Comments on: The World’s Roundest Objects: Perfect Silicon Spheres.

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:50:45 +0000

“mmmark” has gggood cccomments. American engineers have no troubles (except for NASA and its subcontractors maybe) working in all kinds of mixed units. I’m used to seeing pressures expressed in psi, Pascals, bar, inches of mercury, inches of water, atmosphere, etc. You deal with them all and it’s no biggee.

As for the kilogram standard… I am in favor of anything that removes this from the custody of the French. There is no telling when they might get invaded again and lose control of the kg prototype, Think what could happen if that were to fall into the hands of the wrong people! Now who is going to invade Australia? The New Zealanders? not likely…

By: mmmark

mmmark — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:14:31 +0000

Vandoo- Yes, Chris is either a fool, or he’s simply joking, or he’s trying to goad folks into posting the typical anti-USA comments. Most Americans use both metric and US standard measurements, and all scientists use metrics daily. There is no “contest” between them here in America.

By: vandoo

vandoo — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:16:07 +0000

figures some American would be the first to rip this.
I am pretty sure your military uses the metric system and they are as “good American” as you can get!

By: aj

aj — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:08:35 +0000

@ Gitai, I think thats an approximation, it’s not considered good enough for high accuracy experiments where they work in sub micro-gram ranges.

By: jonno

jonno — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:02:00 +0000

the water based cubic centimeter isn’t perfect. it depends on pressure.
counting an exact number of atoms is better.

By: Gitai

Gitai — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 00:15:14 +0000

Wait a minute. I thought that the kilogram was defined as a thousand grams, which equals the weight of one cubic centimeter of water.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:13:45 +0000

not at all interesting for any good American.
oz. & lbs. rule!