On 17 October 2020, the BIPM celebrated the life and work of Charles-Édouard Guillaume with a symposium, both online and at the BIPM, considering his legacy.

The year 2020 marks the centenary of the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Charles-Édouard Guillaume (1861-1938). He was born into a watchmaking family in Fleurier (Switzerland), and dedicated more than half a century to metrology through his work at the BIPM. His major study of the properties of nickel-iron alloys spanned more than twenty-five years and not only revolutionized geodesy measurements but also chronometry and precision horology; numerous applications still exist for these alloys. In 1915, he became Director of the BIPM, a position he held until his retirement in 1936.

Guillaume was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1920 "in recognition of the service he has rendered to precision measurements in Physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel steel alloys".