What's heavier - a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?

It's misleading at best but blatantly incorrect(the original poster's assertion).
You are measuring weight and not mass.
SI units for mass are in kg and when the OP mentioned pounds I knew what to do.

1lb = 0.4535924 kg

InkSpot said:
Err aren't they equal ? a pound is a pound?
 
I have not read through this but..

Because he is probably talking about monetary value for the Gold, and Weight for the Feather. So it would depend on how much a British pound actually weighed in Gold.

Which i don’t actually know.
 
Actually,

A British pound is roughly equal to a an American dollar. (worth more actually) Gold is about 400$ an ounce. So if a pound was a pound then the basic unit of measure for money in Brittan would be somewhere around 7,000 bucks.

Which means that a Pound of feather is a whole lot heavier than a pound of Gold.. at least in England.
 
boltneck said:
A British pound is roughly equal to a an American dollar.
Not really. 1 GBP (£) = 1.75 USD ($) which is not roughly equivalent in my book (unless you want to trade dollars for sterling with me ;) )
 
_xxx_ said:
If I hit you in the face with a pound of feathers, you'll feel less pain then if hit with a pound of gold ;)
If we squeeze the pound of feathers into the same volume as the pound of gold, the difference in pain would likely be un-measurable. ;)
 
Diplo said:
Not really. 1 GBP (£) = 1.75 USD ($) which is not roughly equivalent in my book (unless you want to trade dollars for sterling with me ;) )

Tell that to big electronics companies, still to this day ripping us off with skewed exchange rates!!
 
Hey, what about the education system? I "Feel" that my answer is right as its very "creative" and "original".

Now you have hurt my "Feelings" because you told me i was "wrong".

No one is really ever wrong, how dare you hurt my self esteem like that!! :devilish:

;)
 
K.I.L.E.R said:
It's misleading at best but blatantly incorrect(the original poster's assertion).
You are measuring weight and not mass.
SI units for mass are in kg and when the OP mentioned pounds I knew what to do.

1lb = 0.4535924 kg

Pounds are context sensitive based on what you're measuring. Mention "precious metals" and you skip to the Troy weight system. Mention anything else and you are on the Avoirdupois system.

Whether you measure weight (mass * acceleration due to gravity) or mass doesn't change the answer if you are using "pounds" as the generator of your numbers. It's easy to see if A1 <> A2 then 9.81 * A1 <> 9.81 * A2, so mass or weight - the result is unchanged.

Converting from pounds to Kgs doesn't avoid the issue either. You have to account for which pounds to use dependent on the material you are measuring, as the SI units presumes you are not weighing precious metals, the figure is wrong if you are as it's based on the wrong pounds scale for this specific conversion.

A Troy pound is 5760 grains (about 373.24 g), while an avoirdupois pound is 7000 btw. The problem starts and ends there with that convention.

PS

Troy pounds, like Tower pounds are falling into dis-use, but Troy ounces are still very much in use in most countries in the world - so the problem persists!
 
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Whether you're talking about weight or mass does effect the answer if you want to be pedantic because the acceleration due to gravity was not specified in the question and hence could be different for the feathers and gold.
 
Not unless you wish to re-write the laws of Newton and Einstein it doesn't, gravity depends on mass alone (well kinetic energy too if your kinetic energy levels are extremely high). So 1 kg of feathers has the same weight at sea level at the equator as a kg of gold in the same spot (roughly 9.81 Newtons (kg meteres per second squared) directed towards the Earths core).
 
g__day said:
Pounds are context sensitive based on what you're measuring. Mention "precious metals" and you skip to the Troy weight system. Mention anything else and you are on the Avoirdupois system.

As I already answered, gold isn't Troy either:

_xxx_ said:
It's easy, the gold has a different measure (1 pound = 31,1035 g), as opposed to Avoirdupois Weight of 1 pound = 453,59237 or Troy Pound which has 373,2417216 g.

:)
 
Gubbi - exactly - and it used to be alot worse, for instance if I tell you I probably weight 4.5 slugs can you guess that's about 86 kilograms? Also feathers is (was) a unit of weight in itself! There are alot of occupation specific weights and measures used in the olde imperial system. It was far worse than you can imagine today!

XXX - Gold is still Troy, you like wikipedia so here's the link for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight

Troy Ounce
A troy ounce, the only currently used unit of the system, is 480 grains, somewhat heavier than an avoirdupois ounce (437.5 grains). A grain is exactly 64.798 91 mg, hence one troy ounce is exactly 31.103 476 8 g, about 10 per cent more than the avoirdupois ounce, which is exactly 28.349 523 125 g. The troy ounce is the only ounce used in the pricing of precious metals, such as gold and silver, and this is the only remaining use of the troy ounce. In troy weight, there are 12 ounces in a pound, rather than 16 in the more-common avoirdupois system.

Troy Pound
A troy pound is 5760 grains (about 373.24 g), while an avoirdupois pound is 7000 grains (about 453.59 g).

- amazing huh?
 
The german Wiki entry is wrong, I just realized that what they refer to is an ounce. Which is known as "Feinpfund" as a measure for precious metals. Have to send them a mail to correct that, methinks...
 
I guess someone should also ask whether the Feathers or the Gold are being accelerated towards the speed of light or not as well. :idea:
 
a block of gold around 14 inches square weighs a ton!

a cubic yard of water weighs a ton.

i remember, as a tot, being amazed at these revelations.

and am still amazed at the number of people whom had no clue about this as adults (jipped in education i guess)

what is the natural volume (settled under atmospheric pressure at sea level i guess) of feathers that equals a ton? probably enough to smother you at least.
 
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