Kilogram Reference Losing Weight

doubleacr writes "Ran across a story on CNN that says the "118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.""

Comments

The Kilogram is not losing weight

[allanc]

The Kilogram is defined in reference to the chunk of metal in Paris. It's the *definition* of the Kilogram.

Therefore, the Kilogram is not getting lighter.

We're all getting heavier.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Meshach]

I thought that originally the kilogram was defined in terms of water, the mass of 10 square cm of water. The meter is defined in terms of the speed of light so that gives an empirical way to define the kg independent of anything else. It would be interesting to see if it has changed relative to that measurement

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Chris Burke]

Weight is a property independent of the units you measure it with.

The object which defines the Kilogram is getting lighter (the fact that it is getting lighter is independent of this object's role in defining the Kilogram), ergo the definition of Kilogram is getting lighter. We all weight the same, we'll just use a slightly bigger number to describe how heavy we are.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[hjf]

I thought that originally the kilogram was defined in terms of water, the mass of 10 square cm of water.

I think you meant 1 cubic decimeter.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Bender0x7D1]

I thought that originally the kilogram was defined in terms of water, the mass of 10 square cm of water.

We can't use water as a reference since the molecules in the water are constantly splitting into ions and reforming as molecules. So it is essentially impossible to get 1000 cm^3 of "pure" water. It will be some mixture of H2O, H+ and O-- ions. Also, it would be incredibly hard to prevent other molecules from being disolved in the water. A few stray molecules hitting the surface will ruin your reference mass. Not to mention you need a container to keep it in...

The meter is defined in terms of the speed of light so that gives an empirical way to define the kg independent of anything else.

As mentioned above, we could measure a 1000 cm^3 volume, but we couldn't guarantee the purity of the water in that volume.

That's one reason we are trying to make a perfect sphere to replace the reference kilogram. Then we will have a definition of the kilogram in terms of number of silicon atoms.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Anonymous Coward]

The meter was originally 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the equator and the North Pole along the meridian running through Paris. (No chauvinism there...) Someone made up a brass reference. Later, the meter spent some time as the distance between a couple of scratches on a platinum-iridium bar. Then we tried a fwe wavelengths of cesium, then krypton-86. Eventually, we adopted a definition for a similar length based on c.

You don't think anyone would really pick a number like 1 / 299,792,458 if they got to start from scratch, do you? Why not 1/300,000,000, just to make the calculations easier? Or, since powers of ten are supposed to be so vital to the system, why not 1/ 10,000,000, or 1/100,000,000?

Ultimately the meter is as long as it is because it's about a yard long, and that's a useful length for measuring on a human scale. It's not "scientific" at all.

Similarly, a kilogram is a useful weight about the same size as a pound. It happens to be about the mass 10 cm cubed of water, much as a pint of water weighs a pound (the world around, and takes 1 BTU to raise temperature by 1 degree F). Later they made a reference standard for this fairly arbitrary amount of mass.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[TheRaven64]

The density of water changes when you vary the temperature or pressure, so you'd need an accurate measure of distance, temperature, and pressure in order to get your 1Kg of water.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[E 99]

"Humor. It is a difficult concept. It is not logical."

Nevertheless, the moderation system of this forum may serve to alert you to the utilization of humor, as posts utilizing it are often accompanied by a "Funny" indicator. In such cases, correction of fact can generally be assumed unnecessary, as said facts will likely have been intentionally misstated as a means of producing said humor.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Ferzerp]

I think you mean that the density of water is essentially invariant to pressure.

It very much fluctuates with temperature.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Eternauta3k]

The meter was originally 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the equator and the North Pole along the meridian running through Paris. (No chauvinism there...)

Yeah, cause that meridian is so different to the rest _

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[CrimsonAvenger]

The meter was original defined such that the diameter or radius of the earth at GMT would be a simple power of ten of the meter.

No. The meter was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator. Which isn't really too far off - less than one fifth of one percent.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Entropius]

You could specify the density of water at $PRESSURE and at its maximum density (somewhere around 4 C). The only problem with doing this for high-precision measurements is: what is water? Some fraction of the hydrogen will be deuterium, and that'll throw off the density. What fraction of the hydrogen should be deuterium for "standard water"?

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Alien Being]

It is different. It scales the height of the collective French ego.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Entropius]

In physics we talk about the masses of things from single atoms to galaxies.

In that range, 1 ~= 2

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[azenpunk]

we need to have a 'pendantic olympics'. the top prize would be a kick in the teeth. here goes my performance: water itself is not pure H2O, since the term water predates the knowledge of the chemical formula, however even the empirical formula for water comes out to H2O (assuming the only ions present are H3O+ {there's never really any naked protons in solution, top that!} and OH-, no sodium ions or chloride or anything like that). scores: 4.7, 4.6, 4.1, 1.6 (french judge), 4.4, 4.6 totaling: 24.0, er...23.99999999 if we're going by the metric standard.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[jmv]

It will be some mixture of H2O, H+ and O-- ions.

I really doubt you'll see O-- ions in water. H2O actually splits into H+ and OH- and the H+ often ends up (IIRC) forming an H3O+ ion.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[The One and Only]

There's currently a project (which was reported on Slashdot months ago) to make a new reference kilogram of a specific element and geometry. From that, they can define the kilogram as a certain number of atoms of a certain element.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Guppy06]

"You could specify the density of water at $PRESSURE and at its maximum density (somewhere around 4 C)."

Self-referential. Pressure is (force)/(length^2), or breaking it down further, (mass)/[(time^2)(length)]. This is why BIPM abandoned the "cubic deciliter of water" definition in favor of the current platinum-iridium artifact (less compressible, less affected by temperature, etc).

"The only problem with doing this for high-precision measurements is: what is water? Some fraction of the hydrogen will be deuterium, and that'll throw off the density. What fraction of the hydrogen should be deuterium for "standard water"?"

Not an issue, as the average rates of naturally occurring isotopes in the universe is already known (hence the non-integer masses in periodic tables). You'd have a greater problem establishing the purity of the water sample in question, at least if you insist on using it in its liquid state; they don't call it the "universal solvent" for nothing.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[jollyreaper]

That's one reason we are trying to make a perfect sphere to replace the reference kilogram. Then we will have a definition of the kilogram in terms of number of silicon atoms. Good luck on that. This reference bar is certainly worse than we've sphered.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[loshwomp]

we need to have a 'pendantic olympics'

Oooh, can I compete? I guess for starters I'll point out that the word you're looking for is 'pedantic'.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Guppy06]

"We can't use water as a reference since the molecules in the water are constantly splitting into ions and reforming as molecules."

OK, exactly how far up your ass did you have to reach to pull that one out?

See, we have this thing called "The First Law of Thermodynamics." At the molecular scale, water molecules don't just decide to break up and go their own way willy-nilly, not the least because both elements involved (hydrogen and oxygen) really don't like being alone (the two hydrogen atoms can go off on their own merry way as a diatomic molecule, but the oxygen will be lonely). Breaking molecular bonds in water takes energy, otherwise cracking water to produce hydrogen would be more cost-effective than cracking methanol (the carbon atoms have a more independent personality and are better able to get over any rejection issues it might have).

Beyond that, even if the energy to crack an individual water molecule were as trivially small as you believe, the energy would have to come from somewhere. Cracking water is endothermic, but so is making it (oxygen atoms, at least, need to be pried apart against their will first, assuming they're not in some kinky threeway), but even if one of those two reactions was exothermic, the energy required to do one act must necessarily equal the energy released by the other, meaning a net change in energy, and a net change in the number of water molecules, of zero.

The real reasons we don't use water are:

1. Corrosiveness (which you already covered)
2. Compressibility (there is no such thing as an incompressible substance, but liquids are more susceptible than solids)
3. Thermal expansion (something else solids are less susceptible to)
4. Last, but not least: evaporation

"So it is essentially impossible to get 1000 cm^3 of "pure" water."

Very easy, actually; the problem is maintaining its purity after it cools down from superheated steam.

"That's one reason we are trying to make a perfect sphere to replace the reference kilogram. "

Actually, there are a number of different proposals. One involves fixing the Avogadro constant as you say, but the other involves basing mass in terms of an electrical current through a device called a watt balance, which would reverse the current relationship between mass and electric current.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[camperdave]

Unless he wants to enter the jewelry dangling event.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[iocat]

This is why we need to continue to use the English system. The metric system seems all orderly, till you realize the core definitions are based on lame french stuff. In my world, a mile is a mile, based on my Nike+iPod telling me I have gone a mile (ideally backed up with Lance Armstrong or that English chick congratulating me). A yard is the distance between King George's nose and the tip of his finger. A foot is 12 inches. And a pound is what my scale tells me I have too many of.

Anyway, I measure most things in Smoots.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[camperdave]

Silly Americans... Your pounds are defined in terms of the kilogram.

The international avoirdupois pound is equal to exactly 453.59237 grams. The definition of the international pound was agreed by the United States and countries of the Commonwealth of Nations in 1958.

Wikipedia

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Eiron]

Because a Newton is fruit and cake?

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[OakDragon]

See, we have this thing called "The First Law of Thermodynamics."

And in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[gomiam]

Remember this useless thing called pH, used for measuring acidity and basicity? You may remember that the neutral point is 7, the pH of pure water at 25 degrees Celsius, when the amounts of H3O+ and OH- are almost equal (yes, those ions exist even in pure liquid water). See this for more information. Thermodynamics is all right but some of its laws get quirky at sufficiently small distances.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[FrangoAssado]

Not an issue, as the average rates of naturally occurring isotopes in the universe is already known (hence the non-integer masses in periodic tables).

Just a small nitpick: that's not the only reason for non-integer masses in periodic tables. When neutrons and protons come together in an atom nucleus, their mass change, and a corresponding amount of energy (E=m*c^2) is released or absorbed. For example, while the atomic mass of Carbon-12 is 12, the atomic mass of Hydrogen-1 (only one proton) is a little over 1.

In effect, that's how nuclear bombs work: when the nucleus of an atom of plutonium breaks up, the mass of the resulting pieces is less than the mass of the original nucleus; the difference is released as radiation and heat.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[or-switch]

Except that it doesn't matter if it varies or not. Standard Temperature and Pressure (STP) is well defined as 25 degrees C and 1 atmosphere of pressure. There can be precisely controlled. But people who work in the standards groups will always want a solid physical reference that doesn't (or at least shouldn't) vary. The guy overeacted when he said, "Oh no, this could have ramifications for everything including such things as power generation). I doubt a powerstation has any mass measuring system that is precise to 50 ug out of and object weighing 1000000000 ug. Except for the instruments at places like the national institute of standards, very little else has this kind of precision so until it loses something like a whole gram it isn't going ot have a practical consequence.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[locofungus]

much as a pint of water weighs a pound (the world around, and takes 1 BTU to raise temperature by 1 degree F).

You've got a strange definition of world there.

On this side of the pond:
"A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter"

I'm ashamed to have to say that it appears the majority of my countrymen would prefer to use "fundamental" units that have rhyming mnemonics rather than units that make all the calculations simple and consistent across the world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6637587.stm

Tim.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[Moderatbastard]

I don't know why the ^2 sign didn't show up

Maybe the system's smart enough to know the difference between area and volume?

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[makapuf]

In fact IIRC the definition didn't refer to a specific meridian and neither equator because any country has its OWN meridian, addind to the universality of the definition (which has a main motive then).

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[khallow]

The "pendantic gambit" wins again. For you sports fans who missed it, here's the strategy:

1. Player A dumps an utterly pendantic post. Misspell pendantic deliberately.

2. Player B comes around and notes "Hey, it's spelled p-e-d-a-n-t-i-c."

3. Player B gets kicked in teeth.

Re:The Kilogram is not losing weight

[turbidostato]

While you are somehow right with the metric system not admiting number 3 so easily, you forget you don't need to be so precise when not needed.

I live on a "metric society" and I can assure you we don't have problems. On the butcher you will ask for a kilogram, half a kilogram, 100 grams, 150 grams, 200 grams, a quarter (250g) or even a "quarter and a half" (which being 250+125=375 grams comes "near enough" to be one third of a kilogram for this kind of practical purpouses).

But regarding woodworking or any other trades, I really doubt you really do in practice what you say. I don't know of anybody on the trade that would really divide any piece of raw material by adding measures: you will always end up adding measure errors on the farest end. You always do it by proportions, so errors get evenly distributed (of course, your average carpenter, or butcher or whatever won't know that, but still will apply some practical recipy that "just works" that probably will be based upon the "even error distribution" principle).

So, going to your example, even if you wanted to hang three hooks on a four meter wall (that makes for a very easy measure of hooking at 1, 2 and 3 exact meters from the beginning) you won't go to one end of the wall, take one meter, hook, take another, hook, take another hook, and then discover your last hook it's clearly out of place, but you'd go to the middle point, hook, then the middle to the right, then the middle to the left and you'll end up better even just by eye-metering.

When dividing by three (or any other odd number) you will see most of the times that disregarding if measuring on decimal or imperial units, people will go using the Thales Principle (projecting a known lenght segment over the one to divide) or the fact than an hexagon's side is exactly the lenght of the radius of the circunscribing circle, or the fact that a twelve units long rope (whatever the units are) will make for you a perfect square angle and will give you 3, 4 and 5 units long segments for free.

All in all, I'm used to the metrical system and I can tell its advantages outweight by faaaaaaaaaaar any minimal problems .

Sublimation?

[Eustace Tilley]

Could it be a few atoms drifting off in the vapor? Well, why wouldn't the copies' atoms be drifting off as well?

Re:Sublimation?

[Guppy06]

"Well, why wouldn't the copies' atoms be drifting off as well?"

They are, but not at identical rates.

Governments have been doing this for years!

[dada21]

If you look over history, governments have taken metals that were supposed to be a certain weight, and mysteriously removed weight from them and still called the weight the same thing.

Look at the standard weight known as the "dollar" (thaler). It used to be the equivalent of 1/20th of an ounce of gold. Then it was 1/35th of an ounce of gold. Last month that same dollar weight standard was 1/650th of an ounce of gold, and today I believe it is 1/711th of an ounce of gold.

The Roman Empire leaders also had mysteriously disappearing weights... Their Denarius lost over 99% of its official weight over just a few hundred years.

It is definitely a mystery...

The metre must be shrinking then...

[flyingfsck]

Ah, so that explains the obesity epidemic, but my ever increasing middle indicates that the metre must also be shrinking at the same time.

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so that explains the obesity epidemic, but my ever increasing middle indicates that the metre must also be shrinking at the same time.

I'm sorry dude, but unlike the kilogram, the metre isn't defined based on an artifact but rather it is defined based on the speed of light, so unless that changed, the metre hasn't either.

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[LiquidCoooled]

Actually, that might be possible.
Light speed is not constant in a gravitational field, if some of the other posters are correct and the kilogram has changed because of a localised gravitational shift, then its possible that the definition of a metre could also have changed..

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[fractoid]

I'm sorry dude, but unlike the kilogram, the metre isn't defined based on an artifact but rather it is defined based on the speed of light in a vacuum, so unless that changed, the metre hasn't either. Fixed. Otherwise, you'd have to pay 20% more for sheet glass because meters inside the glass would be shorter than meters outside the glass. :P

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[canadian_right]

The meter has a long history and was in fact once defined as "one ten-millionth of the length of the Earth's meridian along a quadrant, that is the distance from the equator to the north pole". Then it was a number of standard wave lengths and not until 1983 that the meter was defined as how far light travels in a very short time. Wiki has a good article on the meter.

In a vacuum the speed of light is constant - even in a gravitational field as long as your are freely falling.

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[Basehart]

When I was a kid I thought a foot was the length of Julias Ceasars foot and a metre was the length of Napoleon Bonapartes foot. When I found out later that a metre was considerably longer than a foot I deducted that Napoleon must have had really long feet. I later found out that Napoleon was also a very short fellow which made my mental image even more ridiculous. To this day whenever I hear the name I think of this short guy with three foot long feet.

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[iamacat]

You misunderstood the background. Napoleon was not a tall fellow, but he was a great lover.

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[edittard]

So the whole of Europe got their asses kicked ... by a hobbit?

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[somersault]

"The meter has a long history"

Your posting privileges have been revoked for 2 months, or until such time as you show the adequate remorse necessary to prove that you are sorry for such a shameless pun.

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[Da Fokka]

Even worse. A French hobbit.

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[aliquis]

But then we have E=MC^2, and if the energy in the universe is constant (in solid or other form) then the speed of light is related to the amount of mass and if everything is getting heavier the speed of light is droping!

And then the meter is getting smaller aswell, which explains why his middle region measures more of a meter today!

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> or until such time as you show the adequate remorse necessary

How do you define "adequate"? Sorry to be lawyerly here, but you can't leave it so vague. Do you have a metric?

Re:The metre must be shrinking then...

[lefticus]

Completely off topic to your post, but answering your sig:

Who the f*** decided that sentences on the Internet shall no longer be formatted with two spaces after a period?!

I had this explained to me in the mid '90's by someone who was involved in printing. With variable width fonts, you are no longer supposed to use two spaces, the typeface is supposed to leave an adequate gap. Two spaces is left over from the days of typewriters.

This must be the reason ....

[Anonymous Coward]

... why Americans use ounce-feet (or something) instead.

Has anyone checked Ebay?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much on the black market for a microgram off the ole standard?

Kilogram Reference Losing Weight

[MrYotsuya]

It's not losing weight, it's losing mass!. The kilogram is not a measure of weight, but mass. Silly pound-centric editors :p

Re: Kilogram Reference Losing Weight

[swillden]

It's not losing weight, it's losing mass!

Really? Wow, that's even bigger news! The kilogram reference is losing mass but somehow maintaining weight!! Is this unexplained increase in the Earth's gravitational field localized or general? What strange phenomenon is increasing gravity by the precise amount required to offset the reduced mass?

This observation of yours is going to require us to rethink large parts of physics.

More fundamental standards

[iamacat]

I am surprised that they are not using more fundamental standards, like the mass of a hydrogen atom. After all, too many things can happen to a chunk of metal - evaporation, oxidation, radioactive decay.

Re:More fundamental standards

[AvitarX]

I read an article about this.

It is apparently really hard to get the right amount of atoms reliably and constantly. This is why mass is still using a reference while time and length have ways to reproduce them in a lab (I believe it is measuring the speed of light, and the waves coming ff some substance that is heated up).

There is some work being done making spheres with a silicone chrystal structure, but the margin of error is a few hundred atoms (molecules?), and they wanted it down to around 50. This was a few years ago, things may have changed.

obligatory...

[abes]

but don't worry, it will regain the weight after a couple of months.

Possible reason?

[robably]

Maybe it's because of where they weighed it - the strength of gravity is not the same all over the planet, and I'm guessing it can change in one place over time due to the movement of the Earth's outer core and give a different result.

Re:Possible reason?

[shawnce]

The simplest way is to use a balance and since the two sides of the balance are in such close proximity to each other any variation of gravity would affect both masses being compared. More complex ways involve measurements of inertia of the masses when a known forces act on the mass.

Re:Relativity?

[sanyasi]

Thats not relativity. The twin paradox wont degrade the mass over time. It would make it 'younger' according to the situation you described, but not lighter.

The Faster We Go, The Rounder We Get

[Doc Ruby]

By Relativity, we must all be accelerating. How much more energy in the universe does 1:1E9 extra mass represent? Since that's probably more than in the equivalent 50ug, there's probably mass missing from all over the place.

Who's converting our extra mass to energy? This great criminal must be found before we all blueshift past the event horizon!

Or, this is just the greatest museum heist Paris has ever seen.

Re:The Faster We Go, The Rounder We Get

[SQLGuru]

I think someone is secretly going there and shooting it with a high powered laser and burning some of it away. It's probably those pesky sharks from the aquarium.

Layne

Re:Mass?

[edwardpickman]

Technically if the table was higher the weight would be less. The mass is constant but weight is more of an interaction with the Earth's gravity. The higher you go the lower the gravity. The effect is enough to change time measurements on high mountains or high flying aircraft. I doubt there's any equipment sensitive enough to detect weight difference in an object that was moved several feet but there is a change. The shape of the earth is in flux so it's not impossible that that affected it. Gravity isn't even uniform over the surface so a measurement at a 100' above sea level in one location may not be the same at a 100' in another location. The ground would have changed height over a 100 years as well. More than likely it was either a measurement error or handling and gentle wiping of the object would be enough to cause the error. Far more likely than changes in gravity.

Original article

[Toinou]

The study comes from the BIPM ( international bureau for weights and measures) , and here is the original article : http://www.bipm.org/en/scientific/mass/verifications.html. In fact it seems to be very old news since the study is carried every 40 years and the last one was in 1992, according to the BIPM :

On three occasions, roughly 40 years apart, the mass of the official copies, the national prototypes and the working standards of the BIPM have been compared with the mass of the international prototype. [...] the last of these occasions (1988-1992) [...]

Stop cleaning it!

[eknagy]

If that old lady who plugs that vacuum cleaner into the UPS every day at 05:00 would stop cleaning it, there would be no such problems with gravity!

Mmmkay...

[TofuDog]

You need to drop at least 250 micrograms to really experience the magnitude of the kilogram, man... Wow, Mr. Mackie, Drugs -are- bad. It's not just reference mass lost -Where is my mind? -you thieving Pixies. woooo-oooooh.

Not any more

[benhocking]

A meter is defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458th of a second.

Re:Not any more

[flyingfsck]

So time is speeding up then?

Re:Not any more

[ArsonSmith]

Ok, I got a flash light and a dirt devil. Anyone have a watch? Preferably with a seconds hand. Lets check how accurate this is.

Re:Not any more

[SorcererX]

Not quite, according to wikipedia "the second is currently defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom."

Re:Not any more

[Anonymous Coward]

Sir, you are suggesting caesium is responsible for obesity. I find that rather hard to believe.

Re:Not any more

[BobPaul]

This begs the question, as under the International System of Units, the second is currently defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium-133 atom. You forgot the question that is begged.

Re:Not any more

[xYoni69x]

No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beg_the_question

Re:Not any more

[Gnavpot]

FYI, he was defining a second, and you're defining a meter.

It must be pretty embarrassing to have the user name "PhysicsPhil" when you make a mistake like that.

Re:Not any more

[operagost]

Clearly, the kilogram reference should be constructed of cesium-133. This will remove all ambiguity.

I am finally able to answer the dreaded question..

[this great guy]

The wife: Don't you think I am gaining weight ?
Me: No honey, it's just the kilogram that is getting lighter.

I like the US customary system

[OrangeTide]

foot-pounds and even inch-pounds. It's so neat.

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!"

Re:I like the US customary system

[John Hasler]

"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!"

Your car is burning 63 gallons every eighth of a mile. And you like it. Ok...

Re:Mass?

[djmurdoch]

I doubt there's any equipment sensitive enough to detect weight difference in an object that was moved several feet but there is a change.

According to the back of this envelope here, the weight change from raising a kilogram by one metre would be
about equivalent to reducing its mass by about 3 parts in 10^7, i.e. 300 micrograms. The article says the measured loss was around 50 micrograms. So I guess there is equivalent sensitive enough to measure that.

Unless I was off by a few orders of magnitude...

hmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Date: September 16, 62002

Location: God's Court

"God": My angels, we have a problem. The Universe we created 6000 years ago is about to die.

"Angel 1": Holy shit dude, you suck. You were supposed to create the universe for eternity. This is like, what the fifth time?

"Angel 2": What are the humans figuring it out again?

"God": Well, frankly, yes. A few are close, again. They keep learning as we expected, but we didn't account for how fast they would learn. All these exponentials. As you all know, the fabric of their reality only works as long as no consciousness figures out how I did it. Once they do, we are morally obligated to treat them as alive.

"Angel 1": Can't we just fuck with them again? You know, turn off a few suns or create another particle or something?

"God": (Sighing deeply) We don't have much choice. We have to do something sublte, yet significant... Bob, would you go ahead and start changing how mass is calculated. Make it something that will be hard to find.

Angel 2 smiles, and turns around to his machine, and starts typing furiously...


sudo cp /var/lib/reality/core/constants/MassCalulator.rb /tmp/MassCalulator.rb.orig
sudo emacs /var/lib/reality/core/constants/MassCalulator.rb
sudo /usr/sbin/reload_constants.rb


The screens shift slightly, a few numbers flutter

"Angel 2": It is done, Joe.

"Angel 1": Hey, who wants to grab a beer?

--
My future is coming on;think twice, that's my only advice;Tóg do chroísa. Tar trí na stoirmeacha.

Proof of non-biological evolution!

[Max Littlemore]

I thought that originally the kilogram was defined in terms of water, the mass of 10 square cm of water.

This is almost true, although it's 1000 cubic cm or 1 litre rather than 10 square cms. Mathematics, however, has evolved.

10 cubic cm can be described as the volume of a cube with ten cm per side, or 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000 cm3. At least that's how it was. These days, multiplication has mutated slightly, so 10 x 10 is now 99.9999994482 +/- 0.0000000002. This means that the mass of a litre of water has indeed changed slightly, while the standard kilogram remains correct. In fact, the mass of a litre of water is now subtly different depending on the shape of its container, an effect which is more evident with larger containers. A 50 litre cube of water without handles is indeed heavier than a 50 litre flexible bag with a nice long handle attached to a harness.

While this doesn't currently pose any major problems, I for one pity the engineers when cartesian geometry evolves opposable thumbs.

Bogus story, I think

[fm6]

This entire story (which has appeared on a lot of general news sites, but no science news sites) is probably just a case of a reporter misunderstanding something a scientist said. According to the UK NPL site, fluctuations in the physical objects used to define fundamental metric units has always been a problem. Back when they were created, the ideal material for them seemed to be a hard, dense iridium-platinum alloy. This turned out to be a nasty mistake: the alloy is slightly radioactive, which means that some of its mass flies off into space all the time. No mystery there.

This is why most fundamental units are now based on natural constants. For example, the meter used to be the distance between two notches on a platinum-iridium stick. (Before that, it was defined as 1 ten-millionth of a line that goes from the equator to the north pole; except they miscalculated the length of the line!) Now it's based on how far light travels in some tiny amount of time. But there's no consensus as to the best way to get rid of the physical kilogram.

In other words, all we have here is a clueless reporter trying to fill up a slow news day.

Re:Bogus story, I think

[ookabooka]

Yes, but at what temperature/pressure? Both of these things affect the density of water as well. I'm assuming its STP or 25C and 1atm. Then again, how exactly do you go about measuring that...

Re:Bogus story, I think

[Toinou]

fluctuations in the physical objects used to define fundamental metric units has always been a problem The most famous example is the definition of the second. Until 1671 everybody thought that the gravity was constant on earth, so with a meter defined as a fraction of a meridian, the second was equal to the period of a one meter long pendulum. Everybody was very disapointed to learn that the gravity was not the same in Paris and in Cayenne (French Guyana).
So, until 1967 the second was based on the mean length of a day.
In fact, it is so complicated to properly define a measure that, during the french revolution, they took the old measures and renamed it. So the meter is based on the toise de Paris. However, at that time, the main problem was building the simplest system possible, and they did achieve it.

Re:Bogus story, I think

[fm6]

That's the original definition of a kilogram. It's been abandoned. Apparently it's hard to guarantee that water has consistent density.

Eat that, Eurotrash!!

[commodoresloat]

Proof at last that the imperial system of weights and measures is superior to that silly "metric" fad....

Unit of force

[SkyFalling]

If you think the kilogram is in bad shape, consider the dire fate of the Newton (the SI unit of force, a.k.a. weight). Newton's been decomposing for centuries -- there's no way he weighs the same as he used to!

50 micrograms is just the right weight

[Provocateur]

Put a warning label weighing 50 micrograms that says:

WARNING: Measurements are approximate

Problem solved.

The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction?

[AllTheGoodNamesWereT]

This was in the news in mid-2003. On June 3 of that year, the Los Angeles Times ran a very funny column by Crispin Sartwell ("Crispin Sartwell teaches philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art") titled "Kilo Crisis Could Bring Down the Universe," which is unfortunately no longer available for free on their website. Here's an excerpt:

The kilogram is defined as the weight of the standard cylinder, whatever it may be. It is logically impossible for the kilo cylinder to lose or gain weight, at least within the metric system of measurement, because it is itself the standard by which all weights must be judged.

Thus it is impossible to "discover" that the cylinder has lost weight. The instruments by which the cylinder is weighed are wrong because the cylinder itself, by definition, is always right. Indeed, it is possible that the rest of the material in the universe, including the silicon atom, has become slightly heavier. But it is not possible that the weight of that cylinder has changed.

[....]

Now one suspects that in the long run the kilogram cylinder will continue to shed atoms. By my calculations (or rather, those of my wife, who can do stuff like multiply), at a rate of 50 micrograms per century, the cylinder will disappear entirely in 200 billion years.

Then the kilogram itself will disappear, which entails that all objects will weigh an infinite number of kilograms: Any given feather or dust mote will be infinitely heavy. And, at that point, the universe will collapse under the influence of infinite gravity into a disk about the size of a lentil, inhaling everything into a dimensional wormhole. And that will suck, with infinite force and acceleration.

In other words, that standard kilo platinum-iridium cylinder is the smoking gun, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

Why don't we just do again what we did for the m?

[Entropius]

A while back the meter was defined artificially, by some marks on a post.

Then someone got the idea to peg it to another unit. Time and space are related, and the conversion between them is the speed of light. So the solution to the problem was to adopt a precise definition of c, thus defining the meter in terms of the second (defined elsewhere) and the speed of light (a constant).

Couldn't we peg the kilogram to either the meter or the second as well, using another fundamental constant as the conversion. Planck's constant is the obvious one. Here's a clunky definition:

Define the joule to be "The energy difference between two states which interfere with a frequency of 1.50919067 × 10^33 cycles per second" or "6.626068 × 10^-34 joule is the energy difference between two states which interfere with a frequency of 1 cycle per second." What is a second? That's defined empirically, based on a transition in cesium. Or you could define a joule as some fraction of the energy carried by a photon with such-and-such wavelength, or however you want to do it.

Now you've got the joule, the meter, and the second defined. The second is the only empirical one; the other two are defined in reference to it and two fundamental constants of the universe, h and c.

Then you define the kilogram as that mass which, when moving at a speed of 2N meters per second, has a kinetic energy of N joules, in the limit of small N (to dodge the relativistic correction). Or you could calculate the relativistic correction at 2 meters per second and put it into the definition.

They should redefine a kilogram

[neomage86]

in terms of planck mass. The planck constants are (to the best of our current knowledge) invariant since they are all based off universal constants (like the speed of light or the gravitational constant).

The planck mass is defined as the mass for which the Schwarzschild radius is equal to the Compton wavelength over Pi.

The Schwarzchild radius is 2Gm/c^2, while the Compton wavelength = h/mc = 2*pi * dirac's constant/(mc). (I'll refer to dirac's constant as d, since I don't know how to type the proper character).

Setting the two equal yields 2Gm/c^2 = 2d/mc => m= sqrt(dc/G). Then, we could define 1 kg as 45940892.447777 planck masses. The only thing's we're assuming as constant are the speed of light, the universal gravitational constant, and planck's constant.

Re:They should redefine a kilogram

[Falladir]

I'm pretty sure that the reason this hasn't been done is that G is not known precisely enough. It's an ironic state of affairs: of all the universal constants, G was the first to be identified (by which I mean that its significance was understood) and measured, and remains the least precisely known.

Re:They should redefine a kilogram

[aeve]

I agree, redefine...but it seems easier to redefine it by fixing Avogadro's number and then saying that the mass of one mole of C12 divided by 12 equals one gram.

Maybe to a physicist/mathematician it seems inelegant to base the definition of mass on an arbitrary number (Avogadro's) rather than on a physical constant. But are we absolutely, positively sure that physical constants are constant throughout the space-time continuum and that we've got them exactly right?

Re:tag this "dirtycopies"

[John Hasler]

Yes, it probably is. The copies get handled much more, after all. They are much more likely to have picked up contaminants.

obvious ploy by us government

[drfireman]

Shave a little off the kilogram reference, everyone who measures their weight in kilos gains a little. US residents are largely unaffected, and it helps squelch stories about the American obesity epidemic. I'll bet if you turn the Secretary of Health and Human Services upside-down, 50 micrograms of metal shavings drops right to the floor.

Dyslexics Untie

[pipingguy]

I just want to know what a klingongram is; a measure of mass or a method of communication.

It must not lose mass!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Who cares if it loses weight. It just must not lose mass. kg is a unit of **mass**, not weight.

Re:It must not lose mass!

[ArsonSmith]

I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation.

Re:Before making announcements of this nature...

[aeve]

How about: the other reference copies aren't quite so tightly guarded and occasionally pick up a fingerprint?

Don't break the seal, please...

[Nefarious Wheel]

I remember hearing some years back about a graduated set of calibrated weights sent to Kennedy Space Center -- very expensive, environment-controlled copies calibrated against the standard in Paris. The set arrived in good condition, but the quartermaster who received them had instructions affix an identification plate to all inbound goods received, and complained that some of the smaller weights had turned out to be too small to drill and rivet...

Re:Why don't we just do again what we did for the

[Entropius]

If we did physics because it was easy we'd be art history majors.

Re:Inertia

[Guppy06]

They're working on it.

Re:General relativity

[zippthorne]

I blame global warming, myself. If only the US had ratified Kyoto, this wouldn't be happening.

I predict...

[Tablizer]

...an Al Gore film about this someday.

The funniest part

[aepervius]

Is that the pouind is defined as 1/2.2 Kg. In other word the two last country of earth resisting the introduction of SI, are using SI as reference.... It might be old news for many here, but I can't stop laughing at the irony.

Re:The funniest part

[Just Some Guy]

It might be old news for many here, but I can't stop laughing at the irony.

If that's an unceasing chucklefest for you, then I'm pretty sure you need to get out more.

Re:I have a watch.

[somersault]

Yeah they just made up weird standards to confuse us after they'd sorted out the whole year thing. The people who invented time - the french - actually have watches that go up to a nice round 100, and have 1000 days every year. That's why a lot of europeans can be caught napping in our afternoons, or having more than 3 meals per 'day'. I can't say any more at this juncture.

Re:Imperial reference units?

[cnettel]

The only reference is conversion into S.I. by well-defined constants, and then trusting the S.I. references.