The international kilogram conundrum[Weights have mysteriously fluctuated]

LA Times ^ | 17 Apr 2008 | Jia-Rui Chong

[BGHater]

In the more than a century since 'perfect' platinum-iridium cylinders were first used as the world's kilogram standards, their weights have mysteriously fluctuated. Scientists are rethinking what the measure means.

GAITHERSBURG, MD. -- Forty feet underground, secured in a temperature- and humidity-controlled vault here, lies Kilogram No. 20.

[bezelbub]

Try this with yards and furlongs...

How do you measure the wavelength of light? In nanofeet?

[Right Wing Assault]

Then what about the metric constant for gravitational acceleration?

Are you talking about g = 9.8 m/s²? Or G = 6.67 x 10^-11Nm²/kg²? If the former, 'g' is NOT constant. 'G' appears to be constant, but some scientists question that.

These two are not base units in SI. Gravitational acceleration is just an experimental measurement. The gravitational constant, G, is also determined by experiment. Obviously not all measurements are going to be exact multiples of 10.

The base units in SI are meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela. All other units are derived units. Acceleration, for example, is a derived unit.

[doc30]

Species have changed. The fossil record traces this quite clearly. Speciation has been observed today. And genetic comparisons trace the route and origin of species quite clearly. Your poroblem is that you don’t understand genetics, nor do you understand evolution. You are citing creationist talking points which are largely of their own derivation. It is an observed fact that species have and do change over time. It is an observed fact that every generation of every living thing has mutatations, including humans. The condition of what you call “the addition of continually more complex genetic information” is an obfuscation. Evolution does not specify the addition or subtraction of genetic information. Your question implies a nonsensical point. The concept of “information” is purely an abstraction or metaphor created by us. The evidence is that the genetics of living things have gone through specific, documented changes over time. It doesn’t matter if it has added or substrated what we artificially call genetic information.

And my original post has no personal attacks. Your ignorance of the subject, and science in general, is displayed clearly in your post. And it is no insult to say reality trump superstition, nor that the minority of Christians who literally interpret the Bible are wrong based on physical evidence and are uncomfortable, to say the least, that their world view is erroneous.

[doc30]

Is that so? Then what about the metric constant for gravitational acceleration? Kind of blows a huge hole in your theory huh?

LOL! I assume you mean 9.8 m/s^2. It's a decimal number and uses SI decimal based units. Are you so slow that you think all SI quantities and constants are whole multiples of 10? The value is expressed in decimal numbers. Do you honestly beleive it would be better written as fractional sums of 1/2^n? Like 9 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/16 + 1/64 + 1/512.....? Or do you believe the only acceptable number system should be represented by whole multiples of physical constants? Either way, you are going to have one piss-poor, clunky number system to use. You can go ahead and use it while the rest of us stick to something that helps minimize confusion.

[editor-surveyor]

"Are you so slow that you think all SI quantities and constants are whole multiples of 10?"

No, I was just pointing out the stupidity of puffing the SI system as he was doing. It's a little different than the imperial system, but in no way superior.

[editor-surveyor]

Just how long is a fur?

[bezelbub]

Just how long is a fur?

From wikipedia:

The name furlong derives from the Old English words furh (furrow) and lang (long). Dating back at least to the ninth century, it originally referred to the length of the furrow in one acre of a ploughed open field (a medieval communal field which was divided into strips). The system of long furrows arose because turning a team of oxen pulling a heavy plough was difficult.

I'm afraid your ignorance on history doesn't add any substance to the current discussion.
Or was this a feeble attempt to be funny and to evade answering my questions?

[Bellflower]

The concept of “information” is purely an abstraction or metaphor created by us.

Say what? For now I need to get going but I will have to think about how to reply to someone who denies that genes contain information.

[editor-surveyor]

I’m sure that you know that your “question” was stupid and argumentative. Yes it was intended to be humor, moron.

[coloradan]

Yoo hoo! Still awaiting your enlightenment about what is the SI unit for mass.

And what “pwn3d” means.

Thanks in advance.

[bezelbub]

I’m sure that you know that your “question” was stupid and argumentative. Yes it was intended to be humor, moron.

Humor, eh? Who would have known...
As for being argumentative: this is an internet forum, live with it...

But adding a few facts:

You wrote here: In 1959 a new unit was created, called the "international foot." That foot was the only one that uses an inch that is defined relative to the meter. The real foot, which is called the "U.S. Survey Foot" is still defined based on a physical standard unit that is stored at the NIST. That unit cannot be changed for serious legal reasons, and it is the only "foot" that can legally used for measurement. (Nobody really knows what the "international foot" is good for)

(Highlighting mine). Seems that the National Geodetic Survey doesn't care for your "serious legal reasons", as you'll find here:

Any date expressed in feet drived from and published as a result of geodetic surveys within the United States will continue to bear the following relationship as defined in 1893:
1 foot = 1200/3937 meter
The foot unit defined by this equation shall be referred as the U-S. Survey Foot and it shall continue to be used, for the purpose given herein, until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient to readjust the basic geodetic survey networks in the United States, after which the ratio of a yard equal to 0.0944 meter, shall apply.

So, no, the U.S. Survey foot isn't "defined based on a physical standard unit that is stored at the NIST". It's defined by the SI meter. The difference: It's given as a rational fraction of the meter, the old-fashioned way, not as a decimal fraction...

By the way, the quoted directive is dating from 1959, too.

[editor-surveyor]

What you are quoting is nothing more than a conversion factor. The courts have ruled that for all land boundary issues with regard to dimensions published in feet, the surveyor is required to use the U.S. Survey Foot as physically standardized.

[bezelbub]

What you are quoting is nothing more than a conversion factor.

Sorry, that's not the case. The survey foot is defined to be 1200/3937 meter, the international foot is coupled to the yard being defined as 0.944 meter.

The courts have ruled that for all land boundary issues with regard to dimensions published in feet, the surveyor is required to use the U.S. Survey Foot as physically standardized.

Yes, the U.S. Survey Foot is required in all land boundary issues. Yes, it is physically standardized to be 1200/3937 SI meter. Show me any court ruling something different!

[editor-surveyor]

No, reference to another unit is an “Abstract” standard.

[bezelbub]

The courts have ruled that for all land boundary issues with regard to dimensions published in feet, the surveyor is required to use the U.S. Survey Foot as physically standardized.

So, is the U.S. Survey Foot somewhere physically (abstractly or concretely) standardized without referring to the SI meter? Where?

[editor-surveyor]

Yes, at the NIST. It’s a platinum-iridium bar, and has been directly refered to in several court decisions.

[bezelbub]

Yes, at the NIST. It’s a platinum-iridium bar, and has been directly refered to in several court decisions.

Could you please hint me to some of these court decisions?
And the NIST seems to hide its platinum-iridium bar, while bragging with other, more accurate definitions and measurements:

In 1960, the international scientific community adopted a new standard of length, replacing the old platinum-iridium meter bar with a wavelength of a specific frequency of visible light. (An Institute invention of the 1940s was influential in demonstrating the precision and practicality of a wavelength standard of length.) The new measure was based on atomic properties and could be reproduced with great accuracy, whereas the meter bar could be damaged or change over time. Shortly thereafter, NIST designed and built one of the first fully automated measuring machines, an interferometer (which used wavelengths of light as the unit of measure) for calibrating the intervals on length scales. It reduced calibration time and cost by a factor of 10. Before the end of the decade, a new method of stabilizing lasers was discovered by NIST scientists, yielding a 1,000-fold improvement in reproducing measurements made with an interferometer.

[bezelbub]

The only platinum-iridium bar, the NIST seems to have, is the prototype meter No. 27 which the U.S. received in 1889. In this year, the yard was defined to be 3600/3937 meter. This definition was used by the National Bureau of Standards / National Institute of Standards and Technologies until 1959.
They do have a brass bar, dating from 1815...

[editor-surveyor]

Nuff of your game idiot.

[bezelbub]

Nuff of your game idiot.

The game is "Correcting Editor-Surveyor whenever he gets something wrong". Yep, it's a little bit tedious, but it will be over the moment, Editor-Surveyor starts being correct.
In the meantime: You stated in #116: You're mixing up apples and oranges and getting rotten fruit salad ;o) In 1959 a new unit was created, called the "international foot." That foot was the only one that uses an inch that is defined relative to the meter. The real foot, which is called the "U.S. Survey Foot" is still defined based on a physical standard unit that is stored at the NIST. That unit cannot be changed for serious legal reasons, and it is the only "foot" that can legally used for measurement. (Nobody really knows what the "international foot" is good for)

1. Yes, there is a physical standard unit, stored at the NIST. It's the prototype meter No. 27. Since the Mendenhall Order, the yard is defined to be 3600/3937 meter. Before this, an Imperial Yard prototype was in use...
2. The yard kept linked to the meter during the changes of the definition of the meter
3. The courts held up this definition, i.e., the yard is 3600/3937 meter. The SI gremia would have preferred a slightly different definition - given not as a quotient of natural numbers, but as a finite decimal fraction. Why? For short, while the quotient is symmetric, the decimal fraction discriminates against the conversion from foot to meter...

So, until now, you haven't shown a court decision, linking the U.S. survey foot to an physical standard unit that is stored at the NIST, especially not a foot or yard standard unit.

The NIST is one of the leading metrologic institutes in the world. The current meter definitions are based partly on its work. Why should this excellent institute adhere to outdated standards?