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During the week of February 6-10, 2012, some extremely weighty matters were in progress at NIST’s non-magnetic facility, where PML researchers hosted an international gravimeter shoot-out with potentially momentous consequences for the impending redefinition of the kilogram.

(PhysOrg.com) -- The General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) at its most recent meeting in Sčvres, France, has voted unanimously on a proposal to consider changes to at least some of the seven basic units (second, metre, kilogram, ampere, kelvin, mole and candela) of measurements used by most of the civilized world. This comes after years of debate concerning the kilogram, ampere, kelvin, and mole in particular. Of these, the kilogram has come under the most fire as it’s still based on a hunk of metal kept under lock and key in a vault in Paris.