--- In [email protected], Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Judy, > > I'm not a scientist, but there are many reasons for a measurement to > change -- usually human error is involved. That would be my first > "looksee" at the issue. Could be something as goofy as "the janitor > licks the bar when no one is looking." The missing mass is equal to > what a "fingerprint" would be composed of. Maybe someone wiped the > bar especially well!!! ;-)
Yeah, I think they've probably ruled that out, or the physicists wouldn't be so puzzled. They keep the thing triple-locked to prevent anyone messing with it. > Mass can spontaneously dissolve -- usually it takes trillions of years > though. Cosmic rays can chip off chunks of the kilogram, but why > either of these processes would be affecting one bar and not the > "exact" copies is where the mystery arises. Yes, that's my point. > A hunk of molten iron flowing under the crust could alter the gravity > under the measurement devices. For instance, when we landed on the > moon, there were mass-cons -- concentrations of particularly heavy > material -- that made for tricky navigation during the landing -- > gravity's pull increases and decreases depending on what's underneath. As I understand it, they bring the copies to the location of the reference kilogram for measuring specifically to avoid that kind of thing. > (Sorta like what Maharishi is saying when he says the minerals > of the land determine the personality of the culture.) > > So, yeah, I don't know the answer, and I don't know that my reasons > above are at the top of the list of possible reasons, but one thing > I am certain of is that a physical cause is way more likely than an > oogabooga cause. Sure it's physical, but it may be oogabooga physical, if you see what I mean, something new and different and completely unexpected that is going to make us toss out a whole lot of things we thought we knew. > When Y2K loomed, I ran around like Chicken Little, and nothing > happened. So, don't expect me to get anywhere near that kind of > frenetic obsessiveness with a kilogram losing mass and screaming to > the world that the sky is falling. Did anybody suggest you should??
