Dear Joe, Thanks for that. It had never occurred to me to think who were the first to need the slug as a more practical unit of mass.
Cheers, Pat Naughtin CAMS Geelong, Australia on 2002-11-15 12.22, Joseph B. Reid at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I believe that the slug as a unit of mass was invented by the > aeronautical engineers. They clung to the pound-force, because > historically gravity was the only force civil engineers were > concerned with. The aeronautical engineers had to deal with > accelerations quite different from the acceleration due to gravity, > and so they invented the slug = 32.2 pounds-mass. Thus > force (pounds-force) = mass x acceleration (slugs x feet/second squared). > I first met the slug at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Physicists > were quite happy with the pound-mass so they invented the poundal = > (1/32.2) pound-force. Thus: > force (poundals) = mass x acceleration (pounds-mass x > feet/second squared).
