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US Objects To the Kilogram
Velcroman1 writes "For 130 years, the kilogram has weighed precisely one kilogram. Hasn't it? The US government isn't so sure. The precise weight of the kilogram is based on a platinum-iridium cylinder manufactured 130 years ago; it's kept in a vault in France at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Forty of the units were manufactured at the time, to standardize the measure of weight. But due to material degradation and the effects of quantum physics, the weight of those blocks has changed over time. That's right, the kilogram no longer weighs 1 kilogram, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. And it's time to move to a different standard anyway. A proposed revision would remove the final connection to that physical bit of matter, said Ambler Thompson, a NIST scientist involved in the international effort. 'We get rid of the last artifact.'"
Death to KILLograms!
Ounces and pounds were way a head of the time and are becoming even more useful with the advent of computer systems and the common use of base16.
16 ounces in a Pound is not just coincidence.
F=15 ounces
10 = a pound
We can all agree, I am sure, it's easier to look at 89 and go, 8 pounds 9 ounces. With metric I have to keep moving the decimal place around and remember how many 0s there were in huge words like kilogram, milligram, centigram.
Well, you can try counting atoms. But apparently that turns out to be a royal pain.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
We have American pints and British pints; the imperial tone, the short ton, and the tonne; why not have an American kilogram and traditional kilogram as well? That should really simplify things for NASA/EUA coordination.
It's the US of A -- we don't use the kilogram anyway. Change it as you like.
That being said, keep your filthy hands off my hogshead.
Blog,Twitter
"There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris." - Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
then how do you define a liter?
OH I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND
We're going to let the kilogram "float" and put it on the commodities market. It should triple the value of the gram
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I'm not even sure we even use Imperial units anymore...
From reading the news, I believe our units are:
- Hairs
- Stories
- Football Fields
- Libraries of Congress
No. The reference electrons are specially-calibrated in the lab to meet the exacting standards of the measurements industry. If you start using sub-standard electrons, you get sub-standard measurements.
I have personally seen the effects of creating matter using electrons with a charge of -0.93 instead of the usual -1. The matter that we were shipping had a net positive charge, so we had to include EXTRA electrons in the order so that the USP guy what not fatally electrocuted when he picked up the box. Do you have any idea how much those extra electrons cost my company?
Please do not even get me started about cut-rate protons. What happens when heavy water is not quite so heavy? You don't even want to know.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Well, you can try counting atoms. But apparently that turns out to be a royal pain.
Or at least an Imperial pain. :)
title of this slashdot article should be:
Le Kilogramme is to walk the Planck. :)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/28/official_french_kilogramme_marked_for_the_bin/
root@127.0.0.1
No, a Newton not a weight, it is a cookie.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fig_Newton
And too many Newtons leads to weight gain.
--
BMO