Weighing

“ Weight has been defined as the measure of the earth's attraction. A body weighing one pound attracts the earth and is attracted by it with a force of one pound, but the same body at the sun's surface would attract the mass of the sun with a force of twenty-seven pounds, since its weight has been increased twenty-seven times by the sun's attraction. ”

“ Then weighing what they had borne, whether we should find it to be ten or thirty pounds—I cannot guess how much it might be at this distance—one might safely say, without fear of mistake, "The strength of this young lady is equal to ten, twenty, or thirty pounds"—in other words, "she represents a weight of ten, twenty, or thirty pounds" and by a similar plan people have ascertained the strength of the air—that is, the weight which it represents. They have weighed what it is capable of carrying. ”

“ He was a large, fleshy man, weighing at least two hundred pounds, and he quickly became a faithful representation of a quivering jelly-mountain of fat. ”

“ Therefore, from the definition of weight, which is this—Gravity is an accidental power, created by one element being drawn to or suspended in another—it follows that an element, not weighing anything compared with itself, has weight in the element above it and lighter than it ”

“ Yes; and the attraction of one body for another is in proportion to its mass—that is to say, if two bodies, one weighing one and the other two pounds, should be hung near each other, the heavy object would pull the lighter one twice the distance it would itself move. ”

“ A man weighing two hundred and fifty pounds in the valley would weigh but half a pound less if on the summit of a mountain four miles high.
85. Weight Every Where.—I have spoken of weight only in relation to the earth. But there is weight in bodies every where, for there is attraction wherever there is matter. The weight of substances on the surface of different heavenly bodies varies according to the quantities of matter in those bodies. ”

“ I am below the average stature for a man, and unusually light for my volume, weighing only 110 pounds stripped from the age of nineteen to twenty-five, after I had attained my maximum height of five feet five inches. ”

“ For weighing four balances are provided, each with mechanism for the transposition of the weights, and the lowering of the balance into play on its bearings, so that weighings can be performed at 13 feet distance from the balance, thus avoiding the disturbance caused by the warmth of the observer. ”

“ Thus, suppose a globe, weighing a million of pounds, were suspended from the ceiling by a string, and we should apply to it the snap of a finger,—it is granted that the motion would be quite insensible. Let us then divide the body into a million equal parts, each weighing one pound ”

“ I dare say you are aware that the air we breathe possesses weight. If you weigh a bottle under ordinary circumstances, containing air, and nothing else, and afterwards pump the air from it and weigh it again, you will find that its weight is reduced; it weighs less than when filled with air. Now if I weigh two bodies of different sizes, but of equal weights, in the open air, and then dip balance and all into water, I shall find that they are no longer equiponderant. Each article in weighing loses as much weight as is equivalent to its own bulk of the medium in which it is weighed. ”

“ Suppose a man weighing 150 lbs. in his clothes, carries a load of bricks weighing 35 lbs. up a perpendicular ladder 30 feet high, 100 times daily, what amount of work does he do; and what will it equal in miles walked upon a flat road at the rate of 3 miles an hour? ”

“ I give first the elements as they exist in a body weighing about one hundred and fifty-four pounds, this being the average weight of a full-grown man; and add a table, compiled from different sources, of the composition of the body as made up from these elements. ”

“ Raising dumb-bells above the head, first with the left hand, then with the right, then with both, beginning with bells weighing a pound or two, and each month, with daily practice, adding a pound to the weight until it reaches about one-twentieth the weight of the person, will bring the desired results. ”

“ In all cases the arms must be quite inflexible. A balance made by Ramsden for the Royal Society, is capable of weighing ten pounds, and turns with one hundredth of a grain, which is the seven-millionth part of the weight. ”

“ While occupied with weighing, the student is directed to take to pieces a balance very carefully, the points in its construction which it is specially instructive for him to notice being stated. Observations of change of position, of changes of temperature, and of certain mutual changes common to all kinds of matter are among the early exercises of the course. ”

“ The Daily Food of a Model Man. A healthy man, weighing, say, one hundred and fifty-four pounds, consists of water one hundred and nine pounds, and of solid matter forty-five pounds. His blood weighs about twelve pounds, or, when dry, two pounds. ”

“ Nos. 4, 5, 8 lbs.; Nos. 1, 3, 5, 16 lbs. Required the weight of each sack."
Answer.—"51⁄2, 61⁄2, 7, 41⁄2, 31⁄2."
The sum of all the weighings, 61 lbs., includes sack No. 3 thrice and each other twice. Deducting twice the sum of the 1st and 4th weighings, we get 21 lbs. for thrice No. 3, i.e., 7 lbs. for No. 3. Hence, the 2nd and 3rd weighings give 61⁄2 lbs., 41⁄2 lbs. for Nos. 2, 4; and hence again, the 1st and 4th weighings give 51⁄2 lbs., 31⁄2 lbs., for Nos. 1, 5.
Ninety-seven answers have been received. Of these, 15 are beyond the reach of discussion, as they give no working. ”

“ Weight.—In speaking of the properties of matter I have said nothing about weight, although in the popular mind this is thought of as being one of the most prominent of the properties of some kinds of matter. This will be appropriately treated of when I come to speak of attraction, for it is a mere result of attraction. Suffice it to state here, that the weight of a body is the pressure occasioned by the attraction existing between it and another body. If when a stone is raised from the ground the attraction between it and the earth could be destroyed, the stone would remain there. ”

“ What kind of a quantity is that which now weighs more, and now weighs less, so to speak? But this apparent deviation from the method of determination commonly used in practical life, that by weight, is, closely considered, an agreement. On a high mountain a heavy mass also is less powerfully attracted to the earth than at the level of the sea, and if it is permitted us in our determinations to neglect the consideration of level, it is only because the comparison of a body with fixed conventional weights is invariably effected at the same level. ”

“ And you, poor deluded victim, are more than half willing to believe that your increasing size is an equivalent to increasing health and strength, especially as your wife emphatically takes that view, and regards your augmenting portliness with approval. Ten years have now passed away since you were forty, and by weight twelve stone and a half a fair proportion for your height and build. Now you turn the scale to one stone more, every ounce of which is fat; extra weight to be carried through all the labors of life. ”

“ I say that the weight of the heavy body a b shares its gravity in two aspects, that is to say according to the line b c and according to the line n m; why and how much the weight is greater for one than for the other aspect and which obliquity is the one which shares the two weights in equal parts, will be said in the book On weights. ”

“ The normal weight of a man five feet in height is 120 pounds; of a man five feet ten inches, 169 pounds. Now, suppose the latter really weighs 300 pounds by accumulation of fat, what results but that all this superfluous matter has to be supplied with capillaries, and these have to get blood from vessels only constructed to circulate the original quantity? No wonder is it that the circulation is enfeebled and impeded! By this increase of adipose there is no increase of propelling force. ”

“ You will soon learn that the volume of all bodies is constantly changing in correspondence with the changes in the pressure exerted by other bodies, but more especially in correspondence with the changes of temperature to which they are subjected; while the weight of the same body, at the same point on the earth’s surface, never alters. Hence we may take the weight of a body as a measure of the quantity of matter which it contains ”

“ Caroline. That would depend upon its size; or more accurately speaking, upon the quantity of matter it contained.
Emily. No, no; the body would have no weight, whatever were its size; because nothing would attract it. Am I not right, Mrs. B.?
Mrs. B. You are: you must allow, therefore, that it would be possible for attraction to exist without weight; for each of the [Pg 24] particles of which the body was composed, would possess the power of attraction; but they could exert it only amongst themselves; the whole mass having nothing to attract, or to be attracted by, would have no weight. ”

“ The weight is the large body hanging from the short arm of the lever.
What is the power?
The power is the smaller body hanging from the long arm of the lever.
In Fig. 45, the distance from the fulcrum to the power is ten times the distance from the fulcrum to the weight; now, if the small body weighs one pound, how much must the large body weigh, so as to balance it?
The large body must weigh ten pounds.
When the small body weighs ten pounds, how much must the large body weigh, so as to balance it?
The large body must weigh ten times as much, or one hundred pounds. ”

“ A pound of iron attracts a small body near by; two pounds of iron attract it precisely twice as much; in other words, the greater the weight of an object, the greater the power of attraction it exercises on the objects near by. Hence, if we know the attractive power of a body, we also know its weight. Nay, we would be able to do without scales of any kind in the world, if we were only able to measure accurately the attractive power of every object. ”

“ For instance, if we drop a pound weight a foot on to a scale balance, the work it does is equal to one foot-pound. But if we place it on the scale gently, it will just balance one pound on the other side. ”

“ According to our best authorities, we are subjected to the weight of fifteen pounds to each square-inch of surface, and a man of ordinary size sustains a pressure on him of some thirty-thousand pounds of air. I am a man of ordinary size, but I no more knew that I laboured under the burden of thirty-thousand pounds than I did that I was subjected to the pressure of about the same burden of Mrs. Cribbage who sits on my shoulders all day and squats on my chest all night, till I turned up the matter in an encyclopædia. ”

“ Weigh not the Book of God with such standards and sciences as are current amongst you, for the Book itself is the unerring balance established amongst men. In this most perfect balance whatsoever the peoples and kindreds of the earth possess must be weighed, while the measure of its weight should be tested according to its own standard, did ye but know it. ”

“ What it comes to is this, that if you have a ten-pound weight and a one-pound weight and you drop them together, the ten-pound weight will fall ten times as quickly. The magnitude of the weight settles how quickly it shall fall. That seems to us so astonishing that we can hardly imagine that any one believed it. ”

“ Letters, book parcels, an apple, an orange, a vegetable marrow, fifty things in the course of the day, give opportunities for this kind of object teaching; i.e. the practice of forcing judgments as to the relative and absolute weight of objects by the irresistance, that is their opposition to our muscular force, perceived by our sense of touch. By degrees the children are trained to observe that the relative weights of objects depend upon their relative density, and are introduced to the fact that we have a standard of weight. ”

“ But, as we have already stated, the measures of weight must be subject to this condition, that they are susceptible of being added: and therefore we cannot take the deflexion of the bough for our measure, till we have ascertained, that which experience alone can teach us, that under the burden of two equal weights, the deflexion will be twice as great as it is with one weight, which is not true, or at least is neither obviously nor necessarily true. ”

“ In the same way, there is a great difference in the response of the fingers to weight—a great difference in the ability to distinguish the difference of the weight of objects. It has been found that some people can distinguish differences in weight down to very small fractions of an ounce. ”

“ Hume supposed, that there is a pair of scales, one end of which is in darkness, and you find that a pound weight, or a ten-pound weight, placed upon that end of the scale in the light is raised; have you the right to say that there is an infinite weight on the end in darkness, or are you compelled to say only that there is weight enough on the end in darkness to raise the weight on the end in light? ”

“ LXXV.—Of the Balance of a Figure resting upon its Feet.
The man who rests upon his feet, either bears the weight of his body upon them equally, or unequally. If equally, it will be with some accidental weight, or simply with his own; if it be with an additional weight, the opposite extremities of his members will not be equally distant from the perpendicular of his feet. But if he simply carries his own weight, the opposite extremities will be equally distant from the perpendicular of his feet: and on this subject of gravity I shall write a separate book [19] . ”

“ Divide its weight in grains by the number expressing its specific gravity; extract the cube root of this quotient, and multiply it by 1·9612 for the diameter.
WEIGHT OF A CUBIC FOOT OF THE FOLLOWING MATERIALS,
in pounds.
By means of the foregoing table, the weight of any quantity of the materials specified (in cubic feet) may readily be found.
MOTION, FORCES, &c.
Body is the mass or quantity of matter in any material substance, and it is always proportional to its weight, or gravity, whatever its figure may be. ”