PTB's Berlin Institute 50 years old

At its Berlin Institute on the 26th of September 2003, the PTB celebrated the 50th anniversary of the signing of the agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Land Berlin on the take-over of the Physikalisch- Technische Reichsanstalt, Berlin-Charlottenburg, by the Federal Republic of Germany and its merger with the Physikalisch- Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig. This step initiated the reunification of the metrology system which, as a consequence of World War Two, had been scattered all over Germany, and was completed only in 1990 with the German reunification and integration of the metrology institutes of the former GDR. In the ceremony, Prof. Dr. Ernst O. Göbel outlined the history of this process. Dr. Jäkel from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour expressed the congratulations of the Federal Government, also for the successful evaluation of the PTB, for State Secretary Dr. Alfred Tacke who was unable to attend. Mr. Volkmar Strauch, State Secretary in the Economic Administration, spoke for the Berlin Senate, and Mr. Klaus-Dieter Gröhler, deputy mayor of the district, for the Charlottenburg- Wilmersdorf district. Dr. Terry Quinn, Director of the BIPM, commemorated the importance of the PTR and the PTB for international metrology and the traditionally close relations with his institution. In his captivating lecture "The future of research – research for the future", Prof. Dr. Joachim Treusch, Chairman of the Board of the Jülich Research Centre and for many years consultant of the PTB, illustrated the urging global problems research has to face and which can probably be solved only with the aid of research.

Dr. Terry Quinn, Director of the BIPM, in the auditorium of the Hermann von Helmholtz Building in Berlin