support level itself. This trend means that more 

 and more sharing of facilities will be necessary on 

 a nationwide basis, and NBS is a natural place to 

 share facilities, provided adequate support is 

 available. Specific examples which might be can- 

 didates for such an approach are analytical chem- 

 istry, materials characterization, spectroscopy, 

 buildings research, fire and combustion research, 

 as well as others. 



High capacity computer facilities are an espe- 

 cially interesting candidate for sharing between 

 laboratories. With the strong trend running toward 

 decentralized computer usage with the small dedi- 

 cated computer, the possibility should be explored 

 of regional cooperative systems for those investi- 

 gations requiring a state of the art, high capacity 

 computing facility. The Washington, D.C., area 

 may now be ripe for such a development. 



NBS has already recognized and attempted to 

 respond to some of the trends and issues dis- 

 cussed above. For example, the "state of the 

 health of research at NBS" carried out by Dicke 

 and McCoubrey suggested increasing the people 

 flow through the laboratory. In response NBS will 

 double the postdoctoral program from about 40 

 postdoctorates to about 80 over a period of 6 to 8 

 years. The report also recommended setting up a 

 committee composed of working-level scientists 

 and engineers to advise the Director on matters of 

 research opportunities and research climate. That 

 committee has been in operation for about a year 

 and has made a number of recommendations. 

 Other internal ways and means for improving the 

 climate and general health and vigor of basic re- 

 search are being discussed and explored. 



The intent of this paper is to show how NBS, 

 by performing its primary mission of providing 

 standards, measurement methods, and scientific 

 and technical data, has become a broad-gauge sci- 

 entific laboratory which has also served the Na- 

 tion well in the front ranks of basic science. 



Changes in the style and role of basic science 

 throughout the United States during the past dec- 

 ade and the added requirements on NBS for 

 short-term outputs have changed the environment 

 for long-term research at NBS and placed pres- 

 sures on the conduct of basic research. NBS has 

 recognized its special need to preserve and culti- 

 vate capabilities in basic research and strives to 

 keep the vitality of its basic research high. 



The fundamental issue regarding basic research 

 in the Government laboratories is the need to 

 maintain a Federal policy that encourages basic 

 research of high quality. A laboratory such as 

 NBS must be encouraged to carry on a significant 

 level of basic research in support of its mission, 

 and to foster a cadre of staff who operate with 

 distinction at the forefront of science in order to 



maintain the technical vigor and viability of the 

 laboratory over the long term. A corollary to this 

 policy is that the management process that gov- 

 erns this enterprise should recognize two criteria 

 for the support of such research: (1) The research 

 should be generically relevant to the long-term 

 mission of the laboratory, and (2) the research 

 should be judged on the basis of its intrinsic sci- 

 entific value. The selection of basic research areas 

 on the basis of short-range program goals is not 

 feasible. Finally, the current level of effort of basic 

 research at NBS should be increased, and in 

 keeping with the increasing importance of S&T in 

 the country, methods should be found for increas- 

 ing the flow of people and ideas through the labo- 

 ratory. 



Beyond these observations, another important 

 need is to establish procedures and methods with- 

 in the scientific community by which greater shar- 

 ing of major scientific equipment and facilities can 

 occur. Facilities contained in major laboratories 

 such as NBS should be made more available to 

 outside users. NBS has both wares to offer (a 

 nuclear reactor, unique analytical capabilities, 

 mechanical testing facilities, etc.) and needs 

 (e.g., access to high speed/high capacity comput- 

 ers, high energy synchrotron light sources, etc.). 

 In order to achieve this goal, both funding proce- 

 dures and institutional arrangements will have to 

 be established. 



Current and Future Research 

 Emphasis 



The purpose of this section is to review briefly 

 the major lines of research at NBS and indicate 

 some areas of special interest for the future. Be- 

 cause NBS research extends into nearly all the 

 major disciplines of physical science, including 

 mathematics and selected areas of engineering, 

 this review must be limited to examples and high- 

 lights. 



Before entering into the details of our discus- 

 sion, however, four examples of work at NBS 

 which figured in discoveries leading eventually to 

 Nobel Prizes will be mentioned to illustrate the 

 caliber and impact of basic research at NBS. 

 These are the concentration of heavy hydrogen by 

 Brickwedde in 1931; the scattering of neutrons in 

 para and ortho hydrogen by Brickwedde, Hoge, 

 and others, which showed that neutron-proton 

 forces were spin dependent; assistance in the de- 

 sign and construction of the bubble chamber by 

 Birmingham, Chelton, and Mann; and the experi- 

 mental verification of the violation of parity con- 

 servation in weak nuclear forces by Ambler, 



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