Message from the chief editor

Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Jan, 2002

Dear Reader,

With an article in this issue we conclude our series of "Treasures of the Past" to commemorate the NIST Centennial. Ten historic papers were selected from previous issues of the Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and its predecessor publications, one from each decade of NIST's existence. They appear in 10 issues of the Journal beginning with Volume 105, Number 2, March-April 2000. Our selected Treasures of the Past have ranged over such varied topics as dimensional and mass metrology, chemistry, relativity, electricity, materials manufacturing, optics, and medical physics. The article here by E. Tiesinga, C. J. Williams, P. S. Julienne, K. M. Jones, P. D. Lett, and W. D. Phillips was a key contribution to an important Special Issue on Bose Einstein Condensation edited by K. Burnett, M. Edwards, and C. W. Clark, published in Volume 101, Number 4, July-August 1996. Its inclusion here reminds us of the two Nobel Prize winning research efforts in NIST's history, both recentl y accomplished.

We are especially grateful to former Chief Editor Barry N. Taylor for initiating the "Treasures of the Past" series and to Board-of-Editors Member Clifton Carey for leading the effort to research and select each article. Clif's work was difficult. Our selected Treasures represent only a small fraction of NIST's world-recognized contributions to metrology, science, and technology as recounted during the 98 year history of the Journal and its predecessors. Many other worthy papers from the Journal's history went unrecognized in our "Treasures of the Past" series because of space limitations. For further information on the series, see the Message From the Chief Editor on p. iii of the May-June 2000 issue (Vol. 105, No. 3).

Theodore Vorburger

Chief Editor