Abstract
IT is a great help to industry to have standard specifications for the materials used in commerce, and to have methods of testing to find out whether the materials offered for sale come up to the standard or not. In Great Britain the British Standards Institution (B.S.I.) of 28 Victoria Street, S.W.I, publishes standard specifications and gives also the methods of testing. These have been passed by committees consisting of engineers, manufacturers, Government officials and all interested in securing raw materials or finished products of the best quality. If experience shows that the methods used are ineffective, then the old committee meets again or another committee is formed and it brings out a revised specification. In the United States, the American Society for Testing Materials (A.S.T.M.) performs similar functions. The Proceedings of this Society are issued annually, and give reports by committees and the ‘tentative’ standards adopted. Each of the annual volumes contains about 2,000 pages. In the 1934 volume such subjects as vapour lock of petrol, creep tests and data, soil testing methods, rubber raw materials, etc., are discussed. Twenty-one of the standards appearing in the 1933 “Book of Standards“have been revised or discontinued. Fourteen of them have been revised, five of them have been replaced by new tentative standards and two have been completely withdrawn. The new problems discussed will be found of interest by physicists, and open up new fields of research.
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American Society for Testing Materials. Nature 135, 427 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135427a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135427a0