The Forum on International Trend of Metrology wrapped up May 20 in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu County, strengthening collaboration between local and foreign officials and researchers on the recent redefinition of the International System of Units (SI).
 
Organized by the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the one-day event featured keynote speeches by experts including Chang Chia-seng, director of the Institute of Physics at Academia Sinica, and Takashi Usuda, secretary of the International Committee for Weights and Measures.
 
Discussions centered on the impacts to public and private sector organizations of new standards for four base SI units—ampere, for electrical current; kelvin, for temperature; mole, amount of a chemical substance; and the kilogram. Unanimously voted in at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in France last November, the updated definitions took effect globally the same day as the MOEA seminar.
 
Speaking at the opening ceremony, BSMI Director-General Lien Ching-chang said that highly accurate measurement standards are critical to the success of several sectors outlined for strategic promotion in the government’s five-plus-two industrial innovation program. In view of this, Taiwan is leaving no stone unturned in ensuring national classifications are fully aligned with the updated international definitions, he added.
 
As evidence of its efforts in this regard, Taiwan is the first Asian country to purchase a silicon sphere from Germany’s national metrology institute Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Lien said. This is replacing the International Prototype of the Kilogram as the new standard weight measure.
 
Made in 1889 of platinum alloy, the IPK was until May 20 the only SI unit still defined by a physical object. Global regulators decided to change this standard after realizing the values of the original IPK and its copies were deviating.
 
The updated definition for a kilogram is based on the Planck constant, a concept from quantum physics meaning the ratio of energy to frequency of a photon. The silicon spheres produced by PTB contain the precise number of atoms according to the new standard of a kilogram.
 
A key plank in the government’s national development strategy, the five-plus-two initiative targets the high-growth sectors of biotechnology, green energy, national defense, smart machinery and Internet of Things, as well as two core concepts: the circular economy and a new paradigm for agricultural development. (CPY-E)
 
Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mofa.gov.tw