2001-04-24
Oxford is a British Dictionary. The Oxford dictionary is the standard
dictionary used in Canada. Webster is an American dictionary. I don't
doubt that the slug would appear in an American publication.
John
Keiner ist hoffnungsloser versklavt als derjenige, der irrt�mlich glaubt
frei zu sein.
There are none more hopelessly enslaved then those who falsely believe they
are free!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carter, Baron" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, 2001-04-24 16:14
Subject: [USMA:12426] Re: NASA and weight vs. mass
> Webster's has it online:
>
> http://www.webster.com/home.htm
>
> Baron Carter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, 24 April, 2001 14:26
> To: U.S. Metric Association
> Subject: [USMA:12423] Re: NASA and weight vs. mass
>
>
> Karl G. Ruling wrote in USMA 12422:
>
> >You're right, of course. I suspect that NASA used weight rather than mass
> >when writing in FFU about the mechanical arm in space because the unit of
> >mass in the foot-pound system is the slug.
>
>
> Wrong. The pound is defined in legislation as the unit of mass.
Engineers
> have habitually used it as a unit of weight, and when that got the
> aeronautical engineers into trouble, they invented the slug which has no
> legal sanction behind it. The slug as a unit of mass does not appear in
> the 1970 edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary of the English Language,
>
> Physicists, with a better understanding of Newton, retained the pound as a
> unit of mass, and invented the poundal as the corresponding unit of force.
> The Oxford dictioary dates the poundal from 1879.
>
> Joseph B. Reid
> 17 Glebe Road West
> Toronto M5P 1C8 Tel. 416 486-6071
>
