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Scientists Struggling to Make the Kilogram Right Again by bucy at 5:56 pm EDT, May 27, 2003
] BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany In these girth-conscious times, ] even weight itself has weight issues. The kilogram is ] getting lighter, scientists say, sowing potential ] confusion over a range of scientific endeavor. ] ] The kilogram is defined by a platinum-iridium cylinder, ] cast in England in 1889. No one knows why it is shedding ] weight, at least in comparison with other reference ] weights, but the change has spurred an international ] search for a more stable definition.
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RE: Scientists Struggling to Make the Kilogram Right Again
by Laughing Boy at 10:54 pm EDT, May 27, 2003

bucy wrote:
] ] BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany In these girth-conscious times,
] ] even weight itself has weight issues. The kilogram is
] ] getting lighter, scientists say, sowing potential
] ] confusion over a range of scientific endeavor.
] ]
] ] The kilogram is defined by a platinum-iridium cylinder,
] ] cast in England in 1889. No one knows why it is shedding
] ] weight, at least in comparison with other reference
] ] weights, but the change has spurred an international
] ] search for a more stable definition.

Fascinating! I thought all metric units had long ago been revamped to be defined by a universal constant? The meter for example used to be defined as 1 / 10,000,000th the distance from a pole to the equator. Considering the earths crust shifts constantly, this was deemed to be inaccurate, and its defintion went thru several improvements in accuracy over the years and was last defined in 1983 as "The length traveled by light in a vacuum during 1/299 792 458 of a second."

Very odd they haven't come up with a universal constant to define the gram yet.

BTW... If you ever wanna win a sucker bet with a friend, ask them what the official unit of measurements for the USA is. They will likely reply "the english system", when ironically enough, our "official" unit of measure is the metric system, and has been since 1893...

http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/usmetric.html

"In 1893, Congress adopted the metric standards, the official meter and kilogram bars supplied by BIPM, as the standards for all measurement in the U.S. This didn't mean that metric units had to be used, but since that time the customary units have been defined officially in terms of metric standards. Currently, the foot is legally defined to be exactly 0.3048 meter and the pound is legally defined to equal exactly 453.59237 grams."

Laughing Boy

Scientists Struggling to Make the Kilogram Right Again
by Decius at 8:35 pm EDT, May 27, 2003

] BRAUNSCHWEIG, Germany In these girth-conscious times,
] even weight itself has weight issues. The kilogram is
] getting lighter, scientists say, sowing potential
] confusion over a range of scientific endeavor.
]
] The kilogram is defined by a platinum-iridium cylinder,
] cast in England in 1889. No one knows why it is shedding
] weight, at least in comparison with other reference
] weights, but the change has spurred an international
] search for a more stable definition.

What a mess...

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