Maybe you remember? Two years ago we had the topic "Urkilo" and its new definition in the blog. This is necessary because this "Urkilo" (a cylinder made of platinum and iridium, 39 mm high and 39 mm in diameter) loses its mass. It becomes lighter. Why, nobody knows so exactly. Now the scientists of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig are working on the definition of the new kilogram.

Counting atoms isn't for bean counters.

For this purpose, PTB is working with a high-purity silicon sphere with a diameter of almost 10 cm. With their help, the so-called Avogadro constant is to be measured as accurately as possible. The Braunschweig researchers aim to count the atoms of a silicon sphere weighing one kilogram. A Herculean task in the macro range, one could say, would despair of any bean counter.

The result will be a gigantic 24-digit number, the so-called Avogadro number, which determines the number of particles N per quantity of substance n. The number of particles N per quantity of substance n is determined by the Avogadro number. The researchers are quite picky ;) and want to accept an inaccuracy of only two millionths of a percent in their work in order to be able to redefine the kilogram using the number of atoms of a certain species. The original kilogram would then be obsolete as a reference.

We keep our fingers crossed for the scientists from Trossingen and recognize without envy that our original Swabian unit "Muggaseggel" is no longer sufficient in these dimensions. Even we as grinding machine manufacturers, who are used to working extremely precisely, i.e. in the micron range, can only be astonished.

Direction Infinity

I was also really amazed when I recently read that the Voyager 1 space probe had almost reached the limit of our solar system. For a good 33 years, Voyager 1 has been on its way to infinity at around 60,000 km per hour. The signals sent by Voyager 1 to Earth now take 16 hours. Isn't that fascinating? Well, as an engineer and hobby pilot, I'm thrilled by this technical masterpiece. Ever since we used the Hubble telescope in our campaign for the Multigrind® CB, we at Haas Schleifmaschinen have had a special relationship to space travel anyway.

Since you never know who you'll meet out there on your way into interstellar space, Voyager 1 has a gold record (no, it's not one of Elvis's) on board containing information of all kinds, a golden letter to whom may concern is, so to speak.

And where we already have it of precision and limits: We at Haas Schleifmaschinen are always looking forward to demanding grinding tasks that help us to push our limits as a manufacturer of grinding machines a little further.

Beam me up!

Dirk Wember