Kenneth M. Baird

Kenneth MacClure Baird (January 23, 1923 – April 18, 2022) was a Canadian physicist, metrologist and inventor, born of Canadian parents in China in 1923.

Biography Baird received his Bachelor of Science in physics at the University of New Brunswick, Canada in 1943, and joined the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa where he excelled at research in aerial reconnaissance and high speed photography. In 1946 he created a camera which could snap 800,000 pictures a second.

His success earned him full NRC financial support for graduate studies at Bristol University, England, where he acquired his Ph.D. in solid state physics in 1952. He is the younger brother to Dr. David Baird.

Returning to the NRC, Baird headed the transition of Canada’s primary length standard/facilities of the International Metre from a prototype metal bar (the official international standard of length established in 1779) to a wavelength of light. His contribution to the development of isotope lamps, on perturbations to wavelength standards, and in interferometry (including the development of the world’s first interference comparator for metre bar calibration in terms of standard wavelengths) placed Canada among the main contributors to the redefinition of the International Metre in 1960.

Baird also maintained Canada’s primary standard of mass as well as length, and standards for quantities derived from them, such as density, pressure, vacuum and certain engineering standards. For much of this work Baird engaged the industrial community, producing results such as the first commercially produced internal reflector laser, designed for the security of valuable documents, subsequently used on Canadian monetary bills thus establishing a new standard for currency anti-counterfeiting.

Baird and his colleagues worked to improve the accuracy of measurements of the speed of light, which ultimately provided the solid foundation for redefining the International Metre in 1982 and "their skilled pioneering work in laser frequency stabilization and measurement" which resulted in the following achievements:

The development of the Iodine-stabilized helium neon laser, and one of the first demonstrations of saturated absorption spectroscopy and widely used realization of the primary standard of length and wavelengths. The confirmation of the most recent new values for the speed of light, 100 times more accurate than previous measurements (The 7th International Conference on Quantum Electronics, Montreal, 1972). The development of the technique of transition–difference generated frequencies in spectroscopic wavelength and frequency measurements. The first measurement of the frequency of visible light,

Baird held five patents, and has over fifty scientific and technical papers published in the fields of high-speed and aerial photography, interferometry, lasers and metrology, establishing him as one of North America’s foremost metrologists, and giving Canada a great reputation in this field. As an invited guest, he has spoken at the Gaithersburg Conferences on Precision Measurements and Fundamental Constants in 1970 and 1981; the Fifth International Conference on Laser Spectroscopy at the U.R.S.I. Commission (Washington, DC); the Third Symposium on Frequency Standards and Metrology (France); the Royal Society Meeting on New Techniques in Optical and Infrared Spectroscopy (London); and the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Quantum Metrology (Italy).

In 2015, Baird was the eldest recipient to be named a Member of the Order of Canada.

Baird died in Ottawa on April 18, 2022, at the age of 99.