Heaviest?

**J'Pol** · 07-23-2003, 12:38 AM

There were 2 options, how can you continue to contend that heaviest was appropriate. Unless you fell that to compound the error is preferable to correcting it.

Spring balances measure force, not mass. My spring balance is calibrated in pounds. Ergo pound can be a unit of force.

You take your spring balance to be a definitive authority if you wish. That is obviously a matter for you. Do you also subscribe to mesmerism, the four elements and the earth as the centre of the universe.

**tite-wad** · 07-23-2003, 12:38 AM

Originally posted by bigboab@22 July 2003 - 15:05
A pound of gold is (14 ounces,troy)

Here, here gentlemen (and or ladies).

Why not instead insist that the smarmy answer was incorrect given that a "troy pound" in fact contains 12 troy ounces - not 14.

**lynx** · 07-23-2003, 12:41 AM

@ kAb: Mind you, US Gallons, quarts and pints are all a sixth smaller than ours.

The reason I heard given was that when being carried across the prairies, deserts etc it somehow managed to evaporate through the sealed containers. Talk about gullible. The Aussies never fell for that one and by and large their deserts are hotter. Still, knowing the Aussies, they probably pulled the scam in the first place.

**lynx** · 07-23-2003, 01:07 AM

Originally posted by JPaul@23 July 2003 - 01:38
There were 2 options, how can you continue to contend that heaviest was appropriate. Unless you fell that to compound the error is preferable to correcting it.

Spring balances measure force, not mass. My spring balance is calibrated in pounds. Ergo pound can be a unit of force.

You take your spring balance to be a definitive authority if you wish. That is obviously a matter for you. Do you also subscribe to mesmerism, the four elements and the earth as the centre of the universe.

As i said, pedantry will get you nowhere.

Coloquial usage is for a pound to be both a measure of mass and weight. It is only in relatively recent history that it was known that there was any difference between the two. Indeed, before that time, pound was known as a unit of weight (and there was no such thing as a unit of mass), it is only scientific usage which has distorted that term.

But since the question was which is the heaviest

I repeat that I quite clearly quoted the question. I have not disputed that the question was incorrectly phrased (although once again coloquial usage should be allowed).

I give you an example:

But let us suppose that there only two known elements, say hydrogen and oxygen.
You would say that that hydrogen is the lighter element.
But there are more than two elements, so the correct statement is that hydrogen is the lightest element.

Open your eyes and see the real world.