What does pounds measure

The brick would resist being thrown; it would take effort to give the lead brick velocity. Two bricks glued together would resist your efforts twice as effectively. More mass means more inertia or more resistance to change. The amount of mass matter is measured in units of kilograms kg or grams g in the metric system, and in the British system measured in units of slugs sl - an odd unit not used much today. Now, weigh the bricks on a scale, and you find that each brick weighs 10 pounds.

Weight is the force gravity exerts on something. If you determine the mass of each brick on a balance, you find that each brick has a mass of 4. Balances work by canceling out the effects of gravity. If you go to the Moon, the mass is the same but the weight is six times less because the gravity is six times weaker there. Mass and weight are related, but different.

Mass refers to the amount of matter, weight to the force of gravity pulling on that matter. In British units, a mass of one slug placed on your bathroom scale would weigh 32 pounds!

Thus, if you place g of mass on your bathroom scale, your scale would read a weight of 2. What we have just written is really an equivalence.

A pound of product must be determined by weighing the product in grams as the use of the pound is not sanctioned for trade within the European Union. Smoothbore cannon and carronades are designated by the weight in imperial pounds of round solid iron shot of diameter to fit the barrel. A cannon that fires a six-pound ball, for example, is called a six-pounder. Standard sizes are 6, 12, 18, 24, 32 and 42 pounds; pounders also exist, and other nonstandard weapons use the same scheme.

See carronade. A similar definition, using lead balls, exists for determining the gauge of shotguns. See also wiktionary:pound in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Units of Measurement Wiki Explore. Recent blog posts Forum. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Pound mass. Edit source History Talk 0.

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original article was at Pound mass. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The yard or the metre shall be the unit of measurement of length and the pound or the kilogram shall be the unit of measurement of mass by reference to which any measurement involving a measurement of length or mass shall be made in the United Kingdom; and- a the yard shall be 0. Unicode Consortium. Retrieved 28 April Retrieved Historically and in common parlance, "weight" refers to mass, but weight as used in modern physics is a force.

Personal notes. Weights and measures standards of the United States — A brief history. University of Wisconsin Press. Retrieved 27 November Weights and measures: their ancient origins and their development in Great Britain up to A. Pergamon Press. The pennyweight per metric cup density measurement unit is used to measure volume in metric cups in order to estimate weight or mass in pennyweights The speed measurement was introduced to measure distance traveled by an object per unit of time,.

The Conversions and Calculations web site. Forum Login Register.