12.6M views · Nov 19, 2022 · 18:32 · 6 HN recommenders · 10 mentions · discussed 2023–2026
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.
Why Hacker News points people here: Whenever NIST's pricey peanut butter or reference materials come up, commenters point to this as the clear explanation of why they exist.
“Veritasium [1] did a video of exactly this and explains why it exists”HN comment, 2023
“There's a cool Veritasium video on it”
Cool video on NIST selling reference materials such as peanut butter.
You're forgetting the NIST. They operate at a net profit, selling things like Standard Jars of Peanut Butter for equipment calibration ($1,069 per unit). There's a cool Veritasium video on it: this video
“The Veritasium one mentions NIST peanut butter specifically, even.”
Explains NIST standard peanut butter specifically
Probably the one linked above by Tom Scott, or this one by Veritasium: this video The Veritasium one mentions NIST peanut butter specifically, even.
“Veritasium [1] did a video of exactly this and explains why it exists”
Explains why NIST sells standard reference peanut butter for calibration
Veritasium [1] did a video of exactly this and explains why it exists [at 2m35s]: > An ordinary jar of peanut butter costs less than $5. And on the label you can see the ingredients and the amounts of different nutrients like protein, fats, sugar, and sodium. Those values have been measured by the manufacturer using different machines and analytical techniques. But how do you know those results are accurate? Well, this is where the government's standard jar of peanut butter comes in. It is mixed up so carefully and thoroughly that each jar contains exactly the same substance. > "We take great pains at homogenizing these things. Make sure it's consistent." > Then scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, take years to painstakingly identify the quantities of all the different compounds in the peanut butter with specified uncertainties. This peanut butter is then known as a standard reference material or SRM. They sell these perfectly characterized SRM samples of peanut butter to researchers and manufacturers so they can calibrate their equipment. Essentially, the buyer knows that their equipment is working properly if, when they run the standard peanut butter, they get the values NIST supplies on the certificate. > "We've spent a lot of time to make sure that we're confident and, you know, we can spend years studying the amount of fat in here and trying to figure out exactly what those numbers are." > So what you're paying for is not really the pe
“Veritasium actually did a video on exactly this set of items last year[0].”
Covers NIST reference materials used to calibrate testing equipment
Correct. Veritasium actually did a video on exactly this set of items last year[0]. The tl;dr is that NIST has a large collection of items which are rigorously produced and tested, with detailed documentation about their composition and test results, which allows companies to test their own products to very specific standards. For instance, peanut butter has aflatoxins -- known carcinogens. NIST's standard peanut butter has known levels of aflatoxins. By purchasing this peanut butter and testing it on your own peanut-butter-aflatoxin-sensing machine, you can calibrate your machine to detect aflatoxins in peanut butter to a reasonably high precision. 0. this video
“Veritasium has a great video[1] on NIST's Standard Reference Materials including their peanut butter.”
Covers NIST reference materials, their history, why they exist, and quirky examples
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] this video
“the great Veritasium video[0] going over what these reference materials are used for and why they're so expensive”
Explains what reference materials are used for and why they cost so much
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] this video
“They bring forward the idea that standard/pure/repeatable items aren't intrinsically "good" or "enjoyable".”
Grouped with related standard-item videos to discuss value of standards.
I find this to be a close cousin of Tom Scott's "Making an international standard cup of tea" video ( link ). And very related to Tom Scott's "The US government will sell you freeze-dried urine" ( link ) and Veritasium's "The world depends on a collection of strange items. They're not cheap" ( this video ) They bring forward the idea that standard/pure/repeatable items aren't intrinsically "good" or "enjoyable". But that doesn't make them not useful or valuable in other contexts. It also offers some food for thought when it comes to what metrics we decide to put value in. We may like the idea of a particular metric, or what we think it represents, but that doesn't make it worth optimizing for. A metric without context is useless, and taking a holistic view of what makes something worth doing allows us to make more informed decisions.
NIST maintains standards for foods like peanut butter
You're the one making up the idea - that's not an idea people have. Regulators and middle managers provide me with limited options for each of those thousand choices, and I, without having to think much, can pick one of them safely. For each of my choices, various regulators and managers have all gotten many says already. Some bureaucrat does manage my diet, and your diet too, but they don't micromanage it, and nobody is saying they should micromanage it It's perfectly feasible for regulators to identify when companies are adding sugars - look at the recipe, inspect the factory, put things in bomb calorimeters. Thats not at all absurd, and there's already standards maintained for basically everything, including foods like peanut butter (see: this video ) If it was absurd, it would be impossible to do food safety regulation, like ensuring that food doesn't contain toxins or heavy metals
“Derek Muller of Veritasium also had an episode”
Episode on NIST reference materials
Tom Scott did a video about this a few years ago: link Derek Muller of Veritasium also had an episode: this video
“the thing you're paying for is not the peanut butter, its the knowledge of exactly what is in the peanut butter”
Quoted for point that value is knowledge of composition
For more context, sample reference materials from the NIST reference catalogue are not meant to be exceptionally high purity examples of the sample -- SRMs are usually commercially-produced products. The real value is that each sample comes with a datasheet with incredibly detailed and accurate measurements that are (as you said) used for calibration of measuring devices in industrial settings. To quote a Veritasium video about the topic from a few years ago[1], "the thing you're paying for is not the peanut butter, its the knowledge of exactly what is in the peanut butter". [1]: this video
