Not surprising - it's the CSIRO that created it. The footage is most likely taken at the Australian Centre for Precision Optics in Linfield, NSW.
Not at all. Scientists deal with expensive objects all the time and this is only a prototype. Silicon is abundant and they are making new ones of these continually as part of the project (which is trying to refine ways to make them more perfectly round, so that the exact number of atoms in them can be more accurately calculated.
I just want to point out a couple of things: - Just because a lab doesn't look like something from a CSI episode, it doesn't mean that it's not 'state-of-the-art' and most certainly doesn't mean it is 'hokey'. No real lab that actually does anything looks at all like that. In fact, many look more similar to a garage than a CSI 'lab'. A good lab is one that produces good work, not one that looks pretty. - Machines are not better at everything and many things are done better by hand. The important thing here is accuracy. - The reason the international prototype kilograms are kept under such special conditions and tight security is not their monetary value, but because they are primary standards. It is essential that they are not interfered with (accidentally or otherwise) since, as the primary standard(s), they define the kilogram. This new silicon sphere is not currently used as any sort of official standard, let alone a primary standard, so is of no such importance. Further, a million dollars/euros is nowhere near the most valuable object or piece of equipment with which many scientists will work. Your 'hapless guy' has a PhD in physics, by the way. - Ignorance of science already causes enough huge problems in our society. Please try to be informed before making foolhardy and embarrassing comments about science in the future. [I started writing this and was distracted by something else. By the time I returned and posted it, Cimexus had made a post covering part of what I covered. Sorry for doubling up.]
