairs of standards that could be regularly com-
pared so that if one drifted, its deviance would be noticed and the coil
disregarded. Taking the coil from the absolute determinations as the
basis, they ...
... prepared ten standards, each expressing the British-Association unit of elect-
rical resistance; two of these standards are coils of platinum wire, two are of
platinum-silver alloy, two are coils of wire drawn from a gold-silver alloy, two are
coils of wire drawn from a platinum-iridium alloy, and the remaining two are of
mercury.24
The committee was by now acquainted with the maddening tendency

of resistance coils or any other material representation to change its
value despite all reasonable care being taken, and they admitted:
It is of course impossible to say with certainty that their resistance will not vary
with time; but it is mostly unlikely that the resistance of all will vary in the same
ratio. If, therefore, as is hoped, the eight coils made of such different materials
retain their relative values, some confidence may be felt in the permanence of the
unit.25
At Kew Observatory, the BA deposited the ten standard coils -

the product of three years' labour by Great Britain'sfinest physicists,
and the final repository of a hitherto abstract entity which the
committee had plucked from what Thomson later called 'the loftiest
regions and subtlest ether of natural philosophy'.26At Kew the coils
were used to produce a number of identical boxes of resistance coils
that the BA distributed throughout the world to telegraph
companies, manufacturers, and prominent physicists. Independent
coil makers could send their own coils to Kew for verification 'at a
small charge'.27
While the BA units gained general acceptance among telegraph
engineers and physicists in the English-speaking world, the Siemens
FIGURE 1
The British Approachto StandardizingElectrical Units
DEFINITION
in absolute(c.g.s.)units 1ohm _ l07
m
REALIZATION
the spinningcoil experiments
of 1863 and 1864
REPRESENTATION
of the unit in a standard
MAINTENANCE
a parliamentof 5
differentpairsof
coils
DISSEMINATION
coil sets distributed
worldwide
unit retained its supremacy in Germany and France. As the BA

Committee had been developing their absolute standard, Siemens
had perfected the methods for reproducing his standard to the point
where it could be reproduced to within 0.05%. This was considerably
better than the substantial inaccuracies (about 1%) in the absolute
value of the BA standards that were soon reported by German and
American physicists who performed their own absolute realizations.
While the theory behind the BA unit was generally respected, the BA
standard - the British claim to have given that unit an adequate
representation in material form - proved vulnerable to competing
absolute determinations in the years following the issue of the stand-
ards. This fact did nothing to help the cause of the BA units when
FIGURE 2
The German Approachto StandardizingElectrical Units
DEFINITION 1 Siemens Hg
arbitrary,but a standard 1lmm2xlm
- I -sv
PUBLICATION -
of the definition
REPRESENTATIVES
builtby whomeverneeds thestandard
what was urgently requiredwas a precisely repeatable standard, never

mind all those philosophical niceties.
The work of the committee that had made its sixth and final report
to the British Association in 1869 was far from finished. To ensure the
worldwide adoption of the absolute system, the British not only
would have to maintain a defence of the absolute system on theoreti-
cal grounds, but also develop unsurpassed expertise in expressing
absolute units in the form of material standards and commercial
measuring instruments. This work was taken up on a number of
fronts. Thomson began developing electrometers to measure electri-
cal potential in absolute units, and laid particular emphasis on por-
tability and ruggedness. W.C. Siemens (brother of the German Sie-
mens) developed portable resistance-measuring equipment. Jenkin,
the editor of the committee's reports, gave a series of Cantor lectures
on submarine telegraphy, using the BA units throughout. A number
of textbooks, Jenkin's among them, spread the BA units throughout
the English-speaking world.
The contest between rival electrical units was brought to the first
International Electrical Exposition at Paris (1881), where an Inter-
national Electrical Congress (ICE) was called together with the ex-
plicit purpose of adopting definitions of the electrical units to serve as
the basis for legislative enactments. The 1881 ICE was largely a
contest between the German and British systems, represented at the
congress by the foreign vice presidents Helmholtz and Thomson.28
After much debate about units and standards, the electricians com-
promised, choosing the British unit(the absolute ohm rather than the
FIGURE3
TheCompromise
of 1881
DEFINITIONof the unit
in absolute(c.g.s.) units 1 ohm 10!m
REALIZATION
spinningcoil experiments
performedat Cambridge
REPRESENTATION
a single mercurycolumnfrom
which the definitionof the legal
standardis taken
DEFINMTION
of the standard 1 legalohm'=
Hg 1mm2x
106 cm @ OOC
PUBLICATION
of the defimition _ - I .. =
REPRESENTATIVES
builtby whomeverneeds the standard
Siemens),but choosing the Germanstandard(Siemens'scolumn of

mercuryratherthan the BA or Cavendishresistancecoils) for the
practicalreproductionof the unit. The cross-sectionaldimensions
and temperatureof the mercurycolumnwerefixedat the 1881ICE,
but its lengthwas to be determinedso that the column'sresistance
would equal the absolute unit. An internationalcommissionwas
formedto determinethe lengthexperimentally.
Legislativeactionon the resolutionsof 1881was deferreduntilthe
sixth ICE, held in 1893in conjunctionwith the World'sColumbian
Expositionat Chicago.A Chamberof Delegatescomposedof officials
appointedby the governmentsof the United States, Great Britain,
France,Italy, Germany,Mexico,Austria,Switzerland,Swedenand
Canadaproceededto defineandnamethe variouselectricalunits.By
this time electric lighting, various forms of power generation and

transmission, electric railways, and other applications of electricity
had eclipsed the telegraph industry in economic importance, and had
shifted the emphasis from resistance units to all electrical units. The
subject of their standardization and regulation was now one of prime
interest, and received the most careful consideration of the Chamber
of Delegates.
The Chicago ICE adopted two sets of units: a set of absolute units
along the lines that the BA had proposed, and a set of practical units
which were given detailed experimental descriptions. The 'interna-
tional ohm' was practically defined in terms of a column of mercury
106.3 cm long. The 'international ampere' was defined as the amount
of current required to deposit silver at the rate of 0.001 118 grams per
second under specified electrolytic conditions. And the 'international
volt' was practically defined as 1000/1434 of the voltage of a Clark's
cell at 15?C.
Each country was expected to introduce local legislation that
reproduced the resolutions that were unanimously approved at the
Chicago ICE, but in fact all countries adapted the Chicago resolu-
tions differently.29 Historically, resistance had been the most contro-
versial unit, and it is not surprising that no two countries defined the
resistance unit in exactly the same way. France and Germany (and
Switzerland and Belgium after them) accepted the practical units, but
gave no mention of the cgs system from which the units were derived.
Great Britain finally gave up the BA ohm but referredin its legislation
to both the unit of resistance (in cgs terms), the representation(the
mercury column experiment, specifying the mass of the mercury
rather than its cross-sectional area), and to a standard (a platinum
silver coil preserved in the Board of Trade Electrical Standardizing
Laboratory in London). The international consensus achieved at the
ICE largely prevailed in the case of the unit of current, with most
countries adopting the Chicago resolution verbatim. The Chicago
definition of the volt in terms of the ohm and ampere was adopted
almost verbatim in the United States, Canada, and France, and
substantially the same way in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and
Belgium. Great Britain, however, defined the unit of electromotive
force in terms of the ohm and ampere (as in the Chicago definition),
the representation of the unit in terms of the Clark cell, and the
standardof electromotive force, the latter being defined as the 1/ 100
part of the pressure producing a certain deflection of a particular
Kelvin electrostatic voltmeter.
The resolutions generated at Chicago produced two problems in

the minds of many physicists and engineers. One of these was the
definition of two distinct systems of units. Lord Rayleigh, who had
led the determination of absolute units at the Cavendish laboratory
after Maxwell, registered his disapproval:
Before putting the resolution, I should like to say a word or two. I have no doubt
this proposition will commend itself to a large majority of the Conference, but in
my own mind I feel some doubt as to whether the introduction of the mercury
column is not what we call a fifth wheel to the coach ... To define it (the ohm) as
the resistance of a column of mercury seems to me - I will not say illogical, but
hardly in accord with the precision that absolute measurements made now ob-
tain ... I only wish to liberate my conscience by these few remarks.30
A more generally recognized problem with the Chicago recommen-

dations was with ...
... the specification on independent bases of all three units (the ohm, the ampere,
and the volt). In the case of the absolute practical units this is permissible, because
an inherent feature of the cgs electromagnetic system of units leads as a theoretical
consequence to the relation that an absolute volt is the difference of potential
produced between the terminals of an absolute ohm by the presence of an absolute
ampere. However, with independent definitions for all three units, Ohm's Law
becomes a relation to be experimentally determined, and its expression requires a
numerical coefficient, which, in general, will not turn out to be exactly unity.3'
This problem was not solved theoretically. In practice, however, the

newly created national laboratories in nearly all the industrialized
nations solved it by maintaining standards only for voltage and
resistance. From 1911 to 1947, banks of standard cells and standard
resistors were maintained, intercompared, and were occasionally
compared to the definitions of international units adopted in Chicago
and London. After 1948, the methods by which the units were
maintained and intercompared remained the same, but periodic
comparisons were made with absolute determinations. The period
1911-47 was summed up by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS)
in 1949 as follows:
The preceding record has shown that for the 37 years from 1911 to 1947, inclusive,
the national standardizing laboratories, with valuable coordinating service from
the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, succeeded in maintaining
throughout the civilized world a system of electrical units that did not vary in time
among any of the six participating nations by more than 0.01 of I percent. The
units in the United States apparently never departed from the desired ideal by more
than 20 ppm.
The ideal pursued during these years was the system of international electrical
units, formulated by the London Conference of 1908, and experimentally realized
by the Technical Committee in Washington in 1910. The basic definitions in terms
of mercury columns and silver deposits were brought into play apparently on only
four occasions: to readjustthe British ohm in 1927, the German ohm and the volt in
1932,and the Russianvolt in 1930,when each of these nationschangedits unit to offset
the effectof cumulativedrift in the standardsit had been using to maintainthe unit.32
The civilized world owed the remarkable constancy of its standards

and especially the system that was able to tell that its standards were
constant to a nationwide and civilization-wide parliament of stan-
dards that followed the same strategy as the ten coils that the BA
produced to preserve the value of the ohm.
The Second Social History
It might seem that after the ICEs of 1881-1910 - with the internatio-
nal acceptance of the absolute definitions of the units, of the Caven-
dish methods for making absolute determinations, of practical means
to represent the values obtained, and of 'parliamentary' means to
maintain the values so produced - that the future of these units was
secure, their 'historical' period was over, and that they would face
little opposition as they quietly diffused throughout the world and
came to rest in different laboratories. But their history simply moved
into an equally active second phase that cannot be called 'diffusion'.
The volt, the ohm, and the other electrical units regularly appear at
international conferences and face stubborn resistance every time
they are introduced to a laboratory. But while opposition in the
nineteenth century came from humans who challenged the authority
of the units and standards, the opposition in the twentieth century
comes from things like thermal gradients, parasitic induction, and
ionic currents that resist the transfer of electrical standards from one
apparatus to another.
No sooner had the British volt become accepted by the electricians
and physicists of the industrializedworld, than it was asked to begin a
second tour of the world - one which continues to this day. While the
first circulation of the volt among electricians required it to undergo
trials to earn their acceptance, the second trip is like a never-ending
victory tour in which it is invited back to appear in the capital and
parade itself before all the provinces. No sooner has an American box
of standard cells returned from Paris to its home in Maryland, than
FIGURE4
Standard
VoltageTranmport
Readerswho followthat customof perusingonly the illustrationsto a papershould

pausefor this one, for it containsvisualcluesto mostof whatthe paperis about.The
box depictedhas threefeaturesof importance:a certificatethatconnectsit backto its
laboratoryof origin,a set of terminalsthatconnectthebox to whatis to be calibrated,
anda handlethatallowsit to be carriedbetweenone laboratoryandanother.Without
the certificatespecifyingthe truevalue of the batteryand attestingto the time and
circumstances of its calibration,the box wouldholdnothingbutfourratherordinary,
albeitweak,batteriesthat are of no use to anyone. Withthe certificate,the box still
holdsfour batteries,but it also holdssomethingelseof fargreaterimportance:it also
holds the legal volt. The batteriesbecomejust the accidentalparts of the medium
throughwhichthe volt is madeto appearwhereverthe box is broughtand the proper
proceduresfor calibrationfollowed.The terminalsare appropriatelynamed;they
markthe point at whichthe laboratoryterminatesand the worldbegins.Finally,the
handleis whatlets the volt escapethe localismof one lab and travelto others.
the scientistsin a far-offlaboratorycall to say thatin less thana year

they may have 'lost the unit' (whichtextbookssay was discovereda
centuryago), and mustsee it again.
Whenthe unit is lost, scientistsmust send couriersto bringit to
them.Althoughthe scientistsneedthe volt, theyask for andreceivea
standardcell, effacingin practiceany distinctionbetweenthe 'volt'
(the unit in which electricalpotentialis measured)and the various
devicesthroughwhich'voltage'is measuredandproducedin different
situations.In most cases, the volt is held by a standardcell that has
been measured against a bank of more authoritative standard cells, or

a Josephson Junction (JJ), to determine what its exact voltage is. The
cell that holds the volt is itself held by a box with gold-plated
terminals on the front and climate control to maintain a constant
temperaturewithin. Hand-carried transportation is required for cer-
tain kinds of cells since they cannot be tipped more than 450 from the
vertical, and shippable cells can be certified to a lower uncertainty if
they are hand-carried.
Once the transport standard arrives, technicians whisk it through
security clearances, usher it into their laboratory, place it next to
some of their most expensive equipment, and prepare an oil bath at
the volt's favourite temperature, marked in degrees Celsius on the
box. For up to four weeks the cell is allowed to settle into the
laboratory. It is kept at a constant temperature,freed from mechani-
cal disturbance, measured regularly, and expected to produce read-
ings that are temporally constant, and which do not differwidely from
local standards.33Then the technicians connect the standard cell to a
piece of electronic equipment that requirescalibration, and expect the
volt to flow from the former to the latter.
At this point all human resistance to the unit has been overcome,
but the disappearance of human resistance reveals some non-human
resistances to the volt that otherwise would go unnoticed. For exam-
ple, the length of wire that allows the volt to flow from the standard
cell to the measurement apparatus has a slight resistance that will
induce a voltage drop. What can the technicians do? They might pay
the extra price of using silver wire, which has less resistance than
copper wire. Or they could retain the copper wire but compensate
mathematically for its resistance. Finally, there are the thermoelectric
effects that produce small but distorting voltages at all the metallic
contacts. These effects must be reduced, compensated for, or cancel-
led by reversing the connections and averaging two or more meas-
urements. Where the utmost accuracy is required, the standard to be
calibrated and the entire null-balancing apparatus will be asked to
jump into the same oil bath with the primary standard.
One set of resistances can be overcome by the above precautions,
but other resistances may be overlooked. The technicians know that
there are many ways to let the volt escape accidentally from the
transport standard into which it has been put - short its contacts
momentarily, give it a sharp shock, let it freeze in the back of a UPS
truck or in the hold of an airplane. There is only one way to be sure
that the cell in the box still holds the voltage with which it left the
standards lab - get on the phone and request that several voltage
references be sent independently, checking for agreement once they
arrive. If the several cells hold up under cross-examination, then the
technicians can be more certain that, between them, they contain the
real volt. The volt can escape from any one cell, but not when it is
imprisoned in two or more cells simultaneously.
Voltage transport standards routinely receive this precaution be-
cause standard cells are so delicate, but even the newer and more
rugged zener diode reference standards can benefit by the same
treatment. Manufacturerssometimes build several independent zener
diode references into the same enclosure, advertising them with an
argument like the following:
Single referencedDV [Direct Voltage Standard]manufacturersoften claim, 'Don't

worry, our reference doesn't drift, and we can ship you, hot, another single
reference as a comparison'. Again, one assumes the fresh new single reference unit
is ok, or is it? ... The single reference standard had one value when it left your
national standards laboratory or the manufacturer, but it has a different value
(unknown) after shipping (i.e., transportation shock) to your facility. To overcome
this limitation, the single referenced manufacturers will recommend that you
purchase three or four more single reference based Direct Voltage Standards for
comparison. After it is all said and done, the only way to avoid the mistake of
assuminga single referencedstandardhas the same valuebefore it is shipped as after
you receive it, requires another reference standard. If there is a discrepancy
between the two references which one is correct? A third reference would seem in
order to settle the measurement dispute. Throw in a fourth referencefor even more
multiple reference comparison integrity and the engineered result is the Valhalla
2734A. What they are all getting at is: for absolute trustworthy, direct voltage
accuracy, the multiple referencing integrity approach is the way to go.34
Shipping a standard cell or zener diode reference 'hot' means that the
instrument is left powered continuously during shipping, and that the
references themselves are enclosed in double-insulated temperature-
regulated 'ovens'. Internal batteries maintain the oven temperature
during shipping and in case of power failures.35
Another way to ensure that the standard cells maintain a constant
voltage is to use them as little as possible. When a cell is measured,
some current must be drawn from it. Even though this current is
extremely slight, the flow of current through the cell causes chemical
changes to the electrodes which change the output voltage slightly. So
a standard cell cannot be used often, or it will lose the sole attribute
that makes it valuable - its effective distance from everyday fluctua-
tions, drift, and other inaccuracies.
Only on Sundays
Most highly stable physical standards are like standard cells in this
way - they cannot be measured too frequently, or they will either
cease to work or lose their accuracy permanently (or for a period of
time over which they must recover). The most accurate time interval
standard is the frequency of a particular wavelength of light emitted
from a long tube of ionized cesium. But in order to produce a
discharge in such a long tube, a very high voltage must be applied
between the electrodes at either end. This very high voltage causes the
cesium to burn rapidly off the electrodes - and these are expensive to
replace. So the best time interval standard is only fired up occasion-
ally when the highest level of accuracy is needed. Shorter cesium tubes
are almost as stable and don't degrade as quickly, so they are used
more routinely. Standard resistors aren't permanently degraded by
each measurement unless too much current is forced through them,
but after each measurement they must be allowed several days to
settle down before being measured again. The standard kilogram is
like this also. The handling necessary for measurement, and even the
light falling upon it as it is measured, causes its mass to change
perceptibly.
Metrologists recognize that 'You can't tap directly into Nature',36
and that the best they can do is go to Nature's best representatives-
primary standards. Primary standards are the source of all accuracy
in the world of standards. But because they tend to lose their accuracy
by too much contact with the profane world which they calibrate,
metrologists who suspect that their instruments need recalibration
are permitted to engage the primary standards only periodically. The
accuracy of their instruments thus exhibits a cyclical pattern of
calibration and subsequent drift from the standard. Because of the
effective disengagement of primary standards from day-to-day met-
rological activities, there are a whole range of secondary and transfer
standards that mediate between the sacred world of the primary
standards and the profane world that needs calibration. An elaborate
legal-technical system of traceability keeps track of the connections
between standards and exactly what degree of accuracy one standard
is permitted to give to another.
The most accurate standards are not always considered the most
suited for all applications. Intermediaries are needed for reasons of
economy and practicality, and to protect the highest standards from
too much contact from the rough and tumble world that needs
calibration. Every piece of equipment that needs a time standard

can't have a cesium tube because those are large, expensive, trouble-
some to operate, and wear out in continuous use. So cesium tubes are
fired up periodically and used to calibrate less accurate oscillators
built around quartz crystals maintained at constant temperature.
These 'crystal oven oscillators' are in turn used to calibrate even less
accurate non-temperature-compensated quartz crystal timebases in
watches, clocks, computers, and TV sets. At each level of accuracy, a
tradeoff is made between accuracy and other factors like price and
convenience.
There is a similar hierarchyof voltage standards. Not every piece of
electronic equipment that requires a voltage standard can incorpor-
ate the most accurate way to represent the volt (a supercooled JJ,
discussed in greater detail below). Although the JJ itself is a very
simple device, it requires complicated, expensive, and troublesome
support equipment, including an accurate time interval standard and
a large supply of liquid helium. No one wants a hand-held voltmeter
that requires a refill of liquid helium every month. So the JJ is used to
calibrate a standard cell, which in turn calibrates a transfercell, which
calibrates a bank of cells in a laboratory which calibrates zener diode
or bandgap references in hand-held voltmeters. The JJ is indeed the
most authoritative direct voltage standard, as the following quote
indicates: 'The standard cell now serves only as a "flywheel", that is,
as a means of preserving or storing VLAB between Josephson effect
measurements'.37But the JJ hasn't made standard cells or zener
referencesuseless, because the highest authority in the land is power-
less unless it can make its influence felt in all the nooks and crannies of
the kingdom. That indispensable job now belongs to standard cells
and zener diode references which are less expensive and can move
around more readily than the primary standards from which they
derive their accuracy.
The Developmentof IntrinsicStandards
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) dissem-

inates standards in two ways: (1) by maintaining 'artefact standards'
and providing traceability to these standards through various means
of dissemination like transfer standards or the transmission of time
standards by radio; and (2) by developing 'intrinsic standards' which
are physics experiments that other laboratories can perform to create
the volt, second, ohm, or various temperature points right on their

premises to the highest accuracy that is legally recognized.38The
cesium standard for the time interval, the JJ standard for the volt, the
quantum Hall effect (QHE) standard for the ohm, and the krypton-86
standard for the metre are all intrinsic standards. The metre, volt, and
ohm were formerly artefact standards (until 1960, 1972, and 1990
respectively). The kilogram and other standards are still artefact
standards ultimately maintained near Paris by the Bureau Internat-
ional des Poids et Mesures (BIPM), and disseminated to various
national standards laboratories.
NIST, and other standards laboratories, have concentrated much
of their efforts on developing intrinsic standards to replace the arte-
fact standards in their custody. An example of this is the JJ voltage
standard which, in 1972, replaced banks of standard cells in many
standards laboratories. In 1990, standards laboratories came to an
international agreement on the fundamental frequency-to-voltage
constant used in their separate JJ experiments, meaning that every JJ
should produce the same voltage. The laboratories that have their
own JJ do not have to go back to NIST, or to any other laboratory, to
check the accuracy of their standard, because their own JJ is recog-
nized as the equal of any other JJ, both scientifically and legally.
Before 1972, the authority that a particular voltage standard pos-
sessed had nothing to do with the physical characteristics of the cell,
but had everything to do with its having been measured over a period
of time by comparison to several cells with greater authority. These
cells, in turn, obtained their authority by comparison with more
authoritative cells, which in turn were intercomparedinternationally,
or were compared to an absolute realization experiment. In other
words, particular representativesof the volt or ohm possessed accur-
acy solely by virtue of having been in a particularkind of contact with
the most accurate representative through the mediation of an un-
broken chain of calibrations via transfer standards.
Since 1972, however, NIST has designed and permitted the con-
struction of voltage standards whose accuracy is thought to derive
solely from their method of construction - to be intrinsic to the device
itself. Primary standards labs no longer receive the volt disseminated
from NIST. Instead, they receive instructions and part of the mach-
inery to create a representativethat has the same authority as NIST's
for practical and legal purposes. The service that NIST performs with
respect to these labs is no longer one of calibration,which is the service
performed for artefact standards that possess accuracy solely by
virtue of having been calibrated, but one of qualification, 'a process

that establishes the fitness of a natural property to serve as a standard
and confirms the acceptable modes, apparatus, procedures, and per-
sons capable of realizing its standardized value within an acceptable
uncertainty tolerance'.39Metrologists believe that any two qualified
intrinsic standards have equal natural authority, but if for some
reason one had to be accorded higher accuracy than another, then
purely social authority would take over, and the one from NIST
would be granted the highest authority.
Some subtle changes have taken place with the introduction of
intrinsic standards that loosely might be called a Calvinist reforma-
tion in metrology. For one, direct contact with the volt is now
available to everyone in principle, and to a growing number of
laboratories in fact. Two, the organization that previously mediated
contact between the highest authority and those that require contact
with it has stepped aside and offers its clients a method for achieving
this contact themselves. And finally, the philosophy of intrinsic
standards (as expressed in the technical literaturepublished by NIST,
and by comparable international bodies) has no provision for peri-
odically correcting drift in the new intrinsic standards because they
are thought not to drift. Noticeably absent from the metrology of
intrinsic standards is the periodic sacramental redemption from error
that equally mark the Catholic theology and the metrology of artefact
standards. Instead, the judgement of whether the intrinsic standard is
good or bad occurs only once, when it is built, and there is no
recognition or provision that correction or comparison, or contact of
any sort with the higher authority, will be needed again.
Such is the faith of metrologists in the agreement of particular JJ
and QHE representations with each other and with Nature, that they
have agreed to stop denoting the context of origin for particular
standards based on them. Nothing so marks the creation of univer-
sality as the dropping of local subscripts from units that are neverthe-
less produced in different physical locales:
The Consultative Committee on Electricity believes that the new volt and ohm
representations based on the Josephson and quantum Hall effects will be complete-
ly satisfactory for the great majority of applications (i.e., it will rarely be necessary
to distinguish between the new representations and the SI units); and any differ-
ences among the volt and ohm representations of different laboratories will be
negligible from the point of view of the great majority of users (i.e., it will rarely be
necessary to distinguish between the representations of different laboratories).
Therefore, the CCE and CIPM have recommended that national standards labor-
atories avoid the use of subscripts or other distinguishing symbols of any sort on
either unit symbols (i.e., E, R), when reporting the results of calibration carried out
in terms of the new volt and ohm representations. Examples of such subscripts are
those denoting particular laboratories or dates such as VNIST, V90,ENIST, or Ego40
Theoretical and experimentalarguments have been given over the last

twenty years to justify this faith in the universality of the JJ and QHE
representations. While the output of a JJ depends only upon an
applied microwave frequency, the standard cell depends on the purity
of a chemical solution, the ambient temperature,chemical changes in
the electrodes, and other local and particularcircumstanceswhich are
difficultto control. The JJ offersa much 'simpler'representationof the
volt, because its output voltage is an integral function of its input
frequency. But simplicity is never simple: while the standard cell is
basically just a battery, the JJ is as large as a person and requires
tremendous surrounding complexity to achieve its particular kind of
simplicity. The JJ can also be temperamental- more so, perhaps, than
the standard cell. But whereas a cell typically will drift imperceptibly
out of accuracy, the JJ hits only integral multiples of a known voltage
or simply fails to work at all. The QHE is even simpler: once the
experiment has been cooled to roughly the right temperature, and is
biased correctly, its resistance will depend only upon an unchanging
constant, whereas the wire-wound standard resistors which it re-
placed depend critically upon temperature, physical shock, age, how
much current had been passed through them during their lifetime,
and other variables.
Experimentally,the JJ and QHE (which are 'representations'of the
volt and ohm respectively) can be verified only by comparison with
a 'realization' of the volt or ohm - a physics experiment that pro-
duces the unit from its definition in SI units. Experiments like
the force balance for voltage and the calculable capacitor for resist-
ance enable laboratories to decide that the JJ and QHE are accurate
and do not drift, and allow them to determine the mathematical
constants that form part of the JJ and QHE experiments. The
realization experiments for these two quantities were each performed
for enough time to determine that the previous standards were drift-
ing, that the JJ and QHE standards do not drift, and to determine the
constants for use in those representations. Then, the realization
experiments were turned off, and have since only been revived
periodically. One of these realization experiments was maintained
with great difficulty throughout the crucial years when the
inadequacies of standard resistors were discovered and the QHE was

developed to take its place:
The mean resistance of a particular group of precision wire-wound resistors is still

the means by which most national standard laboratories define their laboratory
unit of resistance. However, starting in 1963 the NML in Australia has had in
continuous operation a calculable capacitor-based apparatus which has been used
to realize periodically the SI definition of the ohm and determine the relationship
between QNML and Q. Indeed, starting in 1969, the NML has defined their
laboratory unit in terms of their realization of the SI ohm and maintained QNML
equal to Q with an uncertainty on the order of 0.1 ppm .... Although a number of
other countries now have, or shortly will have, fully operational calculable capaci-
tor SI ohm realization experiments, it still remains a complex undertaking. (The
fact that only one laboratory in the world has had such an apparatus in continuous
operation since the method was developed in the early 1960'sattests to its difficulty.)
Thus metrologists heartily welcomed the discovery in 1980 of the quantum Hall
effect (QHE) since the QHE promises to do for resistance-unit definition and
maintenance what the Josephson effect has done for voltage-unit definition and
maintenance.4'
Like the JJ, the QHE experiment is recognized as such a good

representation of the ohm that once it has been validated and got
going with the help of the realization experiment, it can take the place
of the realization and the latter can be turned off. In fact, the repres-
entation is better than the realization in many respects:
In practice, the volt and ohm, which occasionally may be referred to in the
literatureas the absolute volt and ohm, may be realized in a number of ways. These
include comparing electrical power with mechanical power (for the volt) using a
force balance, and resistance with impedance (for the ohm) using a calculable
capacitor. However, commercial, industrial, and scientific requirements for the
long-term repeatability and world-wide consistency of measurements of emf/
electric potential differenceand resistance often exceed the accuracy with which the
SI units for such measurements, the volt and the ohm, can be readily realized. To
meet these severe demands, it has become necessary to establish representationsof
the volt and ohm that have superior long-term reproducibility and constancy
compared with the present direct realizations of the volt and ohm themselves.42
Now, as in the days of the BA realization experiment, the means of

representing the volt have two orders of magnitude less uncertainty
than the realization of the unit in absolute terms. Therefore, different
laboratories that share the same representation are closer to each
other than any of them are to the absolute unit.
TABLE 1
Different Occurences of the Volt and Their Uncertainty
Use Method Uncertainty
1~kg.m2
definition 1 volt= _ none
realization voltage balance 3.10-7
representation Josephson Junction 1.i0-9
maintenance characterized standard cells 5.10-8

or zener references
dissemination standard cells or zener references 4.10-6
inexpensive instruments zener diode or bandgap reference 1-50.10-6
The last four items of the table are currently in active use, with
calibrations proceeding downward. Notice that 'no slave is greater
than his master; no messenger is greater than the one who sent him' -
each calibration results in the loss of an order of magnitude of
certainty.43
The Problem of Authority
Metrologists daily face questions like 'whose volt shall we believe is

the real volt?'; 'whose representative of Nature should we treat like
Nature itself?' The job of a metrologist is precisely to solve such
problems in practice - to judge that particular representatives of
voltage, resistance, time interval, or dimension are more or less
authoritative than other representatives. Evident in the metrological
literature is a distinction between natural reasons and social causes
for granting authority to particular representatives. For example, to
adjudicate between two time interval standards (such as a quartz
oscillator and a cesium tube), metrologists will rely upon what to
them is a natural argument which says that the cesium tube is more
accurate than the quartz oscillator for a number of technical reasons
which compel assent from virtually every member of the group. The
fact that the cesium tube is currently declared the most authoritative
representation of the time interval standard by national and inter-
national agreement is a social fact that merely recognizes the natural
fact of its superior accuracy.
Different cesium tubes are recognized as more or less accurate,
depending upon their construction. A slight problem arises in the case
of identical cesium tubes. The natural argument says that identical

cesium tubes are equally authoritative, and so it cannot help resolve a
dispute between two such standards. Metrologists must then turn to
what they regard as a purely arbitrary social convention.4 For ex-
ample, metrologists in the United States would grant the highest
authority to the cesium standard maintained by NIST. The authority
of NIST in turn comes from the Constitution, which gives Congress
the authority to 'fix the standard of Weights and Measures'. The
source of authority for any cesium standard can thus be easily
resolved by metrologists into natural and social components: all
cesium standards have been granted the highest authority available
because of natural arguments which the international social agree-
ment merely reflects, but if it ever becomes necessary to determine
which of two identical cesium standards is more authoritative than
the other, then purely social convention will decide.
This is how the authority of intrinsic standards is justified: their
authority is thought to be purely social only in the last resort. Be-
fore the 'reformation', however, when all standards of a particular
type were traceable to a single artefact which was privileged above
all others, authority was more arbitrary, more purely social. The
conventional basis of authority was less acceptable to metrologists
than a natural basis, but was accepted nevertheless. It was accepted
only because metrologists believed that agreement between their
various representatives was a more important goal than the corres-
pondence of any one of them with the real volt.45
In the relatively new field of human biological standards, metrolo-
gists admit that simply having a common reference point is more
important than how close that reference point is to a real referent:
The most accepted standard for body fat is underwater weighing (hydrostatic
weighing) - it gives you an accurate determination of density, volume, weight. It
has its own uncertainties but it is the standard for body composition . . . nobody
really cares how accurate the standard is, just that we have a standard. It's all
relative, and as long as people compare to the same unit, it doesn't matter ... The
main thing is that you all have a common reference point.'
Similarly, metrologists recognize that it is more important to have

different representations of the volt and ohm agree with each other
than to have them agree with Nature. In fact, agreement with Nature
does not seem as important as interlaboratory agreement:
With the worldwide adoption starting January 1, 1990, of the new conventional
all national representations of the volt should
value of the Josephson constant K,190,
be equivalent to within a few tenths of a ppm. Similarly, the total experimental

uncertainty associated with the measurement of quantized Hall resistances also
generally lies in the range 0.01 to 0.2 ppm. Hence, with the worldwide adoption
starting on January 1, 1990, of a new representation of the ohm based on the QHE
and the conventional value of the von Klitzing constant RK-9,all national repres-
entations of the ohm should also be equivalent to within a few tenths of a ppm.
Moreover, these new national volt and ohm representations should be consistent
with the [absolute] volt and the [absolute] ohm to better than 0.5 ppm.47
NIST Calibration Reports of standard cells by a JJ include the

following statement:
An ideal representation of the volt based on the Josephson effect and K,90 is
expected to be consistent with the volt as defined in the International System of
Units (SI) to within an assigned relative one-standard-deviation uncertainty of 0.4
ppm (0.4lpV for an emf of 1.018 V). Because this uncertainty is the same for all
national standards laboratories, it has not been formally included in the uncert-
ainties given in the table. However, its existence must be taken into account when
the utmost consistency between electrical and nonelectrical measurements of the
same physical quantity is required.48
As the last sentence indicates, the differencebetween the standard volt

and the absolute volt must be considered only where such a difference
would compromise the consistency of two ways of measuring the
same quantity.
Calibration,Traceability, and the Power of Paper
If standards are so important to science, why do published papers

typically not cite the methods used to calibrate the measurement or
production equipment? Partly this is because publication is not the
only way in which information enters or leaves a laboratory. The
scientists or technologists who actually repeat or extend the work that
has begun in another lab, will typically find it necessary to initiate
other communication of a metrological sort, sometimes involving
personal visits and hand-transport of standards. And partly the
absence of metrological information in scientific papers is simply a
part of the culture of science that effaces the work needed to make its
universality self-evident.49This culture is reinforced by the division of
labour within the lab; metrological activity is largely invisible to the
scientists who write papers simply because it is performed by their
technicians, and at times different from when experiments are per-
formed.
If scientists don't pay attention to metrology, then who does?

Sociologists are just beginning to, but the laurels really belong to the
United States DoD, which has known for years that the universality
of science rests upon metrological foundations. With its particular
interest in bringing the world into the lab and the results of lab out
into the world, the DoD has become the biggest enforcer of regula-
tions regarding measurement and calibration and the biggest United
States producer of trained metrologists.50Companies which build
equipment for the DoD are required to calibrate all their in-house
equipment according to national artefact, intrinsic, and consensus
standards maintained by the Navy and other branches of the military,
in cooperation with NIST. In addition, they are required to maintain
records documenting the connection of their equipment, via
calibration, to the same national standards used by other contractors
and by other branches of the military. In short, they are required to
demonstrate 'traceability':
Traceability refers to the requirement that all measurement instruments be cali-

brated (periodically) and that all calibrations performed be traceable to national
standards, fundamental physical constants, or agreed-upon standards where
neither of the former two exist. That is, an unbroken chain of documentation in the
form of calibration reports referring to other reports of calibration of the instru-
ments and standards used, etc., showing the linkages back to these basic starting
points, must exist for each calibration.5'
Formal definitions of traceability are maintained and published

by the Department of Defense (DoD), American National Standards
Institute (ANSI), American Society for Quality Control (ASQC),
and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Though
differing slightly, they all require that any product with a specified
tolerance must be connected, even if through many stages, back to the
handful of standards at NIST. Furthermore, every step in the un-
broken chain of calibration must be performed by a qualified labora-
tory. In the United States, only a laboratory properly 'anointed'52
by NIST can declare that a particular chain of calibrations is
unbroken - that is, genuinely traceable. The required chain of
traceability varies from country to country, because traceability is a
feature of the law and not of Nature. Metrologists have accordingly
called traceability a 'Golden Calf' - 'a specious tangible object that
diverts the attention from an intangible but effectual entity that it
purports to represent'.53
For its subcontractors, the DoD states which standards are accep-
table authorities, mandates the chain of traceability to these, asks for

verification, and promises rewards to those that remain bound to it:
We're all trying to work together. Our goal is the same as yours - that's getting the
part out the door. But our problem is we've got to be sure you're meeting the
contract and meeting the specs. Prove to us you are, we'll be more than happy to
ship. If you can't, then your parts don't move out the door, and you're not moving
product.'
Trying to work together with manufacturers, one manufacturer of

metrological equipment publishes a poster depicting United States
DoD traceability as a vine-like structure descending from a handful
of standards maintained by NIST.55Pieces of equipment sprout off
the vine in particular places like leaves, bringing to mind the admon-
ition:
No branch can bear fruit by itself, but only if it remains united with the vine; no
more can you bear fruit, unless you remain united with me . .. Whoever remains in
me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me. Whoever
does not remain in me is thrown out, like a branch, and dries up; such branches are
gathered up and thrown into the fire, where they are burned. If you remain in me,
and my words remain in you, then you will ask for anything you wish, and you shall
have it.56
Until the late 1980s and early 1990s, the DoD would send auditors
with transfer standards directly to their subcontractors to make sure
that the latter were maintaining accurate standards. Unannounced,
men carrying boxes like the one shown in Figure 4 would arrive at the
laboratories of defence contractors and would check the accuracy of
the local volt, ohm, and dimensional standards against their trans-
port standards. Because of budget cuts, however, auditors will no
longer be able to visit contractors in person. Instead, the DoD are
switching over to a programme called 'In Plant Quality' that substi-
tutes the circulation of paper documents for the circulation of volts,
ohms, dimension gauges and auditors.57They have done this by a
comprehensive centralization of the measurement and test proce-
dures required of the laboratories that do contract work. Now,
instead of going out to test the companies, they merely ask the
company to provide them with written records of tests performed
according to common procedures which are part of the new MIL-
STD-45662A.
The shift from a reliance on direct audits to a reliance on docu-
mentation which represent local measurements means that certain
documents will now have the same authority once granted to the
things they represent. In the face of budget cuts, the new attitude of
DoD auditors is:
If the paperwork weighs as much as the part, then we figure the part's right... All
we're going to have to rely upon is your paperwork. If you haven't documented it -
if you haven't written it down - we've got no evidence. If we have no evidence, we
can't accept. It's going to be rough for a few years. Hopefully we'll all muddle
through.5"
There is no way that paper could balance parts, even titanium parts, if
the DoD hadn't first forced a massive standardization of the ways in
which measurements and parts are translated into paper representa-
tions. They did this simply by publishing new requirements.The large
companies have employees who are responsible for tracking such
things, while the smaller companies learn of changes of this type
through the regional efforts of the National Conference of Standards
Laboratories (NCSL), the Precision Measurement Association
(PMA) and the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC). The
NCSL in particular is circulating 'a number of gentlemen all around
the country to the various regional meetings to familiarize the local
constituency with the new MIL-STD and how to meet it' and pub-
lishing documents, appropriately named circulars.59Only with this
prior standardization of the conventions of representation, which
enables documents to stand for things, could circulating documents
replace circulating auditors.
The centralization of procedures and documentation has com-
plemented an accompanying decentralization of physical standards.
Standards like the volt no longer need to be carried from laboratory
to laboratory, because new intrinsic standards and more stable arte-
fact standards mean that labs can maintain their own voltage stand-
ards with sufficientaccuracy over long periods of time. Also, automa-
tion has made it possible for equipment to check and calibrate itself
(or another piece of equipment) with reference to a standard. Mach-
ines audit themselves (or other machines), and report the results over
the telephone, or in printed format which the laboratory sends to its
auditors. Automation reduces the amount of skilled labour required,
and increases universality by having a few skilled instrument makers
perform a vast number of virtually identical calibrations in a way
already discussed in conjunction with the Valhalla 1990B.
The Creation of Universality
Sociologists aren't the only ones interested in localism and universal-

ity: the various branches of the military are constantly working to
ensure that the volt, ohm, metre, and other units are the same in all
the different places where military activities occur. When a bomb
made in Massachusetts, a bomber made in California, and a bomber
pilot trained in Colorado are brought together for the first time in
Panama and expected to fight a war, they must fit together as if they
had not been formed in separate local contexts. It would be difficultto
build all military equipment in one giant factory (and politically
unacceptable to build it all in one congressional district), and the
military typically wants to fight its wars some distance away from its
bases, so the expense of continuously circulating standards around
the world is justified if bombs and bombers can circulate in their
wake.
The US Navy has found that it cannot set up an overseas base
simply by sending ships, airplanes, bullets and soldiers. None of these
can move freely into a new setting unless the Navy first sends the volt,
the ohm, the metre, and other standards ahead to preparethe way. As
powerful as military equipment appears on TV clips, it is extraordin-
arily fragile without support equipment, and cannot move into new
settings for long unless the setting has been prepared by rendering
certain variables similar with respect to where the equipment was
produced, and stable with respect to time. This is not self-evident,
certainly not to a government that is trying to cut costs. In the
nineteenth century, it took an expensive cable failure to convince
British industrialists to invest in precision standards. A similar lesson
was learned by the Air Force in the 1950s and 1960s, when guided
missile systems were first acquired. A number of dramatic failures
during field testing were traced in retrospect to sloppy maintenance of
standards or the absence of standards. As a consequence, the Air
Force built the first military metrology department on Lowry Air
Force Base and has since produced most of the military and civilian
metrologists in the United States.60Since then, other branches of the
military have experienced their own failures and traced these to
imprecision.
The important point for social studies of science is not that the
modern military imposes standards. Standards, after all, apply to
everything from the length of an infantryman's socks to the sugar
content of the jam served at mess. What is significant, however, is that
among the entities that the modern military standardizes and repre-
sents throughout the world are those which are also used in scientific
research, and are believed to stand for transcendent natural entities.
The military includes scientific entities in its encompassing purview
because it believes that representing them and bringing them wher-
ever it goes is essential to its particular kind of technology transfer,
and worth what it costs.
For example, the US Navy supplied Kuwait with a number of
airplanes and other military equipment in the years prior to the Iraqi
invasion. It realized from prior experience that it must also set up a
standards laboratory in Kuwait, or the airplanes would become as
useless as if they had no landing strips. Kuwait soon found that not
only must it pay the Navy for the use of the airplanes, but it also must
pay Nature for the use of certain constants like the volt. Of course
Kuwait cannot pay Nature directly, so it must pay Nature's repres-
entative - the US Navy, in this case. Even if Kuwait could somehow
go to Nature directly, and even if Nature would accept Kuwait's
cheque, Kuwait would still prefer the Navy's volt, because it is the
Navy's volt rather than Nature's volt around which the airplanes
were built. By the spring of 1990, Kuwait had purchased not only the
airplanes from the Navy, but the volt and a host of dimensional, time
interval, and other standards as well.6'The airplanes were simply the
most visible components of the whole package.
Kuwait is not the only one who must subscribe to a network of
volts, meters, and other units if it wants to purchase objects which
have been built with them. Anyone who has ever bought a computer
or TV set has brought home with them only part of what they paid
for. The other part of the purchase price is a subscription to a service
that works behind the scenes to disseminate the volt, the ohm, various
computer interfacing protocols, National Television Systems
Committee (NTSC) standards, and frequency standards. The TV set
and computer are attached to these standards, to other computer
equipment, and to TV stations by invisible but unbroken strings of
traceability. The visible circulation of TV sets and computers from
one country to another, from one set of transmitting stations to
another, or from one set of computer peripherals to another, is only
possible because of the invisible circulation of standards to all the
factories at which computers and TV sets are made, to all the trans-
mitting stations which broadcast TV signals, and to all the utility
companies which produce electrical power at a set voltage.
The point of this paper is not only that technoscience constructs an
invisible network over which its products and measurementscirculate

to demonstrate its universality, but how it does that - by establishing
the authority of a particular representative, circulating it, and assur-
ing that comparisons are made to it. The circulation of particulars is
accomplished by the manufacturers of metrological equipment and
by calibration services. Their equipment and services are purchased
by companies that need to be hooked up to the networks of electrical
standards so their products can flow through it unimpeded. Compan-
ies like Valhalla Scientific, Fluke, and Hewlett Packard get their
voltage standard from the JJ maintained by NIST, pass it on to other
companies through the equipment they manufacture, and these other
companies pass it on to the products they build. One of these com-
panies might build a TV set in Massachusetts, and another might
build a TV transmitterin Georgia. These products will work together
when they are brought together and switched on in California be-
cause the volt, the hertz, and the NTSC standards around which they
have been built are traceable to the same source, and both will work
off the powerline voltage because the power company in California
got its voltage standard from NIST through another unbroken chain.
Without the volt, ohm, and hertz going ahead to prepare a grand
reception for the TV sets, computers, and fighter planes which circu-
late in their wake, the spread of the latter would truly be a miracle.
Likewise, without an army of technicians, an Act of Congress to set
up a Bureau of Standards, an oil bath to reduce temperature grad-
ients to less than 0.1 C, gold-plated terminals to bridge the gap
between the laboratory and the world, and the variety of other
precautions discussed in this paper, scientists would never be able to
carry measurements into the lab, construct models and theories, and
then export them to other scientists or to factories. The apparent
universality of science is tribute to the power of a collective rendered
stable by the pre-circulation of stable objects.
Of course, the circulating standards couldn't circulate except for
the existence of other stable collectives which permit them to travel -
stable roads over which vans carry transfer standards, stable net-
works of wires carrying telecommunications, and a dispersed group
of people who need the volt. The stable collective of volt users cannot
be used unproblematically as a resource to explain the stability of the
volt, but itself requires just as much explanation. However, that
explanation is to be found in the history of the telegraph, turn-of-the-
century electrotechnology,DoD-mandated traceability,and a number
of other stories of the type that science studies traditionally tackles.
In short, the challenge to social scientists is to stop taking the

universality of entities like the volt for granted, and to start treating
the volt like the society which it truly is - a distributed col-
lective connected by continually renewed structured relations of
exchange and authority. Scientific entities are not universal un-
til scientists or their technicians take the trouble to make them so. But
this is only half the challenge; it does no good to replace a universal-
istic account of scientific entities like the volt with an equally
universalistic account of why people believe they need the volt.
Fortunately, the existing tools of social studies of science are sufficient
for that task.
*NOTES
The work of Bruno Latour and his help with an earlier version of this paper have
informed its theoretical approach, some of the terminology, and certain methodologi-
cal principles (such as the attention to lay sociologies that solve in practice the same
issues that sociologists ask in theory). The comments of anonymous reviewers for
Social Studies of Science, and discussions with Professor Norton Wise and other
members of the Princeton University Department of History, strengthened a later
version of this paper. Portions of this paper are based upon work supported under a
US National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.
1. The example of the weather map is paraphrased from J.S. Hunter, 'The
National System of Scientific Measurement', Science, Vol. 210 (21 November 1980),
869-74. Hunter cites a 1977 study by NBS claiming that, in 1977, the US government
alone spent 6% of the GNP on measurements of all kinds.
2. L. Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (Chicago, IL: The
University of Chicago Press, 1979), 39. Fleck's work, published in 1935 as Entstehung
und Entwicklung einer Wissenschaftlichen Tatsache. Einfiuhrungin die Lehre vom
Denkstil und Denkkollektiv, and since translated by F. Bradley and T.J. Trenn, is a
study of the development of the Wasserman reaction as a standard and reliable test
that could take the place of waiting for a patient to develop syphillis.
3. This paper does not attempt to offer a comprehensive history of metrology, but
rather three examples chosen for their potential interest to readers of Social Studies of
Science. For other discussions of the significance of metrology to social studies of
science, see B. Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1987), particularly Chapter 6; S. Schaffer, 'Late Victorian Metrology and its
Instrumentation: A Manufactory of Ohms', in Robert Bud and Susan E. Cozzens
(eds), Invisible Connections: Instruments, Institutions and Science (Bellingham, WA:
SPIE Optical Engineering Press, 1992), 23-56; Chapter 7 of J. Rouse, Knowledgeand
Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987);C. Smith and M.N. Wise, Energy
O'Connell: Creation of Universality in Metrology 167
and Empire (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1989), particularly Chapter 20;

W. Hallock and H. Wade, Outlines of the Evolution of Weights and Measures (New
York: Macmillan, 1906); and H. M. Collins, Changing Order (London: Sage, 1985).
While this paper builds on those works, it adds empirical material and additional
theoretical discussion. While Latour provides some of the analytic vocabulary used in
this paper, and was one of the first to identify the importance of metrological practices
to the universality of technoscience, his work to date appears more concerned with
noting that heterogeneous metrological collectives exist and celebrating what they
allow technoscientists to do, rather than exploring how different types of connections
make up such collectives, what resists their formation, and how they were formed
against this resistance. Rouse provides some of the theoretical resources for a more
sophisticated understanding of collectives, centres of calculation, and the creation of
universality, but without empirical support.
4. Readers wishing to perform this procedure themselves should consult the
following for appropriate methods: J.P. Clarys, A.D. Martin and D.T. Drinkwater,
'Gross Tissue Weights in the Human Body by Cadaver Dissection', Human Biology,
Vol. 56 (September 1984),459-73, and Martin, Drinkwater and Clarys, 'Human Body
Surface Area: Validation of Formulae Based on a Cadaver Study', ibid., 475-88.
5. Here and elsewhere in this paper, the terms 'realization' and 'representation'are
drawn primarily from the technical literatureon electrical and other standards, rather
than from traditions in the philosophy and sociology of science that may be more
familiar to readers. A realization of a physical quantity such as the volt is an
experiment that creates a real, tangible, and usually material instance of that unit by
following its definition exactly. A representationis said to standfor the realization of
the definition; it can be any tangible way of producing that quantity that the relevant
authorities recognize as adequate. There are many differentways to representthe same
physical quantity, and particular methods are sanctioned for various purposes. For a
description of most of the accepted representations of body composition, see D.A.
Brodie, 'Techniques of Measurement of Body Composition', Parts I and II, Sports
Medicine, Vol. 5 (1988), 11-40 and 74-98.
6. Professionals admit a number of problems with this translation, chiefly because
it assumes that the density of tissues like bone, muscle and fat do not vary from one
subject to another. However, since the early 1950s, they have come overwhelmingly to
accept estimates based on whole body density as the best substitute for cadaveric
analysis, and as suitable for most of the work that is currently done in sports training
research, dietary studies and studying various sub-populations. The paucity of
confirming data from actual bodies is remarkable.There were a few cadavers measured
in the nineteenth century, but only in some cases were total body weights reported, and
in no case was whole body density reported. Between 1940 and 1984, eight cadavers
were analyzed, but only three of these were analyzed by the 'two-component chemical
model' of body composition that is currently accepted as the basis for body
composition studies. Finally, in 1979-80, twenty-five cadavers were analyzed by both
hydrostatic weighing and dissection, but without chemical analysis. In 1983, an
additional seven were analyzed, but again without chemical analysis. All in all, a direct
comparison between body density and body composition according to the two-
component chemical model has only been performed on three bodies, all dissected in
1902. Sources: Brodie, ibid.; Clarys, Martin & Drinkwater, op. cit. note 4; and K.
Clark of Valhalla Scientific, interviewed on II May 1990.
7. For a review of the literature, see R.N. Baumgartner, W.C. Chumlea and A.F.
Roche, 'Bioelectric Impedance for Body Composition', Exercise and Sports Science
Reviews, Vol. 18 (1990), 193-224.
8. 'Body Composition Analysis Through Bio Impedance, Fact or Fiction?' (San
Diego: Valhalla Scientific, Inc., 9955 Mesa Rim Road, San Diego, California 92121,
ca. 1989).
9. One was an employee of Valhalla Scientific; the other was a graduate student at
one of the participating universities. The choice of this example and the language used
to describe it were suggested by the discussion of 'immutable mobiles' by Latour, op.
cit. note 3.
10. Clark, op. cit. note 6.
11. Ibid.
12. The language of translation and detours in this paragraph is introduced by
Latour, op. cit. note 3, particularly Chapter 3.
13. A list of some early resistance standards that enjoyed limited use and a
comparison of their values is given in F. Jenkin (ed.), Reports of the Committee on
Standards of Electrical Resistance Appointed by the British Association for the
Advancementof Science (London: E. & F.N. Spon, 1873), 114.
14. On the transatlantic cable and Thomson's role, see Smith & Wise, op. cit. note 3.
On the BA Committee, see Schaffer, op. cit. note 3 and Jenkin (ed.), op. cit. note 13.
15. Jenkin (ed.), op. cit. note 13, 4.
16. On the development of British energy physics centred on mechanical work, see
Smith & Wise, op. cit. note 3, and M.N. Wise and C. Smith, 'Work and Waste: Political
Economy and Natural Philosophy in Nineteenth Century Britain (III)', History of
Science, Vol. 28 (1990), 221-61.
17. Hallock & Wade, op. cit. note 3, 200-04.
18. Jenkin (ed.), op. cit. note 13, 60 (emphasis added).
19. Ibid., 41.
20. Ibid., 47.
21. Ibid., 5.
22. Ibid., 111-12.
23. Ibid., 112.
24. Ibid., 132.
25. A description of the parliamentary procedure for maintaining a unit between
realization experiments is given in F.B. Silsbee, 'Establishment and Maintenance of
the Electrical Units', National Bureau of Standards Circular 475 (30 June 1949):
The general procedure followed at the National Bureau of Standards to preserve

through the years the value of a primary electrical unit of measurement is to keep
under observation a large group, N, of standards of the highest grade. A selected
group, n, of these standards is regarded as the primary reference group, and the
assumption is made that in the interval between intercomparisons the mean value
of all the standards in the primary group, n, has remained unchanged. The
intercomparisons are made at intervals, usually once a month for standard cells
and seldom exceeding a year for standard resistors. Such comparisons are often
preliminary to important checks on the standards of other laboratories.
Following each set of measurements, the value of each of the standards of group
n relative to the new mean is compared with its previous value relative to the old
mean, and its apparent change is compared with those of the other standards of
group n. If these changes are reasonably small and well distributed statistically it is
assumed that all is in order. If, however, one standard shows a change markedly
out of line with the others, it is assumed that some unsuspected accident has
occurred and the value of this standard is omitted from the mean. In its place is
inserted the value of one of the other standards, from the larger group, N, which
has shown a reasonable performance during the preceding periods. Thus the final
decision as to which standards carry the unit for a given period is made after the
data observed at the end of the period have been scrutinized. (5)
In contrast to this behavior of 'good' cells, certain cells after showing similar good
behavior for many years suddenly begin to drop in emf at a rate of from 3 to 10 pv
per year. Since 1919 four such cases have developed and after the 'delinquency' of
each cell was definitely established by the continuance of its drift, the cell was
removed from the primary group. The unit was then 'recaptured'by going back to
a time before the abnormal drift began and computing forward again on the basis
of the remaining cells only. (9)
Certain countries even adopted measures to introduce new blood into parliament to
offset those members that fell asleep in office:
Theoretically, the procedure of maintaining a unit of measurement solely by the use

of a large group of standards is subject to the fundamental limitation that a
simultaneous progressive drift of all the standards cannot be detected by the
intercomparisons and will result in an equally rapid drift of the unit. It is therefore
important to seek external corroborative evidence of the constancy of the unit.
One such line of evidence derives from the construction of new groups of cells
from freshly prepared batches of pure materials .... At the British National
Physical Laboratory fresh groups of cells are made up every few years and the older
groups are discarded at intervals so that their unit has been carried forward by cells
that range in age from I to 20 years averaging about 6 years. Since 1912 most of the
American neutral cells ranged in age from 6 to 41 years, averaging over 20 years.
(9-10).
26. W. Thomson, Popular Lectures and Addresses, Vol. 2 (London 1889-94), 161-
62.
27. Jenkin (ed.), op. cit. note 13, 196.
28. Smith & Wise, op. cit. note 3, 694.
29. F. A. Wolff, 'The So-Called International Electrical Units', Bulletin of the
Bureauof Standards,Vol. 1 (1904), 39-76. This excellent paper contains reprintsof the
Chicago resolutions and the legislation adopted in the United States, Great Britain,
Canada, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, and Switzerland.
30. This quote by Lord Rayleigh, and an excellent history of international
standards activity in the period 1908-48, are given in Silsbee, op. cit. note 25, 18.
31. Ibid., 3.
32. Ibid., 30.
33. The procedure followed by the National Institute for Standards and
Technology (NIST) for measuring a transport standard allows a four-week settling
time for cells shipped to its facilities, and describes the desirability of hand-carried
transport: see J.D. Simmons (ed.), NIST CalibrationServices Users Guide 1991, NIST
Special Publication 250 (Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and
Technology, 1991), 130-31. This information guide comes with a Fee Schedule
appended. Together they describe the range of calibration service that anyone may
obtain by paying the price. Several hundred services are offered, ranging in price
from less than $150 for calibration of a laboratory thermometer to $50,000 or more
for special tests of large microwave antenna systems. A group of standard cells
costs $1-2000 to calibrate by the procedure described above.
34. ValhallaInstrumentCatalog (Valhalla Scientific, Inc.,9955 Mesa Rim Road,
San Diego, California 92121, 1989-90), 33 (all emphasis is from the original).
35. Because of the extreme sensitivity of electrical standards to temperature,the
Navy Primary Standards Laboratory (NPSL) is enclosed within a building with a
computer-controlled climate maintenance system that estimates and compensates
for the amount of heat produced in various parts of the building. The computer
knows the number of human bodies that will be present during various times of the
day and week, and tries to compensate accordingly. Unfortunately, this system has
malfunctioned ever since it was installed, causing unacceptable temperature
fluctuations which have made it impossible to carry out metrological activities
during certain times. In general, the problem is that too many electronic devices
that translate one quantity into another, such as frequency into voltage, AC into
DC, or chemicals into voltage, are also unavoidably fluent in another language -
temperature- and cannot help translating some of the temperaturefluctuations of
their environment into unwanted changes in their electrical output.
36. R. Reed, 'Intrinsic (?) Reference Standards', paper presented at the
1990 National Conferenceof StandardsLaboratories(Washington, DC, 21 August
1990), published in 1990 Workshop and Symposium Proceedings (National
Conference of Standard Laboratories, 1800 30th Street, Suite 305B, Boulder, CO
80301, 1990).
37. B.N. Taylor, 'History of the Present Value of 2elh Commonly Used for
Defining National Units of Voltage and Possible Changes in National Units of
Voltage and Resistance', in N.B. Belecki, R.F. Dziuba, B.F. Field and Taylor,
NIST TechnicalNote 1263: GuidelinesforImplementingthe New Representationsof
the Volt and Ohm EffectiveJanuary 1, 1990 (Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute
of Standards and Technology, June 1989).
38. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was formerly
the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), receiving its current name in 1988.
39. Reed, op. cit. note 36.
40. Belecki et al., Guidelines,op. cit., note 37, 20. The resolution adopted here
may not seem so significant until one looks at all the subscripts in the metrological
literature before 1972, and recognizes the pains taken in those years to admit the
context-dependence of different representations of natural quantities.
41. Taylor, op. cit. note 37, 36.
42. Belecki et al., op. cit. note 37, 1.
43. This table is adapted from R. Reed, 'Traceability - The Golden Calf
(Revisited)', in op. cit. note 36, and supplemented with data obtained from
Simmons (ed.), op. cit. note 33. The passage quoted is John 13: 16, from Good News
for Modern Man (New York: American Bible Society, 1966).
44. Readers of Social Studies of Science undoubtedly regard the social as far
from arbitrary but, for the purposes of this paper, the categories 'social' and
'natural' (like 'realization' and 'representation') are used as metrologists use them.
With respect to the basis of authority, the social is at best arbitrary, and at worst
distorting; only the natural offers a legitimate basis for authority. The social,
however, offers legitimate reasons for why authority is desirable; it enables trade,
underlies the validity of scientific measurements, and so on.
45. 'Real' is used here and in the next sentence in its technical sense - that which
is the result of a realization experiment.
46. Clark, interview, op. cit. note 6.
47. B.N. Taylor, 'New Internationally Adopted Reference Standards of Voltage
and Resistance', in Belecki et al., op. cit. note 37.
48. Belecki et al., op. cit. note 37.
49. See especially Latour, op. cit. note 3; Collins, op. cit. note 3; and Schaffer,op.
cit. note 3. On the invisibility of practices constitutive of measurement, see M.
Lynch 'Method: Measurement - Ordinary and Scientific Measurement as Ethno-
methodological Phenomena', in G. Button (ed.), Ethnomethodologyand the Human
Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 77-108.
50. C. Crain, 'Metrology Training for the 1990s', in op. cit. note 36.
51. Ibid., 33.
52. M. Cruz, Director, Electromagnetics Division, Naval Primary Standards
Laboratory, interview, 17 April 1990. NIST offers two services to United States
laboratories: they offer traceability to individual instruments or standards, and,
after exhaustive evaluations, they can offer 'qualification' to an entire laboratory,
after which that laboratory can make its own declarations of traceability.
53. P.K. Stein, 'Traceability - The Golden Calf', Measurementsand Data, Vol.
2, No. 4 (1968), 97-105, and Reed, op. cit. note 43, 145. Stein's target in this paper is
excessive legalism rather than the false idolatry that the Golden Calf passage is
about, but the two are closely related. An anonymous reviewerof an earlier draft of
this present paper wrote: 'The differencebetween artifactual and intrinsicstandards
resembles the Protestant (not the Calvinist) Reformation. That is, with intrinsic
standards, every laboratory has the capacity to become like NIST. Yet, just as the
Protestant denominations sought to limit the possible interpretations of Scripture,
so does NIST and its prime ally, the military, seek to limit possible metrological
differencesthrough the concept of traceability. [Previously]you had to point to the
particular biblical passage and relate how one moved from those words to the
interpretation in question; now documents and seals warrant the way machinery
works. And, as the author points out, those documents become the standard units
of measure as DoD moves away from physically auditing standard apparatus. In
the beginning was the word; in the end, the signature.'
54. Robert Hamburg, 'MIL-STD-45662A and MIL-HDBK-52A', paper
presented to a roomful of San Diego defence contractors at the ThirteenthNCSL
Region 8, San Diego Section Seminar and Workshop(23 May 1990).
55. See the poster entitled 'Traceability Chart: Derivation of Electrical Units',
published by the John Fluke Manufacturing Company, Inc. (PO Box 9090,
Everett, WA 98206), reproduced on page 173.
56. John 15: 4-7: v. 4 is from The NeweEnglish Bible (Cambridge & Oxford
University Presses, 1961); vv. 5-7 from Good News. . ., op. cit. note 43. This
particular reading wasn't directly suggested by a metrologist, but similar religious
metaphors for metrological theory and practice frequently appear in the speech
and writing of metrologists, for understandable reasons. Both metrology and
theology are concerned with realizing, maintaining and disseminating the tangible
representatives of something that is transcendent. Both are oriented toward a
transcendent, immaterial and universal author of truth, yet are obliged to create a
social system of authority and dissemination to mediate contact with that
transcendent course that cannot always be made present. On sacrificial
transformation of the mundane into the transcendent, see M.E. Lynch, 'Sacrifice
and the Transformation of the Animal Body into a Scientific Object: Laboratory
Culture and Ritual Practice in the Neurosciences', Social Studies of Science, Vol.
18, No. 2 (May 1988), 265-89, and J. O'Connell 'The Preparation of Standard
Natural Materials: Authority, Theology, and Metrological Practice' (forth-
coming).
57. Hamburg, op. cit. note 54.
58. Ibid.
59. NCSL representative (unidentified), at the ThirteenthNCSL Region 8, San
Diego Section Seminar and Workshop(23 May 1990).
60. Crain, op. cit. note 50.
61. Cruz, interview, op. cit. note 52.
Joseph O'Connellis a graduatestudent with the UCSD

Programin Science Studies and Sociology. He has
published work on the anthropicprincipleand the historyof
audio engineering. With the support of an NSF Graduate
Fellowship, his currentwork involves twentieth-century
science and technology museums with an emphasis on
'discovery rooms' and other spaces where scientific activity
occurs in public.
Author'saddress: Departmentof Sociology, 0102, University
of California,San Diego, 9500 GilmanDrive, La Jolla,
California92093-01 02, USA.
O'Connell: Creation of Universality in MetrXology 173
TRACEABILITYCHART
DERIVATION OF ELECTRICAL UNITS
C"sum Bearn Krypton-B6

Tirne-Frequency Length
Standard Standard
|Unit of Tr | Unit of ||Unit of

lnt&-val Frequeny Length
SECOND HERTZ METER
_
Josephso Frequency Cluabi
StandarKdof Corrsparator Capacatanco
Potential
Unit of l Unitof| | Unitof| | r o l

Potenbal R
Reitnce Capacitance Inductance
VOLT Oh FARAD HENRY
Standard Standard
Col. ni o
| Direct l | ~~~~~~~~~Unit
of
Power
||Standard ll
Vdtg | _ DiresctCurrent |
l
(DV)
| | L ~~~~~~~~~~~WATT
||Shunts ll
1 StaKr JOULE

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Metrology: The Creation of Universality by the Circulation of Particulars

Author(s): Joseph O'Connell

Metrology: The Creation of

Weather maps, with their isoclines of pressure and temperature and

have arrived at such a state - a state in which scientists, engineers,

In 1900, you could have discovered the proportion of fatty to lean

quantities that have been accepted as representations of it.5 The first

The market would appear ready to accept other representations of

When Valhalla began its promotional campaign (about two years

This advertisement contains an implicit theory of how collectives can

according to Valhalla, is that the agreement is with a true collective,.

The Social History of Electrical Units

interaction - by an international group of electricians, researchphys-

The First Social History

Electrical engineers and physicists had used the terms electromotive

The committee considered and rejected many units of resistance

similar units for electrical quantities in 1851, showing that because

Weber had laid the groundwork for a system of interrelated units

people would regard the absolute system as theoretically superior to

Realizing the abstract definition in material form involved a delicate

The amount of probable error in the present determination is so small as to be

They were aware, also, that ...

the measurement of currents, quantity, capacity, and electromotive force call

Constructing standard coils meant shutting down the experiments

The committee was by now acquainted with the maddening tendency

At Kew Observatory, the BA deposited the ten standard coils -

unit retained its supremacy in Germany and France. As the BA

what was urgently requiredwas a precisely repeatable standard, never

Siemens),but choosing the Germanstandard(Siemens'scolumn of

this time electric lighting, various forms of power generation and

The resolutions generated at Chicago produced two problems in

A more generally recognized problem with the Chicago recommen-

This problem was not solved theoretically. In practice, however, the

The civilized world owed the remarkable constancy of its standards

The Second Social History

Readerswho followthat customof perusingonly the illustrationsto a papershould

the scientistsin a far-offlaboratorycall to say thatin less thana year

been measured against a bank of more authoritative standard cells, or

Single referencedDV [Direct Voltage Standard]manufacturersoften claim, 'Don't

calibration. Every piece of equipment that needs a time standard

The Developmentof IntrinsicStandards

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) dissem-

the volt, second, ohm, or various temperature points right on their

virtue of having been calibrated, but one of qualification, 'a process

Theoretical and experimentalarguments have been given over the last

inadequacies of standard resistors were discovered and the QHE was

The mean resistance of a particular group of precision wire-wound resistors is still

Like the JJ, the QHE experiment is recognized as such a good

Now, as in the days of the BA realization experiment, the means of

Use Method Uncertainty

maintenance characterized standard cells 5.10-8

The Problem of Authority

Metrologists daily face questions like 'whose volt shall we believe is

of identical cesium tubes. The natural argument says that identical

Similarly, metrologists recognize that it is more important to have

be equivalent to within a few tenths of a ppm. Similarly, the total experimental

NIST Calibration Reports of standard cells by a JJ include the

As the last sentence indicates, the differencebetween the standard volt

Calibration,Traceability, and the Power of Paper

If standards are so important to science, why do published papers

If scientists don't pay attention to metrology, then who does?

Traceability refers to the requirement that all measurement instruments be cali-

Formal definitions of traceability are maintained and published