this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (43 children)

Lb-Ft

FFS, just adopt the metric system already. And "lb" is not a force unit. Also don't capitalize unit abbreviations unless named after scientists.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (6 children)

"pound foot" is the most intuitive name for a unit of force imaginable!

How much force? One pound of the foot. Easy!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Red Foreman agrees... "one pound of my foot in your ass"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's one pound per foot you moron!

/s

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not just any old foot, a square one

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a derived unit of torque. Pound is already a measure of force.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Of this, you and I, are quite aware.

The Joke, however, is in the air.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Actually pounds are a unit of force

Pounds~newtons

Slugs~ kilograms

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Pounds are a unit of money. lbf (poundforce) is a misnomer, it’s actually the pressure required to stamp the King’s portrait into a £1 coin. Slightly changes with each monarch – or by a lot whenever they switch to cheaper materials because of devaluation. The frequent redefining of poundforce is now a major consequence of Brexit. /s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Fairly sure there isn't any money with the king's face on yet. So we're still on the Elizabeth standard for now.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

It's confusing, since "pound" is used for both force and mass.

1 lbm is roughly 0.45 kg

1 lbf is the force required to accelerate a 1 slug (32.2 lbm) mass 1 ft/s^2.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I know slugs are just snails without shells, but they don't need to go faster

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't know what the imperial system standards committee was up to, but I've never met a slug that was 32.2 lbm

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

You wouldn't know her, she goes to a different school.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Mercifully, g=9.8 everywhere on Earth's surface, so we use weight interchangeably with mass, but yes, we should weigh ourselves in Newton: "I need to lose 10kg, so I can reach my ideal weigh of 700N" :P

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Mercifully, g=9.8 everywhere on Earth's

Big nope. It depends not only on height, but also on density of stuff under ground.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The pedantry in this post is so dense you would need a torch to cut through it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd say it's more of a "small yes" than a "big nope."

While gravity does vary, it goes from about 9.76 to about 9.83.

All of which does, in fact, round to 9.8

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On ISS it's 8.722, but it's constantly falling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Everything experiences different gravity (and “apparent gravity”) in space. We should pass a treaty of using metric only there, if only to avoid losing more spacecraft.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

What's the variation? Does it ever get to 9.9 or 9.7? It's a negligible "nope" for people weighing themselves :D

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We already have a permanently inhabited base outside Earth (ISS) with effectively zero gravity and there might be one on the Moon or Mars in 100 years. We should pass treaties to only use metric in space – a probe has been lost to unit confusion already.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On ISS it's ≈.89g, but agreed

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is dated 2007. Apparently NASA is already using metric:

NASA Finally Goes Metric

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know, it has always used metric but the SW was by Lockheed Martin. Still, we need to convince potential extraterrestrial civilians.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

We will convince them by force if necessary. They will adopt the Metric or get barred from entering the space bar

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