History of Microwave Metrology at NIST

A sage once said that “no subject can possibly be as interesting as its own history”. He probably never had to sit through a lecture on the history of a branch of technology! In order to make the following review of microwave development at NIST more palatable, the author will inject occasional humor, and rather than simply enumerating facts and events, will seek to point out some of the driving forces which shaped the development of this technology at NIST and which are often beyond our control. The following viewgraphs, which are mostly self explanatory, cover the outIine of the material and will be supplemented by some photographs which would not show up well in this digest printing.