platinum-iridium

Instead, an English goldsmith was hired to make a platinum-iridium cylinder that would be used to define the kilogram.

They also have the original prototype meter in the form of a length of platinum-iridium alloy bar.

Request issued for additional platinum-iridium rich asteroids to be delivered to Earth orbit.

I suppose it's kinda cool that they've found a platinum-iridium-molybdenum substitute for what bacteria already do.

To minimize the length variations, that meter bar was made of platinum-iridium alloy and it was measured at a temperature as constant as possible.

If money is no object, where does, say, platinum-iridium stand on this?

Somewhere in Paris is a vault, and in that vault is a platinum-iridium Steve Wozniak, against which all of us are judged and found wanting.

I think the part about the kilogram is missing the point -- it's not that a pure silicon crystal sphere is a better artifact to be the kilogram than the platinum-iridium cylinder.

I could fulfil my wish of owning replica of IPK that is small cylinder of Platinum-Iridium weighting very very close to kilogram.

Maybe it was that the French were bringing their platinum-iridium meter bar to the meetings and wouldn't hesitate to rap your knuckles if you got out of line.

Also, you can just transmit the reference over the air to globally coordinate accuracy for dirt cheap, you don't even have to ship blocks of platinum-iridium in inert atmosphere.

Daylight savings makes as much sense as pulling the platinum-iridium standard meterstick out of its climate-controlled vault twice a year and pounding on it with hammers to make it longer or shorter.

Platinum-iridium alloys are much easier to shape than pure iridium, but still much more difficult than pure platinum.