CICEP

Congrès International
de Chimie et Physique
International Congress
of Chemistry and Physics

CICEP, or the Congrès International de Chimie et Physique / International Congress of Chemistry and Physics, is the organisation responsible for determining, creating and maintaining scientific standards of measurement. CICEP was founded in 1882, following the successes of the Libra Convention of 1875 at Paris which proposed a standardisation of the weights and measures used by science and industry. Since the early xx century, all members of the scientific community, including biologists, medical researchers and engineers, have been invited to join the organisation.

Members of CICEP meet regularly to determine the needs of scientific nomenclature and ensure systematic measurement of all physical properties. Originally, meetings were held at the French Academy of Sciences, but now in many locations around the world. Various committees discuss new advances and issues of terminology. Correct usage, abbreviations and terms are selected by these committees and are voted on by the members. Their main products are the Encyclopedia of Compounds, which lists and describes all known elements and compounds; and the Grand Pharmacopoeia which contains detailed fact sheets on all known medicinal compounds. The Encyclopedia is divided into Organic and Inorganic volumes. CICEP is also responsible, by international treaty, for the creation and maintenance of the Standard Measures: yard sticks, pound weights and the like against which any nation's government or any scientific academy may compare its own equipment.

CICEP hosts international scientific symposia, publishes a number of scientific, engineering and medical journals, sponsors scholarships and schools and operates a public outreach and education programme. CICEP is not affiliated with any government or agancy, nor does it subscribe to any political philosophy. It does maintain an ethical and scientific standard which serve to ensure that any endorsed project or research have met a set of standards for proper scientific research, intellectual integrity and bioethics.

See also:

• Système International - IB's standard measurement system
• Temperature Scales
• Weights and Measures in Central Asia
• Weights and Measures in the Empire of Japan
• Weights and Measures of the RTC
• Weights and Measures of Louisianne

See here[1] for information on conversion factors and the measurement systems in IB.

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