Talk:Ton

Kilogram

Kilogram´s abbreviation is Kg with capital K, because is a multiplier, and multpliers in the International system are in capitals.

Wrong. -- The Anome 16:48 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There's the list of SI prefixes. Euyyn 12:05, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Is the volume ton 252 US or imperial gallons? Jason 17:29, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

From units.dat file that is found in most Un*x systems:

registerton             100 ft^3  # Used for internal capacity of ships
shippington             40 ft^3   # Used for ship's cargo freight or timber
brshippington           42 ft^3   #
freightton            shippington # Both register ton and shipping ton derive
                                  # from the "tun cask" of wine.
displacementton         35 ft^3   # Approximate volume of a longton weight of
                                  # sea water.  Measures water displaced by
                                  # ships.
waterton                224 brgallon

252 gallons is about 33.7 ft^3 (no much difference between US or BR), so the answer is no.

-- Talamus 00:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Gene Nygaard's [1]

Gene, what's that supposed to link to? The page currently lists some statistics about the fleet, including tonnage. What's that got to do with the imperial ton (of mass) going out? Please explain, as I'm confused.

Urhixidur 17:54, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)

Those are long tons (1016 kg), same as those used in the United States for the same purpose. They are not metric tons, and those long tons are not just "formerly" used, but "currently" used. Gene Nygaard 18:02, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Current but only in a small area (naval), eg the whole of agriculture and food production works in metric tons. Building works are in metric. GraemeLeggett 08:08, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Accuracy/Overaccuracy

Isn't the number of significant figures rather overstated? Might I suggest 2 or three decimal places tops. GraemeLeggett 12:33, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Anybody can round, so it is better to provide exact conversions whenever possible.

Urhixidur 03:14, 2005 May 26 (UTC)

There is no official definition of a short ton force or a long ton force (there is for the metric ton force, a unit no more acceptable for use with SI than the English tons force). That's because there is no official definition of a pound force. We often borrow the acceleration which is official for defining kilograms force to define pounds force, but other accelerations such as 32.16 ft/s² are used for this purpose as well. Gene Nygaard 04:28, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me then that the high accuracy numbers should be collected together towards the end in a table, not in the main text GraemeLeggett 08:44, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Indented line

the ton has been defined in terms of the pound and as such shouldn't it be divided into a force page and a mass page. --Dorminton (talk) 06:36, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Historical Romance Novel Slang

I keep reading romance novels where "the Ton" refers to rich people? Nobel people? The closest I can get to an explanation of this slang is the line below from the Ton article.

"In money, a ton is slang for 100 GBP (pounds sterling) —this is a term with a London, England origin."

I have looked other places on the web and was unable to find a discription of the slang. The word may be only used that way in London, England. Can anyone fill in this blank? Maybe I should write to one of the authors (like Connie Brockway).

Opps, I found it! It's defined on http://www.word-detective.com/032404.html#ton under the title "Tons of fun." I'm new to Wikipedia, so now I just need to learn how to add this to the Ton article here. What's the proper way to add a line about this definition without plagiarizing? Or does that matter if you include the link?

That is what I was looking up, too. I moved that meaning into the Misc section.

Do not merge with 'ton'

Since the 2000 pound ton and the 1000 kg tonne are two completely different units, they should be in different articles. If looking up one returns a link to another, people will believe they are the same and aircraft will crash, missiles will veer off course, and the economy will collapse. Possibly. Marc W. Abel 22:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merge. Well, to start there's 200 pounds difference between the two, and they're in different measurement systems. Merging also does not seem like it would reduce much duplicated information. Won't the article simply bloat up and be filled with tables and numbers that may not relate to the ton/tonne you were looking to learn about? Aside from being units of measurement with similar spellings, what do they have in common? - BalthCat 05:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merge though do not agree with reasoning. The 2000 lb ton and the 2240 lb ton and the 100 ft³ ton and the 9.80665 kN ton and a zillion other tons are also "completely different units", and the 2000 lb ton and 2240 lb ton also do have and should have separate articles. Gene Nygaard 17:21, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Units

It is incorrect to state an exact equivalent from a unit of force to a unit of mass. So you cannot say that a ton is equal exactly to so many kilograms. The number of significant digits is important too, sure anyone can round - but to express something as more accurate than it is surely is a sin against all that is holy.

jptdrake 2006 August 3

If you can say it is exactly so many pounds, you can say it is exactly so many kilograms. Those pounds are, by definition, units of mass exactly equal to 0.45359237 kg. Tons are and always have been primarily units of mass.

There are also recent spinoffs of tons as units of force--something never well defined before the 20th century.

You can also, if you specify how you define your pounds force, say exactly how many newtons a short ton force or a long ton force is equal to. If you borrow the same acceleration to define a pound force as is used to define a kilogram force, exactly 9.80665 m/s², you also have 1 lbf = 0.45359237 kgf and since 1 kgf is exactly 9.80665 N, you can express tons force exactly in terms of newtons. It will vary, of course, if you choose to use a different acceleration to define your pounds force; unlike kilograms force, pounds force do not have an official, universal definition. In that case, the number of kilograms force equal to a short ton force or a long ton force will differ slightly from the number of kilograms equal to the corresponding ton. Gene Nygaard 03:05, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The pound is a unit of force ( hence weight), not mass. The ton is a unit of weight, hence force. The standard English unit of mass is the slug. The Kilogram is a unit of mass. To equate mass and force (weight) requires an acceleration due to gravity, which we may assume to be a convenient constant value for ease of calculation, but this is a gross over-simplification. tim (talk) 01:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy (2)

The article states that a long ton is 2204 pounds. I understand that the imperial ton is 2240, that is 20 hundred weight of 112 pounds. I suspect that the definition of long ton is primarily an American usage.

However, I have another difficulty. The 18th century iron industry in England used two systems of weight, long weight, where the ton was 2400 pounds (the hundred weight being 120 pounds) and shortweight where it was the standard 2240 pounds.

I do not want to alter the article without discussion and would thus appreciate comments. Peterkingiron 12:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed WikiProject

Right now the content related to the various articles relating to measurement seems to be rather indifferently handled. This is not good, because at least 45 or so are of a great deal of importance to Wikipedia, and are even regarded as Vital articles. On that basis, I am proposing a new project at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Measurement to work with these articles, and the others that relate to the concepts of measurement. Any and all input in the proposed project, including indications of willingness to contribute to its work, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your attention. John Carter 21:07, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Re: Truck classes

I have difficulty accepting this explanation of truck class names without a reference. I was always told that the names referred to bare chassis weights of early (Ford?) trucks. In some places, (OK, back woods West Virginia 30 years ago) they are still referred to as, e.g, "1 ton chassis". So, if there is a reference to support the idea that this is related to net cargo weight, please include it. Otherwise, I'd like to see this section removed, as i think it is conjecture. tim (talk) 01:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: Ton = 100

Does anyone have any idea what it is that 100 of makes a ton? It seems to be a British thing, so it's something a little more than 20 pounds. An explanation would help explain the link between 100 and ton. tim (talk) 01:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The British slang term "ton" is nothing to do with weight, it's just one hundred of whatever you are talking about at the time. It's like saying "K", which could be short for Kilo(gram), Kilometres, £1000 or whatever is the subject of the conversation. TiffaF (talk) 15:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I have only heard this as referring to 100 mph. I do not know, but suspect this is a corruption of hun, for hundred. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about that corruption. A net ton in terms of ship capacity is 100 cubic feet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_tonnage. A "ton" can refer to £100, or on a hot day 100 degrees Fahrenheit (heard that one from pre-metric Australians) and going "ton-up" is a modern usage, seeing as mankind only developed the ability to break 100mph about 100 years ago (a ton ago? ;-) ), so I suspect that is not the earliest usage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.6.35.235 (talk) 22:40, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Math fail

Prior to the 15th century in England, the ton was composed of 20 hundredweight, each of 108 lb, giving a ton of 2000 pounds.

20 * 108 = 2160. Dunno which of these numbers is inaccurate or I'd fix it. -Anon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.161.70.149 (talk) 06:03, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Longweight

Let me assure those who have been "correcting" this article that a ton longweight in the 18th century British iron industry was 2400 lb. That industry was the subject of my doctoral thesis and I have frequently come across this unit in accounts, though it is not obvious until you check the arithmetic or see 28 or 29 in the pounds column, as the 2400 lb ton still contained 20 cwt, each of 4 quarters. Periodcally one finds conversions being done between long- and short-weight. The use of the longweight ton is mentioned in the 19th century when south Staffordshire ironmasters complained of a canal company gauging boats by the standard 2240 lb ton and suppliers of ironstone from the Coventry coalfield expecting to be paid according to the Coventry Canal toll ticket. Unfortunately the author of the book that I cite here has not been able to elucidate the size of the larger ton. Peterkingiron (talk) 23:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Definitions

I never realised how many Ton's there were - there's a ton of them! All I can say is thank-god that they are all reasonably similar. Otherwise it could cause some serious problems! 130.56.87.136 (talk) 01:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ton or ton?

The article says that "Ton" should be capitalized. The Merriam-Webster dictionary disagrees; and I have never noticed that it is commonly done. Where does this notion come from? The word is actually not capitalized in very many places in the article itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.86.92.198 (talk) 16:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree, the Collins English Dictionary (British English) also uses lower case - for both the unit of measurement, and its informal uses. 78.32.143.113 (talk) 13:30, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

"metric" ton

"The tonne is also known as the metric ton in areas which use the metric measurement system." <- this is wrong. In areas that use metric system there is no need to put the word "metric" in any word. It is just known as "ton". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.22.74.106 (talk) 16:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

No, it's quite correct. Many metric areas formerly used the imperial system (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, South Africa, India etc etc). The "metric" in metric tonne is often redundant in colloquial speech. However, it is used when a) Ensuring no ambiguity (referring to historical values or talking to an older engineer), b) as a linguistic device for reinforcement ("Mr Brown has just sold 395 METRIC TONNES of the nation's gold reserves?!").

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This discussion is closed: there is No consensus for these mergers. Moonraker12 (talk) 13:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

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• I am proposing that Short ton and Long ton should be merged here. This article is a general article, whereas the others are detailed ones, but they cover much the same ground. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• • I tagged tonne with the same merge proposal. Gene Nygaard (talk) 08:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support the merger of both articles. They would, better and more properly, be sections in a single article on ton. Suggest we keep the individual disambig pages for each and have them point to the appropriate section of the ton article. N2e (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• Support the merger of both articles, but the tonne shoudl be kept separate as it has a very different lineage. Martinvl (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. These are very useful links for disambiguation purposes, with there being about twenty or more different "tons" in use on Wikipedia, most of which are also included in that already hopelessly complex "ton" article. No matter how much you try to get the various individual "tons" into separate sections to which redirects can point, somebody will always be rearranging things and renaming those sections, leaving links intended to disambiguate as throwing the reader into a jumble of dozens of different units masquerading under the same name.
  • Alternative: If they are merged, throw the metric ton into the same bag; merge that too. There's absolutely no reason to treat it differently. Gene Nygaard (talk)
• Support merging of short and long tons but not tonne (metric ton) because it is a different unit. Wcp07 (talk) 10:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Different? Sure, they're all "different" in some sense. Note that a short ton-force (8.9 kN) is also different from a long-ton force (10.0 kN) and from a tonne-force (9.8 kN); they are measures of force, not of mass. So is the ton of TNT equivalent, which is a unit of energy equal to 1 megagram at a conventional energy density of 1,000 small calories per gram. So are refrigeration tons which measure either energy or power. So are gross register tons which measure volume. So are a zillion other things which come under the purview of this "ton" article. But the thousands of links to the short ton and the metric ton and the long ton articles are generally there for one primary purpose; to easily distinguish them from the others, rather than making the reader wade through twenty or more different units called by the same name to figure out which one is intended in a particular case.

But a metric ton is not different in any sense which would mean that it should be retained as a separate article, while the short ton and the long ton are not. Either merge them all, or none of them. Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:08, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

On reflection, I think that I would be happy to merge all three - a good deal of the stuff on the tonne is replicated in the kilogram article anyway. Martinvl (talk) 15:11, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Of course the links should remain in place and point to the same article. Martinvl (talk) 15:13, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking more in terms that the short and long tons are closely related whereas the tonne comes from a different measuring system. Ultimately my preference is to have fewer articles rather than having lots of shorts ones that are only there to define the unit. Maybe the kilogram is a better article for the tonne to be merged with? Wcp07 (talk) 22:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose How can we support merging short ton into ton but not tonne because "it's a different unit", yet the ton article is full of sections about trucks and explosive power, not even mass or weight? Andy Dingley (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• I would also oppose this merger; I cannot see how this would be an improvement.
  

Currently the term "long ton" (also "short ton" and "tonne") in numerous articles link to their own pages,providing a concise explanation of the term and what the difference is; it serves as an explanatory footnote would.

Merging them all together would leave the enquirer redirected to a much larger article to search through for the information.

And as there would still be 4 pages (one pretty cluttered page at "Ton" and 3 with nothing on them but a redirect), there would be no net saving at all. Moonraker12 (talk) 18:02, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - they're different units, and having them split = less confusion. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 09:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Combining makes the knowledge less accessible, requires more time to resolve the complications and leaves more opportunity for confusion. Each unit needs its own succinct page, as now. The place of the ton article is to describe the alternative interpretations of the term. -R. S. Shaw (talk) 03:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per R Shaw above. If someone has typed "short ton" into the search box you can be pretty sure that what they ideally wanted was a short (excuse pun) article on the short ton and not a pile of irrelevant guff about deadweight tons for ships bunker oil. By the way, tun (volume) should be in that article as it is the etymological root of all the other tons as well as the barrel of that size. SpinningSpark 22:26, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

This has been here for three months now, and there doesn't seem to be any consensus for these mergers; can I suggest we close it on that basis? Moonraker12 (talk) 06:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

OK; in the absence of a demur, I've gone and done it.Moonraker12 (talk) 13:26, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

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Closed: there is No consensus for these mergers. Moonraker12 (talk) 13:31, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Some suggestions

I think this page has some problems

• The introduction is a bit UK-centric; as a Brit that doesn’t bother me over-much, but I can see it could be a problem
• The intro also talks mostly about the unit of weight, while tons are probably used at least as often as units of volume, quite apart from its other meanings
• The page ought to have a "Unit of Mass" section, to balance the others
• And it could do with a history section, to explain some of the changes over the years.
  

I would suggest moving the current introduction to a "Units of mass" section, and re-formatting it to match the other sections (we should also add the long-weight and short-weight information from the Longweight section above). Then add a new intro to give an overview of the subject; Something like:
"The Ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used as a principally as a unit of weight, and of volume; it can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term."
Any thoughts? Moonraker12 (talk) 18:41, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

There are, of course, at least three units of force as well. They are occasionally used on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Gene Nygaard (talk) 03:24, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance. The tonne is a nickname for a megagram. The megagram is (or should be) described in the article on the kilogram while any discussion about the tonne should centre on why it is not called a "megagram". Martinvl (talk) 07:56, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Martinv, I have no idea why you posted this with the edit summary "What is the relevance of force?"

A megagram is not a unit of force, in its proper usage. Sure, you might run into a megagram-force just like you still see the kilograms-force to which that link redirects, just as tonne-force does, but it is very rare—you will see the megagram used properly as a unit of mass at more than a thousand-to-one ratio to the megagram-force, a much higher ratio than the corresponding one for kilograms or for tonnes. Neither of them is appropriate in the modern SI-world, but unfortunately you still see some rocket scientists and the like using them even in non-historical contexts (see, e.g., Special:WhatLinksHere/Tonne-force). You also have the short ton-force and the long ton-force, only one of which somebody has bothered to make a redirect for and to mention in the appropriate article. But none of them are mentioned in this article about tons. Even the word "force" is conspicuously absent here. Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Point taken. Martinvl (talk) 20:38, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

• We have several difficulties - US usage makes a short ton 2000 lb and a long ton 2240; but in historic English usage that was a ton shortweight, and a ton longweight was 2400. I think we should not get hung up too much over weight/force/mass in a general article that is dealing with all usages of the term, bearing in mind that we also have measures of volume (for wine). I do not think we yet have a discussion mof what a ton of timber was historically, but I suspect that this was also measured by volume in a period when large weights were not easily measured. I put forward a merge proposal above, becuase we had three articles covering much the same content. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:51, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

UK usage makes a short ton 2000 lb and a long ton 2240 lb; Australian usage makes a short ton 2000 lb and a long ton 2240 lb; Canadian usage makes a short ton 2000 lb and a long ton 2240 lb; South African usage makes a short ton 2000 lb and a long ton 2240 lb.

The people who thought "hundred" was written in digits as "120" are long gone. And the short ton came from England, too. I'd say "show me" to any claim of the term "ton shortweight" being used for a "long ton" (short-weighting has too many negative connotations for that to be likely).

The force units and mass units are different units; that needs clarification here. Gene Nygaard (talk) 13:11, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the long hundered of 120 is long obsolete, but the issue still needs to be discussed. As a historian of the iron industry, the issue is one that I frequently come across. However in accounts it only becomes apparent which system is in use when one checks the arithmetic of the pounds column. I open almost at random an account of Cradley Forge in 1669:

Delivered to Hydemill (10 tons longweight) 10.14.1.17
Bustleholme (13 longweight) 13.18.1.17
R. G. Schafer (ed.), A selection form the records of Philip Foley's Stour Valley Iron Works 1668-74 (Worcestershire Hisotrical Society, new series 9, 1978), 74.

Arithmetic associated with these figures shows that the shortweight figures have a hundredweight of 112 lb., or rather a quarter of 28 lb. I regret that I cannot quickly put my finger on an example actuially using "short weight" for an English ton. If I remember correctly a hundred deals (pine timber imported to Britain from Norway) was actually 120, but this is a number, not a quantity. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:37, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Abbreviations?

Might it be practical to add the respective symbols (t etc.) in the table, perhaps along with "Common name"? As a foreigner I would love to have clarity there. --Fritz Jörn (talk) 19:40, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Seimergence

I support merging the Tons but not Tonne. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.189.23.53 (talk) 19:38, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Intro

I've taken the liberty of changing the header, and adding detail about the origin of the term, in line with the suggestions I made, (above). I trust that's OK with everyone.
I'm still unsure about the original paragraph (which I've left): It still seems out of place in an introduction.
What does anybody else think? Moonraker12 (talk) 07:41, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Displacement

This articles section on units of volume has:
“The displacement ton is a unit of volume used for describing the displacement of a ship. It represents the volume of water displaced by the hull. It is usually abbreviated as DT.”
while the Tonnage article has :
Displacement is the actual total weight of the vessel. It is often expressed in long tons or in metric tons, and is calculated simply by multiplying the volume of the hull below the waterline (ie. the volume of water it is displacing) by the density of the water”
I believe the Tonnage article is correct on this; can anyone concur? (or deny?) Moonraker12 (talk) 13:05, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Apparently, a displacement ton [2] (2,240 lb) is not the same as a ton, displacement (DT) [3] (35 cubic feet). SpinningSpark 17:47, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks! I’ve re-drafted the section accordingly. Moonraker12 (talk) 12:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)