Slashdot Mirror
The Changing Definition Of 'Kilogram'
DrLudicrous writes "The NYTimes is reporting that the platinum-iridium standard mass for the kilogram is shedding at an appreciable rate -- at least compared to other reference masses. The Pt-Ir cylinder is kept in France, and measured annually, and the slight discrepancy is important because the kg is an SI base unit- thus other quantities such as the Volt are based on it. A new standard is being sought- the two frontrunners are counting the number of atoms in a perfectly spherical single crystal of silicon, and another technique uses a device known as the Watt balance."
Holy crap is that some funny stuff. DanThe1Man, if i was in charge of this Ice Cream stand, the first thing that I would do, besides quitting, is replace timothy with you.
Shit man, thanks for making me laugh so hard.
porp
Moderators for this website are stupid sacks of shit.
The stolen material is really called shitmamafuckinanium.
is that pronounced mee-tree or mee-truh?
It's mee-ter. In English-speaking contries other than the U.S., there is no need to dumb down words to their phonetic spellings.
I propose a new standard of weight, called the Freedom-ogram, which is the weight of a French president's head on a silver platter. Which would of course be stored in New York. That'd show those cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
Perhaps we don't have the coercive state apparatus necessary to 'make' the metric system the primary system that we use.
We do. It's just so much more convenient to use our coercive state apparatus to keep in place units that create trade barriers and protect domestic manufacturers.