Gene Nygaard wrote:
"Why are you still refusing to deal with the "meter kilograms" on my
torque wrench---?"

Multiply the meters by 3.28 and multiply the kilograms by 2.2, and you
will have torque in their product computed in foot pounds. Or, just
multiply the dial reading by 7.22 for ft.lbs. Torque is the product of
force and distance.

Weight is a force produced by gravity on a particular mass.

The indication on a torque wrench is muscle force times lever length. It
directly has little relation to gravity in most torque wrench
applications.

Weight is the easy way to determine mass. Computing mass from collection
of acceleration data would be more complicated. M = F/A

Best regards, Richard Harrison, KB5WZI

On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 15:24:23 -0500 (CDT),
(Richard Harrison) wrote:

Gene Nygaard wrote:
"Why are you still refusing to deal with the "meter kilograms" on my
torque wrench---?"

Multiply the meters by 3.28 and multiply the kilograms by 2.2, and you
will have torque in their product computed in foot pounds. Or, just
multiply the dial reading by 7.22 for ft.lbs. Torque is the product of
force and distance.

It's no surprise that you don't have any problem with this. Don't you
remember when I told you that your views were at odds with those of
Jim Kelley (and half a dozen others in this thread as well)?

It's Jim Kelley who is having great difficulty dealing with these
"meter kilograms." Their existence demolishes one of his major
arguments. Will he, or any of the others making similar foolish
arguments, ever address this?

I don't think it's that you understand all this a whole lot better
than those others. Rather, you are more like those rocket scientists
who blissfully get specific impulse in "seconds" by using pounds mass
to cancel out pounds force. In SI, the units of specific impulse are
N·s/kg, or the equivalent m/s.

Weight is a force produced by gravity on a particular mass.

One definition of weight, yes.

The indication on a torque wrench is muscle force times lever length. It
directly has little relation to gravity in most torque wrench
applications.

I don't understand why you think that's even something worth bothering
to point out. Do you think this would have some bearing on the fact
that both Jim and I have characterized torque as "force times
distance"? How? The word "weight" didn't enter into those
discussions of torque, as far as I can remember.

Or are you just pointing out the unrelated (at least in the sense that
it wasn't part of our discussion of torque) fact that pounds force are
often used for things that are never called "weight," so identifying
them as "units of weight" is pretty stupid? At least, compared to the
identification of pounds mass as "units of weight" since in the
definition of weight as a synonym for the "mass" of physics jargon,
that's what mass units such as troy ounces or avoirdupois pounds or
kilograms are always used for--something that can be called "weight"?

Weight is the easy way to determine mass. Computing mass from collection
of acceleration data would be more complicated. M = F/A

Principle of equivalence. Look that up.

OTOH, computing force due to gravity with a balance is not merely
"more complicated," it is impossible without additional information
you don't get from the process of weighing it with the balance.

For example, suppose I have a bar of gold that weighs 401.23 troy
ounces on my balance. How much force does it exert due to gravity, at
my location on Earth? Use any force units you choose--poundals,
newtons, kilograms force, sthenes, whatever--just remember that troy
ounces are not units of force.

Now suppose I take the whole works to the middle of the Sea of
Tranquillity on the Moon, and weigh it again. It weighs 401.25 troy
ounces. How much force is it exerting due to gravity now? Once
again, any units of force will be fine.

Now, I'm also sure that you are well aware that we call what we
measure with a balance "weight," aren't you? Can you tell me why so
many science textbook authors appear to be unaware of this commonly
known fact? (They aren't really, it is a sham in most cases, and
others try to weasel out of it by imagining some "error" is that
usage.) Would you suppose that this might have something to do with
the great emphasis some of them place on the operation of a spring
scale, going into great detail about how they work, while ignoring the
only weighing devices anybody had ever used for the 7000 years or so
that people had been weighing things, before those spring scales first
appeared in the 19th century?

Gene Nygaard
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard/

Gene Nygaard wrote:
It's Jim Kelley who is having great difficulty dealing with these
"meter kilograms." Their existence demolishes one of his major
arguments. Will he, or any of the others making similar foolish
arguments, ever address this?

If you have a point, sir, I think it's time you should make it. If your
intent is nothing more than to blither inanities, then when will you
have your fill?

73 de ac6xg

On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 11:01:09 -0700, Jim Kelley
wrote:



Gene Nygaard wrote:
It's Jim Kelley who is having great difficulty dealing with these
"meter kilograms." Their existence demolishes one of his major
arguments. Will he, or any of the others making similar foolish
arguments, ever address this?

If you have a point, sir, I think it's time you should make it. If your
intent is nothing more than to blither inanities, then when will you
have your fill?

You can be pretty dense when you want to be.

Here's what you, Jim Kelley, wrote earlier in this thread:

Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 15:44:09 -0700
Message-ID:

Why do you think torque wrenches have the unit
'foot-pounds' printed on them if the pound is a unit
of mass?

Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 10:32:56 -0700
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Lines: 53
Message-ID:

And so a torque wrench has what kind of units printed on its
scale - mass and distance, or force and distance?

What was your point in asking these questions? Quite simple. You
were offering those "foot-pounds" as proof of the supposed fact that
pounds are units of force and not units of mass. In fact, you
specifically claimed, by asking a rhetorical question in last Friday's
message, that torque wrenches would not have these units on them if a
pound is a unit of mass.

So my followup to you is along the same lines: Do you claim that
those "meter kilograms" prove that kilograms are not units of mass?

Not a very difficult question to answer, is it, Jim?

Gene Nygaard
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard/

Gene Nygaard wrote:
So my followup to you is along the same lines: Do you claim that
those "meter kilograms" prove that kilograms are not units of mass?

Not a very difficult question to answer, is it, Jim?

Nope. As I recall, the reason it came up was that you were denying that
pounds were a unit of force. I cited the torque wrench, and you pointed
out that kg-f are also units of force. I still think you lose on that
account. Don't you?

73 ac6xg

On Fri, 03 Oct 2003 11:54:00 -0700, Jim Kelley
wrote:



Gene Nygaard wrote:
So my followup to you is along the same lines: Do you claim that
those "meter kilograms" prove that kilograms are not units of mass?

Not a very difficult question to answer, is it, Jim?

Nope. As I recall, the reason it came up was that you were denying that
pounds were a unit of force.

Then why did you claim something entirely different--not that this
proved that pounds force exist, but rather that it proved that pounds
could not be units of mass?

That official definition of a pound as a unit of force still remains
an elusive little devil, however. Don't you agree? Or are you good
enough to find it?

I cited the torque wrench, and you pointed
out that kg-f are also units of force. I still think you lose on that
account. Don't you?

Certainly not.

Thanks for correcting your earlier claims. You are making progress,
now admitting both that pounds are units of mass, and that kilograms
force exist just as well as pounds force do. Have you realized yet
that you are now aligning yourself with me, rather than with fools
like Richard Clark and KU2S, Raymond Sirois. With me, and with the
younger Resnick and Halliday (1960) that I quoted, not with the fools
you quoted, Halliday and Resnick (1981 appendix, and appendix of most
or all later editions).
Gene Nygaard
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard/