"Nick Mueller" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:

Units of force, for example: the Newton equals roughly 0.101 972
kilograms of force (kgf).

There is no such thing as "kgf". Outdated since decades and no
longer "legal".

Pffft. That wasn't the point. The micron isn't "legal," under the SI either,
but everybody uses it, because "micrometer" can be ambiguous, since it's
also the name of an instrument. Neither are the calorie, torr, gauss,
maxwell, or oersted "legal," but they're all widely used in different
sciences.

The point is that the standard units don't necessarily relate *in whole
numbers* to the things we actually measure. Trying to be neat and tidy,
metrics sometimes shoots itself in its own foot.


The point is

The cussedness of natural phenomena (defining a
unit in terms of acceleration, for example, when its common use is as a
measure of force) gets in the way of numerical elegance.

It's no wonder. The gramm is a unit of mass. Period. Never was different.
It
certainly is inelegant when used as force. The only thing getting in the
way is an unknowing user. :-))

Nonsense. The Newton is defined in terms of kilograms, as well. It's just
that it's defined in terms of acceleration rather than as force itself.

You sound like one of those pro-metrics folks who make up all of this
supposed neatness of the metric system, Nick, and then wonder how everyone
else doesn't agree with you. Those of us who don't agree with you are the
ones who actually have used those units. They aren't all that neat.

--
Ed Huntress