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."
Hey I live in America you insensitive clod! (but then again I alawys want to know how much they are lifting on Strongman Competition).
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Everytime she steps on the scales...I would tell you what it was defined as last week, but kids may be reading this.
i'm not gaining weight, the kilogram is losing mass... so really, i stay the same weight, and they need more units to weigh me ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why couldn't they just take it down the shops and measure it against, say, 1kg of carrots or a kg of sugar?
Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
nah .. they should throw out the whole kilogram concept and weigh everything according to a "library of congress".
eg. that woman weighes 2.36 libraries of congress.
I think I can speak for everyone and say
HUH?
porp
And all this time I just thought I was just getting used to cocaine.
Darn right! After all, it's easy enough to convert fortnights to stone with a Mayan calendar.
We're going to in the future eventually. It's inevitable.
I know it's 60 firesticks per 100 Watts, and 3000 Volts per staticy tomcat, but it might just be easier if we all just jumped in and switched to metric 144%.
I mean picture doing 100 on the highway! Wouldn't that be great? And dozens of future Mars landers would actually land on Mars, instead of digging ideal tree planting holes and landscaping future martian neighbourhoods. ("Zyphod! Incoming! It's the Americans!")
No more two sets of wrenches and lost sockets! Now you can have one set of sockets with half the sockets missing, instead of two sets of sockets with half the sockets missing. And no more asking for an 5mm and trying to make a 1 3/4" fit, rounding off the edges and carving a perfect turkey slice off your hand and gushing gallons of blood. It would be litres, which is less.
And you get to tell women that you, sir, are endowed with twenty-two centimeters of man!
Of course, the loss of the 25 cent piece will be a negative, since we'll have to pay for everything in dimes. But it's worth it dammit.
Seriously, we all know this is going to happen. When are we on board? Are we that stubborn?
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
It's not the arbitrariness, but the fact that metric is a decimal system.
The only countries left that don't use metric are the US and Bhutan. Bhutan is a fundamentalist islamic country that doesn't even have any phones yet. I guess we can see what the US' technical level is.
The only known quantity of Unobtainium (UB238) has gone missing.
The 1 kilo square block was being held in Brussels awaiting return to Brazil, where it was originally unearthed.
It was determined that the physical stability of the material was being affected by being moved from it's original location, that of being south of the equator. Investigators are anxious to reclaim the material in hopes of stabalizing it's rumored flux in mass. The UB238 was being packaged for transit, when it suddenly dissapeared from the shipping room counter. The rumor that it had created, and subsequently fallen into, a 'portable black hole' was discounted by investigators on the scene.
Once the Unobtainium is recovered, and returned to Brazil, it can be weighed and certified as a replacement for the Pt-Ir cylinder that is kept in France, and measured annually, representing the kilo standard for the world.
MPEG at 11.
I can't reveal its identity for this precise reason.
Yes - there is a mole in the base S.I. units - but I can't tell you it's name. Its been on a secret long term sleeper mission - to liberate the S.I. units and term them into "Freedom Units"
So I now weigh 75kg...give or take a bit :o
Wait till I tell my fiance that her weight
fluctuates on a weekly basis!
These pseudoscience concepts are getting out of hand.
I don't think we need "feel-good" physics.
Now they want to base a standard on a crystal ball?
I only went as far as Chem 1 for majors, so don't try to save the earth with this information.
Can I use the information to destroy the earth?
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
A better way would be to invent an all new imperial-style system for measuring computer storage. That way, there would be no chance for confusion with any base-10 system. For example:
korb = 3 bytes
fleb = 12 korbs
splin = 20 fleeb
fnit = 6 splins
Fnit = 6000 splins
frush = 48 fnits
watz = 18 frushes (19.5 frushes in the U.K.)
spoff = 480 watzen
nurm = 320 spoffs
long nurm = 80 nurm
munnel = 24 long nurm
This system easily covers storage capacities up to today's confusingly named "petabyte". Plus, there's no ambiguity about what you're measuring. Any of these units implies bytes of storage, which is a much cleaner solution.
The computer I'm using now has 71+29/32 watzes of system memory and 44+10/16 spoffs of disk space. There's no confusion about fuzzy definitions of "mega" with that measurement.
"'It's certainly not helpful to have a standard that keeps changing,' says Peter Becker, a scientist at the Federal Standards Laboratory..."
Wow, someone should tell the computer industry that.
"Some of the metal plugs were issued to countries that later vanished, including Serbia and the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese had to surrender theirs after World War II. Germany has acquired several weights, including the one issued to Bavaria in 1889 and the one that belonged to East Germany."
SURRENDER YOUR KILOGRAM!
A year is 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes (365.2424 Universal days)
Why don't we just get a big rocket, and alter the orbit so that it is exactly 365 days ? Or better yet 366 days, then we can give everyone a holiday (in rememberance of all of the species that were extinguished for our selfish ends).
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
I think we should digitalize it and put in Kazaa. There will be thousands of perfect copies in no time.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
The kilo shall be defined to be 1/80 of my weight. In return for the honor I promis to make the worlds people slim down.
Trolling is a art!
Sir, you are indeed a well-traveled man! You obviously have laid pipe across the globe.
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
Except for the madonna version which would have
"Stop stealing Mass, you fucks"
written through it
Troc
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net