The world depends on a collection of strange items. They're not cheap

Veritasium · 12.6M views · 2022-11-19 · 18:32

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Overview

Veritasium visits NIST to explain Standard Reference Materials, the carefully characterized items such as peanut butter used to calibrate instruments and keep measurements consistent. It covers why they exist and why they are expensive.

On Hacker News

Whenever NIST's pricey peanut butter or reference materials come up, commenters point to this as the clear explanation of why they exist.

Recommended by 6 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2023–2026

Topics

Physics & space (other)Scientific method & science communication

What people said

prophesi · 2026-04 · Recommendation
Assuming this is in reference to the great Veritasium video[0] going over what these reference materials are used for and why they're so expensive. [0] [VIDEO]
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0xC0ncord · 2025-01 · Recommendation
Veritasium has a great video[1] on NIST's Standard Reference Materials including their peanut butter. It talks about some of the other aspects of NIST's business in selling these items, their history, why they exist, and some of the other interesting ones like their standard reference cigarettes. [1] [VIDEO]
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seritools · 2023-10 · Recommendation
Probably the one linked above by Tom Scott, or this one by Veritasium: [VIDEO] The Veritasium one mentions NIST peanut butter specifically, even.
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Sources

Video by Veritasium, played through YouTube.

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