Organizations for Standardization of Quantities and Units

Abstract

Many international organizations have contributed to the development of the International System of Units (SI). The highest international authority on units is the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), which is an intergovernmental body. Legal aspects of units and metrology are dealt with by the International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML), whereas scientific questions in this field are dealt with by scientific unions such as the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). Among their many tasks the international standards organizations, i.e. the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), implement the SI as adopted by the CGPM. They also standardize quantities, i.e. their definitions, names, and letter symbols. The main purpose of this article is to present these two organizations for standardization and to describe their role in the standardization of quantities and units.