Physical kilogram is officially dead
nature.com
Physical kilogram is officially dead
1–10 of 14 posts
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#2May our fundamental constants maintain uniformity! [And they should, I hope, and this change is a _good_ thing!]
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#3> "it also means that scientists can work at the highest level of precisionon any scale, without losing accuracy"
Still waiting on scientific journalists to reach the same precisionon.
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#4Good. Finally something that doesn’t depend on some weird artifact lying around somewhere losing mass mysteriously
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#5May our fundamental constants maintain uniformity! [And they should, I hope, and this change is a _good_ thing!] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism
I hope so too, but I think the kilogram is just a base unit, not a fundamental constant? :-)
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#6This is obviously the right thing.
Still, I can't help lamenting it. There was something delightfully baroque about knowing that the kilogram was in a vault in France. I'm going to miss it.
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#7This is huge, but subtle. For the first time, the SI units are no longer relying on unit prototypes that can only be copied. Given the new definition of the SI units, decent enough lab equipment and enough time, any lab can now theoretically manufacture its own references to arbitrary precision, no matter where they are in the known universe. There is no longer an insurmountable limited incurred by the precision of the local copies of these references.
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#8Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#9Who gets it, I wonder? The actual old physical kilogram. What are the plans for it?
Re: Physical kilogram is officially dead
#10Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19936454