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NIST Wants An Electronic Kilogram

Posted by Hemos on from the standards-are-gud dept.

Dearing writes "According to the Global Engineering Journal, NIST, those not-so-standard standards people, want to give up the hunk of metal they've been calling a kilogram, even though it never weighs the same twice. In it's place, an electronic kilogram could act as the permanent standard."

2 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. What? by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They balance it against gravity to measure it? Wouldn't that be really, really inaccurate, since gravity varies by altitude, local density variations, etc? Did I misunderstand what I just read?

    Sheeze, why not just define it as 1.498e20 atoms of carbon (or whatever number), and be done with it.

    --
    Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  2. Oh no, not again... by isomeme · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the postscript to the article:

    We'd like to know how you feel about an electronic standard for weight.

    That's odd, I don't understand how this question relates to an article about an electronic standard for mass. And before you flame me for nitpicking, let me remind you that Mars has some very expensive upper-atmospheric dust right now thanks to imprecise communication about units of force. Ordinary people can blithely confuse mass and weight without causing problems. Engineers can't, and this article appears in an engineering publication. When are we going to learn to be more precise about this sort of thing?
    --
    When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.