poundals

[John Denker <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

At 09:47 AM 10/18/99 -0400, Michael Edmiston wrote:
> When we had balances reading only in grams, we didn't have the new
> problem of "balances" that can give readings in ounces, pounds,
> newtons, etc.  Some do not offer readings in newtons, and they
> interpret ounces and pounds as "ounce-mass" and "pound-mass."

There is a creature called a _poundal_ which is a unit of mass, defined to
be equal to 0.45359 kilograms.  This is useful (pedagogically and
practically) when one wants a unit of mass that corresponds to the
vernacular notion of "a pound of stuff" while preserving the pound as a
unit of force.  I suppose we could define an "ouncel" similarly.

Sad note:  The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (otherwise
an unusually fine dictionary) gets this exactly horribly backwards,
speaking of poundals of force and pounds of mass.  Yecchhhhh.


______________________________________________________________
copyright (C) 1999 John S. Denker             jsd@monmouth.com