Posted on 09/13/2007 9:51:22 PM PDT by Westlander
The original prototype for the kilogram, stored under lock and key near Paris, appears to be losing weight.
The cylinder, which dates back from 1889, seems to have lost 50 micrograms, compared with the average of dozens of copies of the original.
Richard Davis, of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, said: "The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart."
The one in Sevres is the original that the kilogram is based upon. It is kept in a triple-locked safe at a chateau.
"It's not clear whether the original has become lighter, or the national prototypes have become heavier," said Michael Borys, of Germany's national measures institute.
"But by definition, only the original represents exactly a kilogram."
It’s been a long time since a Kilogram was defined as the weight of a particular rock. As science progresses definitions for units of measure get redefined whenever we discover a physical property that’s more stable than what we used before. For example, the original definition of a meter as the length of a particular rod didn’t take into account the fact that it would expand in the summer and contract in the winter (or during the day and at night). These days a meter is defined as the distance light in vacuum travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second, which doesn’t vary with temperature.
And if you’ll pardon me manners, bad at best and horrid at worst, happy New Year!
Nor do atomic clocks stored in the same room under identical conditions keep perfect time with each other. Can anyone here tell me why?
This is the result of the “migratory molecule rule,” written by the bureaucats at EPA, which states that molecules will eventually migrate to federal waterways due to evaporation by the sun, and thus, all molecules fall under the purview and control of the EPA.
The only flaw here is that French molecules were not located in a tile-lined drainage ditch.
See US v Rapanos
American gulf shrimp as well as Mexican all came in 5 pound blocks, and the customer base was used to that unit of measure. These new packs came in 2 kilo blocks (4.4 pounds)....some importers booked 'em in (and sold) as 5 pounders, pocketing quite a bit of sneaky extra profit.
If questioned, they'd just tell the customers that 2 kilos equals 5 pounds...amazing how often they got away with it.
L'shanah tovah tikkatev vetechatem!
The cleaning lady has been wiping it clean.
Wow. That's about how much I lost last week on my diet.
The bartender says, "What'll you have?"
The kilogram says...
(weight for it...)
Can you demonstrate a time event that is not a kinetic energy event at some rate? (t=dKE)
Nope. Meth addiction. Very bad.
The metric system needs rehab.
"I'll have 2.2046 of whatever he's having!"
50 micrograms from 1 Kilogram within 100 years is very significant indeed.
However there are other factors that needs to be investigated as well such as: 1) the accuracy of the scales 2) possible contamination or erosion of the specimen kept in storage 3) possible fraud, where the item was either stolen, switched or never properly made to start with 4) outside influences (possible gravimetric influences) affecting the weighing.
Note: this topic is from 9/13/2007. Thanks Westlander.
Are “pound sand” and “pound of flesh” equal? Or do we just stick with the “pound cake”?
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