Bob Sciamanda said (with my capitalization), "I built my digital
readout bathroom SCALE from a Heathkit (eons ago). It stresses a
cantilevered metal beam and senses the strain with a bonded strain
gauge. A labeled calibration weight is included; there are two
potentiometer controls: zero and calibrate.
If I took (or built) this device on the moon and followed their
instructions to the letter, my moon weight would read the same as my
earth
weight (its reads in lbs, with a read-out resolution of 0.1 lb)
* * *
I say... Yep... exactly right.
Notice that Bob called this a "scale" and if I remember correctly, that
is what Heathkit called it. The manufacturers of many of the modern
electronic self-calibrating instruments call them "balances." But some
might question that name if there isn't any balance beam and there
isn't any "traditional balancing" taking place.
So the question arises, do we need new terminology? Should we drop
balance and scales and substitute, for example, mass meter and force
meter? And if we wanted to have an instrument that we called a "weight
meter," how would it work? How would we calibrate it?
BTW, I am curious what people say who live in Europe or other metric
countries. When you go into the bathroom and step on that thing and it
reads 80 kg, do you say your weight is 80 kg or do you say your mass is
80 kg. I don't want to start another argument or discussion here, I am
just curious to know what is the common every language for this number
in places like France, Germany, Italy, etc. Does the French language
and German language, etc. have an equivalent pairing of words such as
the English weight/mass? And do these languages have a similar
scale/balance problem?
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817