31–40 of 255 posts
I once purchased lead weights online, and they came packed tessellated in a flat rate box. Shipper definitely got their money’s worth.
Out of curiosity, what kind of weights were they? I was under the impression that it has been phased out of many uses because of high toxicity (including via skin absorption when handling it)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I heard that the crypto millionaires were buying Tungsten cubes for fun, I checked into the prices. Amazon lists a 1.5" cube (weighs 1 kg) at $199 and a 4" cube (that weighs 18.9 kg [0]) at $3499. There's no way I'm spending that, but I will admit to wanting to experience their density for myself. [0] free Prime shipping for the win
Tungsten doesn't seem especially heavy; it's a little less than gold.
Uranium is a comparable price and density to tungsten, but buying iridium is gonna be at least 50x the price for something 10% denser.
Semi related - a few months ago, while not fully sober, I was aimlessly browsing through Amazon and ended up owning a set of two 1.5inch cubes - one aluminium, one tungsten. It’s kind of a silly purchase considering it’s a lot of money for 2 metal cubes, but it’s honestly very impressive just how heavy that small cube is - both objectively, and when compared to the aluminium cube. Also makes for a great talking point…
When I heard that the crypto millionaires were buying Tungsten cubes for fun, I checked into the prices. Amazon lists a 1.5" cube (weighs 1 kg) at $199 and a 4" cube (that weighs 18.9 kg [0]) at $3499. There's no way I'm spending that, but I will admit to wanting to experience their density for myself. [0] free Prime shipping for the win
On Earth.
Depends how you measure it. Any X kg/lbs of matter here on earth is still that same X kg/lbs everywhere in the universe. Assuming the scale being used to weight is correctly calibrated to whatever planet it's in, it would still show up as the same amount of kg/lbs.
Until as recently as 2019 this approach - using a prototype - was the only extant mass definition, the prototype kilogram lived at a specialised laboratory and its clones were used around the world to define mass (yes including the pound if you're an American).
[ Today instead the Planck constant is defined to be exactly 6.62607015×10^−34 kg x m^2 per second and it's possible to build devices such as a Kibble balance to estimate what the kilogram is from knowing this definition, the better your Kibble balance the better the estimate ]
That said, it sure wasn't fun for the mail person when they had to deliver me those two boxes of lead ingots.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I heard that the crypto millionaires were buying Tungsten cubes for fun, I checked into the prices. Amazon lists a 1.5" cube (weighs 1 kg) at $199 and a 4" cube (that weighs 18.9 kg [0]) at $3499. There's no way I'm spending that, but I will admit to wanting to experience their density for myself. [0] free Prime shipping for the win
Tungsten doesn't seem especially heavy; it's a little less than gold.
I once purchased lead weights online, and they came packed tessellated in a flat rate box. Shipper definitely got their money’s worth.
Out of curiosity, what kind of weights were they? I was under the impression that it has been phased out of many uses because of high toxicity (including via skin absorption when handling it)
They make rubber adhesive strips with four or five wee bits of tungsten in them, but they are too expensive for general use, nor do they offer the precision you get from a continuous length of lead tape. They are also too thick to install on the handle pallet under the grip, which is no problem with lead tape since it's about 0.3 mm thick (rough guess, I haven't actually mic'ed it).
The flat rate envelope used to be a bit cheaper than that small box - and the small box fits inside the envelope with a bit of work - no tape!
While the tweet is correct ("It is physically impossible to exceed the 70-pound domestic weight limit for a small flat rate box") the shortened title here which omits the word "small" is very misleading. The USPS offers a variety of sizes of flat rate boxes ( https://www.usps.com/ship/priority-mail.htm#flatrate ), all of which have the same 70 lb weight limit. It's only the "small" that cannot be overweight. The two…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends how you measure it. Any X kg/lbs of matter here on earth is still that same X kg/lbs everywhere in the universe. Assuming the scale being used to weight is correctly calibrated to whatever planet it's in, it would still show up as the same amount of kg/lbs.
Depends upon what you set out to measure. lbs is specifically a unit of force. kg is specifically a unit of mass. It is a category error to equate these as measures, although (in many places) an everyday convention to do so on Earth . IIRC the English unit for mass is the slug . If the tecnical limit is 70lbs or so, that is must technically be read as lbs force -- aka force of gravity which varies with location.