Weight and measure

“ 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. ”

“ There are also measures of weight, ounces, pounds and tons. Now these different measures are the same all over the United States. A pound of butter in New York is the same as a pound of butter in California. There are other countries that do not have measures like ours. France, for example, has the metric system. Should you go into a dry goods store in Paris you would not ask for a yard of cloth, but for a meter.
God's measures are the same. God has a measure for girls and boys, and that measure is the same in Ohio, Mexico, England or Spain. ”

“ The real purpose of a measurement is to tell facts about a situation more exactly and with greater objectiveness than they could be told in a description. A child may seem, on first appearance, to be under weight, but in order to know definitely whether or not that is true it is necessary to measure his age in terms of years, months, and days, to measure his weight in terms of pounds and ounces, and to measure his height in terms of feet and inches. ”

“ Moreover, a few thousand drops would fill the tumbler, and if a thousand drops weigh something, each drop must have a thousandth of that weight. The fact is that our feeling of effort is a very rough measure of weight, and does not enable us to compare small weights, or even to perceive them if they are very small. To know anything accurately about weight we must have recourse to an instrument which is contrived for the purpose of measuring weights with precision. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No purchaser is bound to accept goods by weight or measure other than those of the Imperial standard, but bargains entered into upon the basis of the weights or measures of the metric system are valid, according to a fixed scale of equivalent Imperial weights and measures. ”

“ If a weight be suspended from an india-rubber spring, it is evident the spring will stretch so that the weight pulls the spring and the spring pulls the weight; hence the number of pounds in the weight is the measure of the force the spring is exerting. ”

“ The kilogramme is now, like our pound, a certain metal standard, and the litre is a measure containing, more or less exactly, a kilogramme of water. A perfect litre standard contains 1000 grammes of water at 39·2°; but 1·1 gramme less at 62°, 2 grammes less at 70°, and 3·3 grammes less at 80°, a very frequent summer temperature. For exact correspondence of measure with weight, corrections are always required whether on the imperial or on the metric system. ”

“ But it helps little, in getting at the aggregate weight of a collection of objects, to know that A among them is heavier than B, while D is lighter than F. To get a knowledge of the situation adequate for quantitative manipulation, it is best to compare all of the objects with some one object, chosen as the standard of weight, or common measure of weights. ”

“ When gold replaced silver as a measure of value, the same name was applied according to the ratio between the values of silver and gold, to perhaps 1-15th of a pound of gold. The word pound, as a money-name, thus becomes differentiated from the same word as a weight-name. [8] (3) The debasing of money carried on for centuries by kings and princes to such an extent that, of the original weights of the coins, nothing in fact remained but the names. ”

“ The origin of the Ounce, the foot, the 57cubic foot or wine-bushel is explained. That of Troy weight has been seen, and its predecessor, Tower weight, came from another ounce of the Arabic cantar. The origin of every measure and weight used in the civilised world will be found in the stories of the ancient cubits and talents.
10. Quadrantal, the Roman standard of capacity, a cubic vessel measuring one foot on each of its inside panels.
11. The French word pan has the same meaning, while Fr. empan, a span, is a corruption of espan.
58 CHAPTER V
ENGLISH LINEAR MEASURES 1. ”

“ A vessel containing a cubic foot of water thus afforded a standard, the Eastern Talent, both for weight and for capacity. The cubic foot would become a standard for the measure of oil or wine, while this measure increased, usually by 22 or 25 per cent., so as to contain a talent-weight of corn, generally of wheat, would become the Bushel or otherwise-named standard of capacity, for the peasant and for corn-dealers. ”

“ It is probable that the Magna Charta principle of ‘one weight, one measure’ prevented the mention of two different gallons, as it 119prevented the mention of two different pounds. But we know that there were two gallons. In England as in ancient Greece the unit of corn-measure was the fluid measure of the Talent increased in water-wheat ratio; so our cubic foot, taken as a wine-bushel of 8 wine-gallons, and increased one-fourth, gave the corn-bushel of 8 corn-gallons. ”

“ The skilled artisans who constructed astronomical instruments and the standard measures of capacity and weight must have observed that the water contained in the standard measure of capacity weighed 10more when it was as cold as possible than when at the temperature of an Eastern summer ”

“ The surveyor, for example, who measures the area of a field makes very little impression upon the soil over which he passes. A physician who measures the weight of an infant does not thereby increase that weight or diminish it. In the same way the psychologist who applies a Mentimeter test to a filing clerk, does not by that act increase the efficiency of that clerk. Measurements, of themselves, are of no value. ”

“ Let now some cubical vessel be constructed to hold exactly the standard measure of water; the length or breadth of each side will give a linear unit which, if it approximate sufficiently with a foot or span to which the people are accustomed, will offer a fixed linear standard in harmony with the other standards. Thus, from a convenient foreign unit of capacity or of weight, a new and complete system of national measures may be constructed by involution. ”

“ PRAYEN the Commons in this present Parliament assembled, That where divers acts, statutes, and ordinances, in the times of the noble progenitors and predecessors of our now sovereign lord the King have been made, That one measure and weight should be used throughout this noble realm ; and also, That in every city, borough, and town within the said realm, upon certain and several pains in the said statutes and ordinances limited, should be a common balance, with common weights, and common measures, marked according to the estandard of the Exchequer ”

“ There was a custom of rhōpi, turn of the scale, or long weight, which increased the legal commercial weight to a customary weight tending towards that of the Alexandrian talent series.
48 CHAPTER IV
THE INVOLUTION OF LINEAR MEASURES FROM
WEIGHTS The Sources of the English and of the Rhineland
Foot Commerce is the great conservator of standards. These may become altered by the ill-advised action of rulers, by municipal or parochial carelessness, even by the desire of profit on short measure, or occasionally, as seen to a slight extent in our old Bushel, by the faulty dimensions of a standard ”

“ All units must be assumed to be equal in that other respect; and this is never accurately true, for one actual pound weight is not exactly equal to another, nor one measured mile's length to another; a nicer balance, or more accurate measuring instruments, would always detect some difference. ”

“ The purpose of standards embraces the principle of uniform weights and measures. The law of weights and measures determines what shall constitute a pound or a gallon, and requires that when a pound or a gallon is contracted for the substance delivered shall weigh or measure according to the contract. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So in like manner we must choose our unit of work, but in order to do so we must first of all choose our units of weight and of length, and for these we will take the kilogramme and the metre, these being the units of the metrical system. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the scholars have learnt to distinguish the pound, ounce, &c., they may come out in turn and weigh various objects.
It would be well to explain that solid objects occupy less room than lighter substances—that a pound of feathers, e.g., would take up a large space, while a pound of lead would go into a very small compass.
Guessing Game.—When the object to be weighed has been chosen, a number of children are allowed to come out and hold it in turn, and say what they think is its weight. ”

“ To express mechanical force or power, the foot pound is the unit employed—that is, the mechanical energy necessary to raise a weight of one pound to a height of one foot. On the Continent, where the units of length and weight are the metre and the gramme, the unit of mechanical energy is the metre gramme. ”

“ The thousands upon many thousands who in some way or other have recourse to weights and measures in the pursuance of their avocations, would not only have to face new methods of working, and fresh forms of calculations, but would have to do so with implements of unfamiliar dimensions. It would be impossible to catalogue them—the engineer’s gauge, the carpenter’s rule, and the milkman’s pint, the butcher’s lb., the tailor’s tape, the warehouseman’s appliances for determining weight, qualities and values, all would have to be swept away ”

“ It will help to avoid confusion if we reserve the simple terms "gram" and "pound" to denote exclusively an amount of matter, that is, a mass, and to use the full expression "gram of force" or "pound of force" whenever we have in mind the pull of the earth upon these masses. Or, one may speak of a pound-weight meaning the amount of attraction exerted by the earth upon the object. The same is true of gram-mass and gram-weight. The mass of a body does not change when the body is transferred to another place. ”

“ And even in our Acts of Parliament we have done the same thing, so that it is difficult in the statutes respecting standard weights to know what was meant by those who drew them up, and whether a pound of tea means the mass of a certain amount of tea or the weight of that mass. For accurate thinking we must, of course, always deal with masses, not with weights. ”

“ In the second class of cases the fraction of the unit quantity is a quantity of the same kind, but cannot be determined with absolute exactness. Weights come in this class. The ounce, for instance, is one-sixteenth of the pound, but it is impossible to find 16 objects such that their weights shall be exactly equal and that the sum of their weights shall be exactly equal to the weight of the standard pound. ”

“ In the gradation of real weights, measures, and coins, it is important to adopt those grades which are most convenient, which require the least expense of capital, time, and labor, and which are least likely to be mistaken for each other. What, then, is the most convenient gradation? The base two gives a series of seven weights that may be used: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 lbs. By these any weight from one to one hundred and twenty-seven pounds may be weighed. ”

“ We are in the habit of estimating mass by its weight, and we do so rightly, for at any place on the earth, as London, the weights of masses are always proportioned to the masses, and if you want to find out what mass of tea you have got, you weigh it, and you know for certain. Hence in our minds we confuse mass with weight. ”

“ Nevertheless that which excels in size shows greater powers, since it seizes greater weights and has a wider orbe of virtue. For a loadstone weighing one ounce does not lift a large nail as does one weighing a pound, nor does it rule so widely, nor extend its forces; and if from a loadstone of a pound weight a portion is taken away, something of its power will be seen to go also ”

“ 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. ”