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To: Olog-hai

Another misleading headline. The Kilogram has not gained weight. The Kilogram is a weight, not an object.

Also, if this object is the standard by which all other weight measurements are verified, then I have to ask, how can anyone verify the weight of this object?


7 posted on 01/07/2013 9:25:10 AM PST by I want the USA back
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To: I want the USA back
Also, if this object is the standard by which all other weight measurements are verified, then I have to ask, how can anyone verify the weight of this object?

Exactly. To what do you calibrate the instrument you use to measure the standard?

8 posted on 01/07/2013 9:35:44 AM PST by SoothingDave
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To: I want the USA back

Actually, the kilogram is supposed to be a standard mass rather than weight, if you can believe that. Thus in a weightless environment, it’s supposed to still consist of one kilogram of mass although weighing nothing. (The English System equivalent is the slug, which on Earth weighs 32 pounds; weight is a force, specifically the force exerted on a mass by gravity.) Problem with mass is that the only way to keep it constant is to guarantee that your original standard mass still has all of its atoms from the time it was forged and standardized (as it were), and there’s no way to do that.

And yes, if the standard is off, then all derivative standards are off.

In the USA, it’s up to Congress to set standards of weights and measures (per Article 1 section 8 paragraph 5 of the Constitution); that’s the main reason why we haven’t adopted a foreign system such as the so-called “Système Internationale”.


9 posted on 01/07/2013 9:46:52 AM PST by Olog-hai
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