Re: Electronic balances was A weighty subject

[Brian McInnes <bmcinnes@PNC.COM.AU>]

Micxhael Edmiston wrote (inter alia)

> BTW, I am curious what people say who live in Europe or other metric
> countries.  When you go into the bathroom and step on that thing and it
> reads 80 kg, do you say your weight is 80 kg or do you say your mass is
> 80 kg.

Here in English-speaking metric (for nearly 30 years) Australia,  when
we get off bathroom scales that read 80 kg we say that our weight is
80 kg.  If, perchance, we spoke about it in the physics tea-room, we
would say that our weight was 80kg (not 800 N or that our mass were
80kg).  Once we get into the physics lecture-room or laboratory we
immediately move into the "800 N or mass of 80kg" mode.

It is easier to live with this dichotomy than with out pre-metric
confusion between lbs and lbs wt and poundals and slugs.

We have no trouble in Bob Carlson's butcher shop because it would be
0.5 kg of mince meat we would be buying and so expect (demand) that
the measurement be taken with the lift (elevator) not  accelerating.
The scales, of course, are all calibrated in kg not N.

Brian McInnes