[Info-vax] OT: Force vs. weight (was: Where is EISNER:: and who funds it?)

[alanfe...@gmail.com]

OFF TOPIC!!! WARNING: Contains a link to a highly entertaining, and for some, shocking, video!

NB: This contains a link to a highly entertaining video. You want to bash America? This is the video for you. Scroll down or search for https. 

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On Tuesday, December 28, 2021 at 7:05:19 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:
> Ok. I'll make this short, and then I'll try and keep quiet.
> On 2021-12-27 20:50, alanfe... at gmail.com wrote: 
> > On Monday, December 27, 2021 at 10:20:20 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote: 
> >> Now, wait a minute. Why did you ask for Europeans wight in newton if you 
> >> then call me picky when I ask for your weight in lbf. It is *not* the 
> >> same as lbs. 
> > 
> > Because Philip Helbig brought it up. He said newtons are the preferred unit of weight.
> It would be more correct. But it's not what people commonly use.

Correct how? There's nothing wrong with dynes. Use the right tools for the job.

> > And asking for lbf instead of lbs IS picky. Thank you for making my point for me.
> It certainly sounds like you should understand the difference between 
> lbs and lbf, and yet you seem to not. And you call me picky when I point 

NOBODY CARES ABOUT LBS. VS LBF. We were talking about Fahrenheit. I shouldn't have added the newtons bit. That was Helbig's contribution. I'm sorry I dragged that into the discussion.

On onlineconversion.com they are the same. Enter 1 for one, you get 1 for the other. "Technically" or "officially" they're different. I'll give you that. But it's irrelevant to the discussion. The numbers are the same. It makes no difference. We were talking about the pros and cons of using F. Hey, either way, you get the right answer in a perfectly legitimate and rigorous manner. 

> out that they are not the same thing (how can that be picky?) and yet 
> you don't seem to think it's picky when you differ between kg and N.

I was making a point, which you obviously missed. I was pointing out that you're picky when it comes to lbs. and lbf., but somehow not picky when it comes to kg vs newtons.

> > Alright, I was responding to Helbig re newtons. I bet most Europeans don't even know what newtons are. Maybe they do. I don't really know. But forced to guess, I'd say not. You tell me!
> They do. Or at least I would expect they do. I certainly had to learn 
> about it at school, and I expect everyone else did as well.

Well, maybe, maybe not. I was shocked when Jimmy Kimmel had a segment where they put a map of the world on an easel on the street. No countries were labeled, but boundaries were drawn in. The question posed to passers by: "Name a country. Any country. Just one." I was shocked that there were so many who couldn't do that. Not a single country. Not even their own. Then a young child (perhaps a 10-year-old -- a guess at his age) names a couple dozen countries. One of them was Greenland. Feel free to point out how Greenland is not a country. Admittedly, I did. I still gave the kid KUDOS!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umpalMtQE50
 
So maybe there are at least _some_ Europeans who don't know what a newton is? 

Besides, lots of us don't remember everything we learned in school, esp. things you don't use much.

> > So Europeans think that a kg is a measure of weight? OK. Whatever.
> We usually do tell our weight in kg. Just as you weight cocaine in grams 
> in the US. Even though properly it's a mass. But we're assuming we are 
> on earth, and thus it becomes convenient to just talk about our mass as 
> our weight.

You're the one fussing about lbs vs lbf. So I was just showing how pointless that was given that people use kg for weight and you seem to be okay with that. NOBODY CARES.

> >> I could ask the obvious question why you even asked about my weight in 
> >> newton in the first place. Did you think it would be some magic, 
> >> complicated number that I wouldn't know? I suspect most europeans know 
> >> their weight in newton, since it's pretty much their weight in kilos, 
> >> with an added 0. And pretty much everyone knows their weight in kilos. 
> > 
> > As you yourself said, a kg is not a unit of weight. Now you say it is. Sure. Also, adding a zero doesn't give accuracy to comparable to lbs.
> lbs isn't any more accurate than a kg. 
> And lbs cannot be compared to newtons. If you want to compare with 
> newtons, you need to talk about lbf. 

I'm talking about usage by laypeople, not technical things that no one cares about except you. 

> 
> lbs is actually also a unit of mass, and not weight. Didn't you know that? 

Not if you insist on differentiating between lbs and lbf.

> 
> It's just that, just as with us using kg, the US is using lbs to tell 
> weight, even though it's technically incorrect.

>From Europe:

https://www.britannica.com/science/pound-unit-of-weight

>From me:

That's Britannica, not nosebleed.com or bogusbull.com. 

You weigh less on the moon, but if you go there you haven't lost any weight. You are making trivial irrelevant points and ignoring the fact that context matters.

> >>>>>> Force in pounds for acceleration expressed in m/s^2 ? So if you want it 
> >>>>>> in lb * foot/s^2, there isn't even a unit? How messed up is this thing? 
> >>> 
> >>> I was talking about weighing yourself. Some claimed that the proper unit is N, as that is the SI base unit. Dynes, somehow, despite being a totally legitimate metric unit is somehow deprecated. In fact, it was Helbig: 
> >> N is the SI unit for force. This shouldn't be that hard... 
> >> When you start tossing weight around, it's a different thing. 
> >>> And the acceleration bit. Who's actually doing this? Why are you multiplying a force by an acceleration anyway? That makes no sense! 
> >> 1 Newton is defined as the force required to accelerate a mass of 1 kg 
> >> by 1 m/s/s. 
> >> 
> >> It has everything to do with acceleration. 
> > 
> > Why are you multiplying a force by acceleration?
> I never did. I multiplied mass by acceleration in order to give you the 
> force, since you asked for newtons.

You had pounds time acceleration. Regardless, the topic was Fahrenheit vs. Celsius. It wasn't I who generalized to entire systems of units. Again, I'm sorry I dragged newtons into this. My mistake. Big mistake.

I totally agree. When you're doing acceleration and other physics, metric is the way to go (and, of course, all those non-metric, non-imperial/English/customary units scientists use, like G's or g or whatever you think is technically correct). You, sir, are 100% right about that. I never said otherwise, well, except for those special units like electron volts and the like, which don't belong to either system. 

The only acceleration laypeople in the U.S. use and (almost) understand is, "goes from 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds," and the like. If you say 9.81 m/sec/sec or 32.2 ft/sec/sec, you'll just get blank stares from most Americans. Like a deer in headlights.

> 
> And then I have been repeatedly trying to explain to you what force is, 
> to make you understand why the answer is what it is, and how to get to 
> that answer. 
> 
> But I can see that I am failing.

I've been trying to explain that nobody gives a you-know-what about lbs. vs. lbf. Maybe engineers do. Physicists certainly don't. The public certainly doesn't. I don't know why you keep bringing that up. It's totally beside the point.

> > Bracketing by 10 in F is more accurate. More precise. Obviously you don't get that, since I've had to explain it at least twice. I never said you wouldn't bracket temperatures by 10s. I said it was less useful, less precise. I never said no one does it.
> Bracketing inherently means you are imprecise. Obviously people outside 
> the US do not feel they have a problem, so the claimed superiority is 
> obviously very subjective. 

I never said F was objectively superior. I said it's a fine system to use for normal ordinary everyday things that laypeople do. It was you and others who claimed it's objectively inferior -- until now. I did, however, try to point out its advantages, since you and others were bashing it. 

> In that sense, neither is any better than the other. But since there are 
> other benefits, which are clearly more concrete, I would say that speaks 
> for changing. And no, my thermostats don't do half degrees. 

Ah, there you go again telling us Americans we should switch. So much for being objective.

Also, I would not be happy with thermostat increments being as big as a degree C. I like having a choice with a resolution of 1 deg. F. Sometimes 2 deg. F would be too big an increment. Suppose I want to turn it up 3 deg F. Couldn't do it on _your_ thermostat. But that's just me. Subjective.

> But again, I don't expect any current users would enjoy much benefits 
> from changing. It would be more for future generations. 

We've got bigger problems to worry about for future generations. Far bigger. Climate change, for example. Until recently was definitely also a future thing. (I'm tempted to write more, but . . . )

> But I keep repeating myself here, and it's obviously both pointless and 
> boring. And will not change anything anyway. 

Whatever. I could probably write even more. But I save that for quora.com! Oh, you'd love it there. All the badly worded questions you could fuss about. Take a gander!

Oh, and if you actually do reply again, I'm sure you'll still further even also yet again try to pound into me the difference between lbs. and lbf. Pun intended.  (^_^)

> 
> Johnny

Alan  (^_^(