Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

TECHNOLOGICAL VS. BASIC RESEARCH
eliminating hand counting, would save the Government almost a quarter of
a million dollars annually.87
When planning for the computers first began, the Bureau, with Office
of Naval Research and War Department support, established its National
Applied Mathematics Laboratories, in order to centralize mathematical re-
search in the Government and begin programming studies for the computers.88
The laboratories comprised the Institute for Numerical Analysis, at Los
Angeles; and in Washington, a computation laboratory, set up with the group
brought from the Mathematical Tables Project in New York; a statistical
engineering laboratory; and an electronic computing machine development
laboratory.
The numerical analysis group, in addition to its preliminary studies
for SWAC, undertook solution of linear equations in many unknowns and
the representation of complicated functions in terms of simple, easily com-
putable functions. The computation section, besides performing calcula-
tions requested by Federal agencies, continued its compilation of highly spe-
cialized mathematical tables, particularly those essential to the solution of
problems in atomic energy, aerodynamics, radio and radar navigation, and
military ordnance.8°
Allied to the numerical analysis section was the statistical engineering
unit, concerned with the application of modern statistical inference to com-
plex engineering experiments, to sampling problems, and analysis of data
arising in physical experiments.90 The computer laboratory sought better
7NBS Annual Report 1950, pp. 2, 4, 73; Hearings * * 1952 (Apr. 10, 1951), pp.
462-463.
NBS Annual Report 1948, p. 256. See John H. Curtiss, "The NAML: a Prospectus"
(February 1947), intended, as Dr. Condon said in the foreword, as "a strong, easily
accessible Federal applied mathematics center."
Described in LC777, "Mathematical tables" (1945), superseded by LC884 (1947);
NBS Annual Report 1948, pp. 237—238.
00
NBS Annual Report 1947, pp. xii, 187—188. Early tasks set the statistical engineering
section included the preparation of commercial sampling plans for inclusion in Federal
specifications and commodity standards. One, made for the Mail Order Association of
America, was a study of data gathered by the Bureau of Home Economics, Department
of Agriculture, on body measurements of teenage girls. Flip-and-stature and hip-andmaximum
chest girth measurements of 70,000 schoolgirls between the ages of 4 and 17
years were analyzed and diagramed to provide statistically efficient coverage from which
garments, patterns, and forms could be sized to assure an accurate fit for a large proportion
of the teenage population. A year later the Bureau issued a new commercial standard
covering model forms for girls' apparel (NBS Annual Report 1948, pp. 238—239;
Annual Report 1950, p 87).
Studies in the field of probability methods centered on stochastic (random) processes,
employing random samples of an odd number of observations and a time element.
Applying this statistical technique to sample testing of clinical thermometers permitted
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