This Kilogram Has A Weight-Loss Problem

NPR ^ | 20 Aug 2009 | Geoff Brumfiel

[r9etb]

Sounds messy.

All sex is messy ... even "sex" as it occurs for guys who spend 40 years trying to invent a mass-free kilogram scale.

[Lazamataz]

Isn't that when you first approach a woman?

That's when you convert defeat to meet-'ers.

[dirtboy]

Yeah, but when you are dealing with guys who can figure out that a cesium atom has vibrated 9,192,631,770 times...

[r9etb]

That's when you convert defeat to meet-'ers.

The difficulty, of course, being the conversion between meet-'ers and meat-'ers.

[Liberty1970]

What I find interesting about this thread, and the inquiry you are pushing, is how each measure is related to some other measure that needs to be defined. Instead of some absolute measurement (such as the kilogram cylinder) we are moving towards relational measures - defining one thing in terms of some other measure.

It seems to me that this entire relational system still needs to be grounded in one basic physical measure - that is, that somewhere at the very foundation of it all you need that cylinder or yardstick or something - to base it all off of. Otherwise the entire system risks 'floating.' Your question 'at what temperature' is my case in point:

Over time, what we've assumed initially were fixed constants, have tended to turn out to vary under different conditions. Sometimes very esoteric conditions, but nonetheless, they have not proved 'constant' after all. Newtons laws of gravitation compared to Einsteinian relativity is the classic example, but there are plenty of others.

That means that as we develop a relational system of measurements, we need to define each and every property that can influence the measurement (ie., temperature, gravitational attraction, etc.). And we can never be certain that we've got every one of those potential influences nailed down. I appreciate the advantages to the relational approach and think it is a necessary approach for precise metrics, but it all leaves me with a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.

[varon]

Now define a second.

One Mississippi, .................

[CodeToad]

lol! Man, I just knew you could clear that up for me.

[CodeToad]

And if you have a meter then meter is easy!

[Lazamataz]

You say
T’meet-ers
And I say
Tamaters

You say
P’etite-ers,
And I say
Pataters

[Phantom Lord]

This entire problem could be solved by scraping the metric system.

[Lazamataz]

This entire problem could be solved by scraping the metric system.

Scraping the rust off it? The barnacles?

[Oztrich Boy]

This entire problem could be solved by scraping the metric system.

Shaving it is not enough. It has to be scrapped completely.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BGHater!

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[sourcery]

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.

[AFPhys]

The kilogram is the mass of 1000 cubic centimeters of absolutely pure water. Does that help you?

[AFPhys]

European swallow

[AFPhys]

If I recall correctly, the original definition of the meter was to be the surface distance between the north pole and the equator divided by 10,000,000.

[Tainan]

...and then there is the island nation of Taiwan.
In their ankle-biting efforts to prove they are "independent" they have their own kilo...and it weighs...600 grams.

Makes shopping 'interesting' until one discovers this irritating fact.

[CodeToad]

Well, the European committee screwed that up and now the meter is just an arbitrary unit of measure.

[CodeToad]

“The kilogram is the mass of 1000 cubic centimeters of absolutely pure water.”

At what pressure and temperature?