on confusing weight and mass, there is the kilopond, or the force exerted by 1 kilogram of mass in a field of 1 standard gravity (9.80665 Newtons, according to my units converter).
This metric unit has two "advantages":
Firstly, it is even easier to screw things up by confusing grams and ponds since, in our local neighborhood, the number of ponds tends to have a 1:1 relationship with the number of ponds, and,
Secondly, one can even confuse the term pond with the term pound, thus confusing the mass/force relationship while at the same time incorrectly converting from one unit of measure to another, arriving at a ridiculous statement such as "one gram of mass will exert one pound of force on the beam at whatever distance from the fulcrum it is hung".
I actually encountered this statement (with my own italics added) in an SOP for calibrating torque wrenches. This told me two things immediately. First, that I couldn't trust that any SOP in that company had ever been reviewed by a competent engineer. And, second, since the company in question had not thrown away all of their torque wrenches, that no-one in the company had ever actually bothered to read the SOP. So, in the end, I guess it evened out.
It really gives one faith in the entire quality assurance process, doesn't it? |
