[QUOTE=xilman;499626]According to GR, the best theory of gravity we currently have, gravity is a quadrupolar interaction, not a bipolar one like electromagnetism.[/QUOTE]

I should have known better than to try to make a physics joke with this crowd.... :smile:

[QUOTE=rogue;499634]He would do whatever it take to make sure that the standards benefit himself or the US directly. Facts and science don't matter to him. His war against supporters of climate change is a good example of that.[/QUOTE]I don't see how supporting the status quo helps the US preferentially over others. Or how making the changes would harm the US more than others. The changes are not going to impact the average person anyway, only specialised fields will need to take account of the small changes to the values.

[QUOTE=xilman;499626]According to GR, the best theory of gravity we currently have, gravity is a quadrupolar interaction, not a bipolar one like electromagnetism. EM pushes and pulls, in other words, whereas gravity stretches and squeezes. If we lived in free fall, what Uncle Albert would term an inertial reference frame, all this would be intuitively obvious, but we don't. The surface of the earth is stopping us from moving in free fall and is, in effect, exerting a force on us to do so, We tend to call that force "gravity"...[/QUOTE]

I can't speak for your "we", but "I" call that force "Coulomb repulsion", i.e. an EM force between the atoms and molecules in the various substances of which we and the earth are made.

On another note, for the politics-obsessed, the Soap Box over yonder is the place for that, especially for strictly gratuitous invocations thereof such as in the above posts. (As opposed to, say, the politicization of climate change science.)

Getting back to my musings on a particle-counting-based mass standard, perhaps the issue lies not in a lack of technical ability to do such atom or electron counting but rather in a practical means of converting that micro-capability into a means to compare against real-world macro objects? One would also likely need to use ultracold particles (not necessarily a problem, as slower-moving particles are easier to count and one might also be able to use QM phenomena such as Bose-Einstein condensation to advantage) to reduce relativistic mass/energy-equivalence effects to below one's level of measurement error.

Now THAT's what I call a BIG change!
 

[quote]The ampere (A) is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the elementary charge e to be 1.602,176,634 × 10[sup]19[/sup] when expressed in coulombs, which is equal to A s, where the second is defined in terms of ∆ν.[/quote]Wow! The elementary electric charge has grown by a factor of 10[sup]38[/sup]! The elementary charge e used to be around 1.602 × 10[sup]-19[/sup] coulombs. A coulomb was about 6.242 × 10[sup]18[/sup] elementary charges...

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;499686]Wow! The elementary electric charge has grown by a factor of 10[sup]38[/sup]! The elementary charge e used to be around 1.602 × 10[sup]-19[/sup] coulombs. A coulomb was about 6.242 × 10[sup]18[/sup] elementary charges...[/QUOTE]

Good catch - hey, what's a dropped minus sign between friends? More practically, does that mean my electric bill will be dropping by a factor of 10[sup]38[/sup]?

[QUOTE=ewmayer;499673]I can't speak for your "we", but "I" call that force "Coulomb repulsion", i.e. an EM force between the atoms and molecules in the various substances of which we and the earth are made.[/QUOTE]So do I when I'm being pedantic. AFAICT you and I are in a tiny minority and so I generally follow the popular phrasing so as not to confuse anybody.

When I'm being [I]really[/I] pedantic, I'd describe it as degeneracy pressure arising from the antisymmetry requirement for the wave functions of electrons, which are spin-half particles. That confuses even more people!

[QUOTE=ewmayer;499697]Good catch - hey, what's a dropped minus sign between friends? More practically, does that mean my electric bill will be dropping by a factor of 10[sup]38[/sup]?[/QUOTE]I thought the typo was extremely funny, because (1) this was supposed to be about standards, so really important, and (2) both (errors with) minus signs and typos are among the banes of my existence.

As to your electric bill dropping, don't hold your breath.

This reminds me of an anonymous piece from [u]Mark Twain's Library of Humor[/u] called [i]Butterwick's Little Gas-bill[/i]:

[quote]About two weeks afterwards his gas bill came. It accused him of burning, during the quarter, 1,500,000 feet of gas, and it called on him to settle to the extent of nearly $350,000. Before Mr. Butterwick's hair had time to descend after the first shock, he put on his hat and went down to the gas office. He addressed one of the clerks:

"How much gas did you make at the works last quarter?"

"Dunno; about a million feet, I reckon."

"Well, you've charged me in my bill for burning half a million more than you made. I want you to correct it."

"Let's see the bill. Mm-m-m — this is all right. It's taken off the meter. That's what the meter says."

"S'pose'n it does; I couldn't have burned more'n you made!"

"Can't help that. The meter can't lie."

"Well, but how d'you account for the difference?"

"Dunno; 'tain't our business to go poking and nosing around after scientific truth. We depend on the meter. If that says you burned six million feet, why, you must have burned it, even if we never made a foot of gas out at the works."[/quote]

Yes, I know that some of these are posted elsewhere, but the content might be different.

[URL="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/redefining-the-kilogram/"]Redefining the Kilogram[/URL]

[URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/24/continents-oldest-spear-points-provide-new-clues-about-first-americans/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.efcdd946d182"]Continent’s oldest spear points provide new clues about the first Americans[/URL]

[URL="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-retires-kepler-space-telescope-passes-planet-hunting-torch"]NASA Retires Kepler Space Telescope, Passes Planet-Hunting Torch[/URL]

[URL="https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/from-world-war-ii-radar-to-microwave-popcorn-the-cavity-magnetron-was-there"]From World War II Radar to Microwave Popcorn, the Cavity Magnetron Was There[/URL]

[URL="https://neurosciencenews.com/pvt-learning-10095/"]How the Brian decides what to Learn[/URL]

[URL="https://www.popsci.com/how-do-planes-fly"]How to Planes Fly?[/URL]

[URL="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/10/30/662127406/when-adolescents-give-up-pot-their-cognition-quickly-improves"]When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves[/URL]

[QUOTE=rogue;499851][URL="https://neurosciencenews.com/pvt-learning-10095/"]How the Brian decides what to Learn[/URL][/QUOTE]

[url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes]He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy![/url]

What's is funny is that isn't the first time I typed "Brian" instead of "Brain". Brian is my older son's name and he is very smart. He is a teenager and thinks he is smarter than me (sometimes). He'll learn how wrong he is when he goes to college. :grin:

[QUOTE=rogue;499928]What's is funny is that isn't the first time I typed "Brian" instead of "Brain". Brian is my older son's name and he is very smart. He is a teenager and thinks he is smarter than me (sometimes). He'll learn how wrong he is when he goes to college. :grin:[/QUOTE]

1. I read a series of library books in school about a kid named "Brian"; however it wasn't until I was somewhere in the 3rd book in the series that I realized I had been reading it as "Brain" until then.

2. My son breezed through high-school without studying just as I did. I warned him that University (College) will humble him (it sure did for me!!!). However, he proved me wrong and breezed all through university as well continuing to get all A's without studying.