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Related: About this forumMoment of geek: How much does a gram weigh?
I never really thought about it until now, and assumed somebody was keeping track of such things, but the answer is more complicated than it seems.
As a conscious consumer, I like to protect my investment when making purchases of expensive commodities, like ..uh..bacon. When I buy an ounce of .. uh bacon, I like to know I'm getting exactly that. That's why I keep an Ohaus Harvard Trip and Fisher Scientific Triple Beam scales around the house.
Not everyone is as fastidious as myself on getting the right weight on smoked goods like uh, bacon, so to put it other terms: We all learned as youngsters that 28.3495231 grams of prevention equates to .453592370 kilograms of cure, but how do we know when we're applying sufficient prevention? Though there should be an easier way to remember that important formula, it's clear that being shy even a fraction of a gram in prevention can lead to an expotentially dire amount of woe down the road!
Science comes to the rescue once again! This clip describes why a gram weighs what it does, how we've kept track of that precise value over hundreds of years, and how that quest led to the development of the most perfectly round object known to mankind:
Be the geek.
antiquie
(4,299 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Try "mail".
Just make sure you allow for the weight of the bag.
OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)Lochloosa
(16,063 posts)progressoid
(49,983 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)And if you are buying in bulk, after you have....uh, tasted it, it's really hard to remember numbers like .4535...what was the rest of that?
Good bacon!
jimlup
(7,968 posts)And I'll use this video in my class in early September. This is perfect and will be used on the 2nd or 3rd day if not earlier. Very nice - thanks.
We start by talking about units but also about measurement and uncertainty so I think this will help drive in the point to the kids. The reason to take careful measurements... Very nice... I'm psyched to go back to school this fall now!
JohnnyRingo
(18,628 posts)I have a lot of respect for educators, and like many, I recall the good ones who made a meaningful contribution to my life. I'm fortunate that my science teachers were absolutely the best a free education could provide.
I can tell you're one of those who will also be remembered decades after those students leave the hallowed halls.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Things weigh less the further they are from the gravity well of the earth.
Thus something weighs more in Death Valley than it does on Mount Everest.
Go far enough up and an object becomes weightless.
Also freezing and boiling points of water change based on atmospheric pressure.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html
JohnnyRingo
(18,628 posts)...who uses the screen name "Professor". I didn't know until now that indeed he used to teach science.
He too mentioned in his reply about how a kilo is mass instead of weight and varies with altitude. He pointed out that an ounce is based on a specific weight, while the "English" measure of mass is the slug. The SI measure of weight is actually the newton (?).
He kinda lost me after that, but explained the difference by imagining a ton of steel hung from a crane. If the chain breaks while standing beneath it, you'll feel the weight. If that ton of steel slams you against a wall, you'll feel the mass. Momentum is a factor, but it's the general idea.
My diet was a lot less complicated before today. I don't know if I want to lose mass or weight now.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Depends if it's blood, bone or muscle instead of fat.
JohnnyRingo
(18,628 posts)and chalk it up to one more unsolvable problem beyond my scope of reason.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Fearless
(18,421 posts)Answer below.................................
Answer: A pound of gold is 12 ounces but a pound of concrete is 16 ounces. Gold is weighed in troy weight whereas concrete is not.