Official prototype of kilogram mysteriously losing weight. If I was kept at a chateau in a triple-locked safe I would too.
Official prototype of kilogram mysteriously losing weight. If I was kept at a chateau in a triple-locked safe I would too.
But … if the original kilogram is loosing weight …. that means we are all going to start weighing more! There goes the diet.
I wouldn’t be too concerned. Even the weight of hundreds of finger prints wouldn’t come even close to that of a single gram.
I read about this a few days ago… I wonder if they’d bother perhaps thinking that all matter changes. Given enough time I bet they’d disappear. Now if these where examples of aton denigration… that’d be cool. But no scientist has come forward with that.
I wonder what they’ll explain away the loss as. Especially since it is different samples by different amounts. And none of them are consistently the same. And they said all where losing size, I don’t think they mentioned. Did any stay the exact same weight. (I think they would of mentioned if any grew).
And since I live in the funky country that doesn’t use Metric… I can still lose weight. 🙂
As easy as it goes, John. 🙂
Will they have to replace it then, or do I have to reconfigure my weighs to measure correctly in the future?
Interesting post Matt. 💡 So I guess we should find out the secret of losing weight while sitting still for long periods of time. This might be helpful for us while were doing WordPress all day and night.
In comparison we all weigh more now, don’t we?
That is not necessarily good news for some of us :((
Some people should read other readers comments first, shouldn’t they…
(Sorry)
Some Australian scientists are working on a new kilogram – “weigh a perfect kilogram. Give or take an atom.” [Wired]
This isn’t exactly news. I heard about this a couple of years ago in chemistry. As to Patrick’s question/comment, the article said that the prototype was losing mass in comparison with the average of the national standard kilograms. That means that some could be gaining mass as well. Or all are losing mass at different rates.
Here’s an interesting thought: if all the standard masses were to lose mass at exactly the same rate, would we know the difference?
It’s not new news, the material they made it out of is strangely fairly radioactive (platinum-iridium alloy), so it loses mass due to particle decay plus oxidization and other factors.
And it’s a unit of mass not weight.
People just don’t understand the gravity of the situation!
*rimshot*
*requisite groan at the horrendous pun*
It’s on the Atkins Diet.