If you write pound, and are not careful to specify whether you mean one pound-mass or 32.17417 pound-mass foot / second^2, you can get mighty confused.
Most people don't even know there is a difference, of course most people don't know what accleration or force are and couldn't tell you the difference between their mass and their weight.
Though raised in the English unit U.S., I always go metric when I want to be sure of not screwing up a units calculation. Gotta love the way so many of the conversion factors are exactly one.
Only idiots and engineers use poundals. That is just asking for trouble, sometimes trouble in the multi-millions of dollars.
I have seen people use the kilogram-force as a supposedly metric unit. I think that is another stupid way to get into trouble. Use Newtons. Once you figure out what they mean, and how to use them, you too will appreciate the beauty of a system that has most of its units convert by factors of one, and that does not stick some oddball number, like Earths gravity, into a basic unit.
Yes, I know the metric units are wholly arbitrary, but they are arbitrary in a whole lot less confusing way than English units.
-- Mark Holm [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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