Comments on: Mass less

By: Christopher Ambler

Christopher Ambler — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:54:55 +0000

Um… I still have it. It’s taking up space on my shelf. Give in to my demands already.

By: thaumaturge

thaumaturge — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:09:02 +0000

My guess is that the platinum and iridium alloy is getting old and starting to lose its memory.

By: Irishman

Irishman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:33:36 +0000

Fred, because Phil resides in Colorado (MDT).

By: Fred Shuman

Fred Shuman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:21:18 +0000

Actually, it’s quite simple. The power company originally misread the meter 1250 kW-hr too high. They’ve since discovered their error, and adjusted the reading down by this amount. So not to worry — the 50 mcg will be restored as soon as they get the discrepant energy back and convert it back into Pt-Ir.

I still like the global-warming-phlogiston explanation. But if I win the nothing, I promise to be humble. And to donate it to Al Gore to buy no jet fuel. Say, which judges do I bribe with a little nothing in order to win the big nothing?

P.S. Why are the comment times shown in MDT (= CST) (= UT-6hr) ?

By: Fred Shuman

Fred Shuman — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 03:44:34 +0000

Phil: “0.00005 kilos” = 50 mg; you need three more zeros to get to 50 ug.
Greg B: “0.000005 kg” = 5 mg; you need two more zeros to get to 50 ug.
Blake Stacey: yes, it is; you’re right.

0.05 kg = 50 g
0.00005 kg = 50 mg
0.00000005 kg = 50 ug

By: Nes

Nes — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:47:41 +0000

I thought “Global warming has caused it to release some of its phlogiston.” was the winner… Until I got to Greg B’s altie clinic comment. That one had me on the floor!

By: blf

blf — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 22:08:18 +0000

It’s the missing WMD.

By: Monty

Monty — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:45:47 +0000

It was the super-secret undetectable ninja teams from the eeeeeevil US gubmint that stole the mass to justify invading Iraq.

By: Adam Schaefer

Adam Schaefer — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:57:51 +0000

In fact 50 micrograms was rounded-up for release purposes from 42 micrograms or as its more commonly known One Tiny Answer. These is due largely to the accidental flushing of a seagull down a cruise ship toilet. Pants.

By: ABR

ABR — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:02:33 +0000

Aw, shucks, Irishman — you caught me. I’ll try to be more subtle next time. It’s nice to see there are still some people who *read* the comments.

By: Aleksandar

Aleksandar — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:35:40 +0000

I suppose it cant be the fabled proton decay, as the above poster said, it would mean that protons decay only in platinum iridium bars used in weight(mass) prototypes, and never decay in thousands of tons of water observed by tons of instruments.

Change of local gravity field is IMHO as plausible as above, aka non likely.

Some small fraction of metals were natural isotopes, or have been turned into isotopes and have decayed. Though that would have released quite a bit energy over the years, and it would have been noticed. I mean, if it is radioactive decay, about 20 millionth parts of the bars mass have been converted to energy trough decay…

So, this one is also Alien Space Bats.

Two solutions i can think off that might be most plausible:
a) it evaporated,
b) they cleaned it off…

By: Irishman

Irishman — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:34:49 +0000

ABR said:
> Hey, I just thought of something. Has anyone checked the Slug standard lately? If the English system has been compromised as well the metric then maybe thereâ€™s a conspiracy afoot.

The Slug standard was stolen years ago. They have secretly been defining the slug in terms of the pound in terms of the kilogram for over a century. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.*

* There never was a slug standard. The official U.S. customary unit of mass is the avoirdupois pound. Somewhere or another physicists got it in their heads that weight was force, and thus made the pound a force unit. Then they had to define a mass unit, they named the “slug” (when not using “pounds-mass” and “pounds-force”). The Avoirdupois pound was originally defined in terms of the troy pound standard. As of the Mendenhall Order in 1893, all U.S. Customary units are defined in terms of S.I. units.
http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/Metric/upload/SP_447.pdf

We now return you to your regularly scheduled conspiracy mongering.

By: dWhisper

dWhisper — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:27:18 +0000

You know, it could just be some divine plan to slowly erode away at the accepted constants until the biblical accounts of things are wrong. Next they’ll be telling us that someone ate part of Pi, and it’s now 3.13…

Slowly moving towards that “3″

Or, it could just be a totally natural and while currently unknown, in the future it will become perfectly explainable…

By: MichaelS

MichaelS — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:09:59 +0000

Oops, that’s 546,407,580, which is 1 kg – 1 lb – 50 micrograms in micrograms (I originally subtracted 1 Âµg).

By: MichaelS

MichaelS — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:06:08 +0000

Obviously, God speaks English and uses the Imperial system of measurement, and has been slowly converting the world to use both. We can expect the kg to lose another 546,407,629 Âµg over time so the standard weight is, once again, the pound.

By: Encolpius

Encolpius — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:28:18 +0000

Once again, scientists are baffled.

It is obviously a miracle, since science cannot explain it, therefore proof positive of the existence of God and of the inerrant truth of the teachings of Roman Catholicism.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:25:45 +0000

Jenny Craig.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:53:26 +0000

Obviously, it’s lost its soul.

By: Thomas Siefert

Thomas Siefert — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:10:19 +0000

Mister Earl said: “Sublimation. Think of the pitch drop experiment: There is no such animal as a solid, only liquids of varying viscocity.”

Next you will tell us that glass is just a very viscous liquid and you would be wrong…..

By: Barbara

Barbara — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:05:42 +0000

It’s acquired some Hypercharge.

By: Mister Earl

Mister Earl — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:42:29 +0000

Sublimation. Think of the pitch drop experiment: There is no such animal as a solid, only liquids of varying viscocity.

By: boggis the cat

boggis the cat — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:17:34 +0000

As this was reported in the mainstream media, and is science-related, it is therefore wrong. (Rupert Murdoch must have futures invested in the pound.)

The reference masses are compared to the master via an electro-mechanical balance method, IIRC. My guess would be that the comparison procedures have been “improved” in some way, and thus inadvertently borked. You would assume that they also checked the reference masses against one another to verify that there was a definite deviation, but I have learnt the assumption lesson…

A few years back, it was noted that Indonesia’s master kg was losing mass compared to the Australian and New Zealand masters. Investigation determined that there was a diligent curator who would carefully polish the mass up prior to each comparison – thus removing a little mass each time.

By: Elwood Herring

Elwood Herring — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:17:28 +0000

I am actually Q and this is a test for you puny humans. I’ll give you a clue – it was much bigger in the PAST!

By: Doc

Doc — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:03:49 +0000

The electromagnetic radiation leaking out of the unused wall outlets in the room is slowly degrading it. They need to spray the kilo with that EM-blocking lotion to protect it.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:44:07 +0000

It hasn’t changed in weight.

Everything else in the Universe gained 50 micrograms.