Talk:Kilogram

Number formatting

These two edits to remove “virtually uneditable” HTML code is an unsupportable position and would harm the article. If you lack the skills necessary to deal with it, then don’t deal with it. All the HTML span tags in this article are properly implemented and properly closed. Such code is important so nearly difficult-to-parse numbers like 6.02214179 × 10²³ instead become properly formated, SI-compliant strings that appear like 6.02214179 × 10²³.

This is the same technique as is used in Natural logarithm where the first paragraph displays the number “2.718281828459”. Are you going to haul off to that article and “fix” that article too so the displayed value is “corrected” to the un-parsable abomination of 2.71828182845? Are you going to do this so you don’t have to look at HTML code that you don’t understand?

This issue of having to resort to span tags to delimit numeric strings is currently being addressed. The issue was thoroughly discussed here at Talk:MOSNUM (it’s an archive, don’t make changes there). The consensus at Talk:MOSNUM was to make a new parser function (template) that will automate the delimiting of numbers and the parser function is currently being written. Instead of the cumbersome span-based code, the upcoming parser function will enable editors to type {{delimitnum:6.02246479|30|23|kg}} in order to obtain the following: 6.02246479(30) × 10²³ kg. This article will among the first, if not the first, to use the parser function when it is available.

In the mean time, this article has been stable and for quite some time and is in no need of being rescued by well-intentioned editors. I seriously doubt either of you needed to alter any of the numeric values here so just edit around them in the mean time. Greg L (my talk) 08:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

First of all, calm down. There's no need to shout.

Second, it looks like MOS has outgrown its own purpose a bit lately. There is no way to make Wikipedia articles appear properly exactly right on everybody's screen and the attempts to do that usually end up causing problems for other users. If there's no standard way to achieve a visual effect you want, the best thing to do is to not have the visual effect.

The mess in the article sucks, and the benefits of having numbers spaced exactly according to the standard are negligible compared to it. And you don't need a special parser function to achieve the effect. Writing a template that can accomplish what you want is pretty much trivial. Zocky | picture popups 08:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• I am calm and I am not shouting. Your unfounded insinuation that I am does not establish you as a calm and wise voice of reason here. UPPERCASE is shouting. Underlining, as I did above, is for emphasis. You should learn computer etiquette before pretending to “correct” others. You have been a registered author for less than a year and are unqualified to make declarations like “the mess is unacceptable.” This article properly uses HTML code that is specifically supported by Wikipedia. Get familiar with it and stop deleting it wherever you encounter it. I provided links for you to read and your quick response betrays that you obviously didn’t take the time to read about what has transpired to address this issue. Greg L (my talk) 08:50, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

  P.S. Are you seriously suggesting that you are overruling a consensus on MOSNUM because you know better? Do you think that issues like getting a consistent look across many computer platforms, operating systems, and browser hasn’t been thoroughly explored? If so, then you are seriously in error; we even looked at how the delimiting method appears on an iPhone. Greg L (my talk) 09:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I hate when I'm forced to do this, but if you actually bother to check my contributions, you may learn that I've been around long enough (for far far longer than one year) to know "computer etiquette", and that I'm perfectly familiar with HTML. And on things like code readability, I believe I do know better than the regular commenter on MOS, but that's another story.

As for all that "transpired to address this issue" - instead of a lot of talking, somebody should have simply solved it. Here's one way (and I needed all of 30 seconds to write the template) :{{spaced|6.022|464|79(10)|×|10²³|kg}} -

. A more specific template could be made, but i doubt it would save any further typing, or confusion. Zocky | picture popups 09:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Well, I am impressed with your template skills. Tell me more about your template. How wide are the spaces? I see they are not non-breaking spaces but use pair-kerning-type effects. Greg L (my talk) 09:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The spaces are .3 em, as you appear to want them, and they're not "pair-kerning-type-effects", they're exactly the same spans that you inserted manually. Zocky | picture popups 09:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, after posting the above question, I realized that I only needed to go and look at your template. I see the 0.3-em spaces. I must profess that you did that astonishingly quickly. Please read the {delimitnum} archive page; there is much more to it. The spans must actually be 0.25 em to look good on Firefox, Explorer, and Safari. Spans of 0.3 em drive some readers crazy. Different browsers treat the number 0.25 differently; some resolve the 0.05-em increment (so 0.25 looks good for those users) and Safari rounds 0.25 up to 0.3 (which looks good for those users). Also, the span following the digit 1 must be 0.2 em to not appear like a regular space. All this is being addressed by a behind-the-scenes developer with the parser function. Can you wait until then? Greg L (my talk) 09:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Changing 0.3 to 0.25 is trivial. OTOH, changing the spaces after certain digit is wrong and should not be done. The fact that a space looks wider on your screen after "1" than after "2" is an artifact of the font you're using, and will look different on another person's screen, and will look incorrect in a font that's spaced correctly. Zocky | picture popups 09:27, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• (undetented) We’re not retarded Zocky. Yes, we know about things looking different to different people and we addressed all of this. You arrived late in this discussion. I’m on the Pacific coast of the U.S. and it is quite late. As you can see from an earlier discussion on Talk:MOSNUM, a great deal of give & take was required to keep everyone happy. Further, the progression of delimiting (to prevent a single dangling digit) and various other issues make this job best handled with a parser function. The hand-tuned values here look good to the various editors who participated in finding a solution. Thee of us e-mailed (bypassing Wikipedia) images of screen shots back and forth until we arrived at a solution that pulled opposing parties together. The beginnings of sharing those exchanges started here on my talk page. The hand-coded numeric strings don’t do end-of-line word wraps, look good, and are Excel-pasteable. Do you think we can leave them as is until the parser function from one of the Wikipedia developers arrives? Greg L (my talk) 09:44, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I have a better idea: we can just make the template. So I did, see {{delimitnum}}. Let's see if it works for your testcases:

• {{delimitnum|6.02214179|30|23|kg}}: Template:Delimitnum
• {{delimitnum|1579800.298728}}: Template:Delimitnum
• {{delimitnum|1.356392733||50|Hz}}: Template:Delimitnum
• {{delimitnum|0.45359237|||kg}}: Template:Delimitnum
• {{delimitnum|6.022461}}: Template:Delimitnum
• {{delimitnum|6.0224613}}: Template:Delimitnum
• {{delimitnum|6.02246134}}: Template:Delimitnum
• {{delimitnum|6.022461342}}: Template:Delimitnum

Seems to work alright, no? Zocky | picture popups 10:33, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Zocky, I am very impressed with your template-writing skills (and with the way you collaborate with other editors too). As you can see from looking at all that span code in the Kilogram article, I put a lot of effort into having good looking numeric values that are Excel pasteable. And by following your progress a bit last night, I could see you reacted to this situation by putting in an equal amount of time writing a damned good looking template that can be used not only here in this article, but elsewhere too.

  I just got up after about five hours of sleep and am still a bit blurry-eyed. I don’t mind giving you the honors of replacing many of this article’s numeric strings (there are a few fractions that might not take well to the treatment). My only concern is that every single number currently in the article has been quadruple-checked and is correct. If I make the change, I plan to take the article’s code to a text editor where I can do some global search & replace to ensure strings are properly converted to your new template without changing values. If you don’t mind, I’d really like to try this out. And I suppose having an extra set of “double-checking” eyes won’t hurt after all that work you put into the template. Unless you get to it first, I should have this article converted over in the next 24 hours in an incremental process. Congratulations and thanks again. Greg L (my talk) 17:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You may want to try User:Zocky/Search Box for that and do it right in the edit box (works only in FF). <disclaimer>There's a bug somewhere in it that appears very occasionally (I haven't tracked it down yet, but if "replace all" doesn't work correctly, try "replace and find next" repeatedly).</disclaimer> Zocky | picture popups 17:31, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Advisory to all: Zocky put a great deal of effort into this template. It now works and Kilogram has had all applicable numeric strings converted from the old hand-coded (<span>-based) method to the {{delimitnum}} template. The update resulted in a 2.07 kB reduction in article file size and made it much easier for other editors. What Zocky did is quite an accomplishment because other template authors said a function this complex couldn’t be done with a template and really required a parser function.

  The need and proper use of this template was thoroughly discussed here at Talk:MOSNUM (it’s an archive, don’t make changes there). The near-unanimous consensus was that official MOSNUM policy should be that numeric values with five or more digits to the right of the decimal marker should be formated via this template. For those considering its use, you might brush up on the nuances of how and why it should be used at the above-mentioned archive. In a nutshell though, it allows editors to type {{delimitnum|6.02246479|30|23|kg}} in order to obtain the following: Template:Delimitnum. Thanks again Zocky. Greg L (my talk) 02:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Spans and closed span tags

Everything there was done for a reason and was done properly. If CSS spans are not supposed to be closed, that is news to me. The occasional small spans are to keep some instances of italicized text from crowding into reference numbers. It makes the articles look better and any editor worth his salt can easily comprehend why they are there. As for closing spans with “</span>”, this is the proper way to do it. See Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Archive_94#Continuing_Discussion.2C_specifically_regarding_latest_nutshell_proposal and locate the relevant discussion portion by searching on this text string: “Shouldn't the span tags be closed”.

To save you the effort though, here is a quote from that discussion:

“ Closing all span tags is mandatory in both XHTML and HTML. MediaWiki lets you get away with doing the wrong thing because it automatically closes open span and div tags on final rendering of the page (in natural logarithm, it closed them at the end of the paragraph). This is not a standard (X)HTML feature and I believe not even a 100% standard MediaWiki feature (MW will automatically close some tags some times but not others, depending on settings and extensions), so other MediaWiki projects may puke on the same input. I have adjusted natural logarithm to remove this issue, although I don't love the notion of using spans in this way. — Aluvus t/c 01:26, 16 February 2008 (UTC) ”

Splarka, if span tags are not supposed to be closed, please prove it. In fact, I proved for myself that in certain circumstances, Wikipedia isn’t forgiving and if I left unclosed span tags active, the next paragraph had the beginning of its first line indented 0.25-em. Only after that new paragraph would the span cancel itself. Other weird effects can happen if you don’t close spans with a like number of close-spans. This is good practice according to Aluvus (above quote) and from my own experience.

If you don’t believe me, check out this example text copied from Kilogram but where I stripped out the close-spans from the numeric delimiting:

In everyday usage, the mass of an object in kilograms is often referred to as its weight, although strictly speaking the weight of an object is the gravitational force on it, measured in newtons (see also Kilogram-force). Similarly, the avoirdupois pound, used in both the Imperial system and U.S. customary units, is a unit of mass and its related unit of force is the pound-force. The avoirdupois pound is defined as exactly 0.45359237 kg, making one kilogram approximately equal to 2.205 avoirdupois pounds.

Many units in the SI system are defined relative to the kilogram so its stability is important. After the International Prototype Kilogram had been found to vary in mass over time, the International Committee for Weights and Measures (known also by its French-language initials CIPM) recommended in 2005 that the kilogram be redefined in terms of fundamental constants of nature.

Note how this paragraph and the second paragraph above both have indented beginnings due to two unclosed span tags from the preceeding paragraph propogating through. All spans in the article are there for a reason and all spans must be closed. Please stop deleting them. Greg L (my talk) 08:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Uh...glossary?

I don't think the glossary section is needed; isn't that what Wiktionary is for? Besides, Wikipedia's an encyclopedia, not a book. I've never seen an encyclopedia with a glossary at the end of every article. Wouldn't wikilinks take care of any confusion about meanings? --Gawaxay (talk • contribs • count) 22:24, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

• This article had been edited by a good half-dozen editors for a long time and no one even raised the issue once; its virtues are obvious. I think you are framing the question the wrong way. Instead of whether you’ve seen it before in Wikipedia, the question should be “does it serve a good purpose and is it a good thing?” Fine, you don’t think so. However, the discipline of metrology uses terminology unique to the field. The word “prototype” for instance, has a vastly different meaning to engineers and machine designers vs. what people who specialize in the kilogram understand it to mean. It makes absolutely no sense to direct readers to an all-purpose, separate venue (Wiktionary) to look up words that have multiple, discipline-dependent meanings when a glossary with the precise, very specific meaning(s) can be imbedded right where they’re needed. Even within the field of metrology and the kilogram, the word “prototype” has three possible meanings. Trying to shoehorn all these nuanced, application-specific meanings into a general-purpose tool like Wiktionary is no way to do things.

  Note too that the definitions in the glossary are internally referential. For instance, a term like “Primary national standard” can mean “A replica of the IPK possessed by a nation.”  Well, what is a “replica” and what is the “IPK”? With the glossary, reader can instantly see these other definitions. With Wiktionary, you’d be bouncing around forever and would have to keep written notes to keep in all straight. Either that, or you’d have to have exceptionally long definitions in Wiktionary so that every unique term in the definition was itself further defined. Clearly, that is not a suitable approach. The terms used by those in professional metrology constitutes a little subset language of its own and has to be grouped together in one convenient place if you want to make it easiest for readers to quickly and conveniently understand it all. If you read beyond the section heading (“Glossary”) and take the time to read and understand the definitions and interdependencies, its virtues are obvious on the face of it. The hidden editors note at the top of the current glossary conveys this point well enough:

“ <!-- NOTE TO EDITORS: This section is not intended to be all-inclusive. It comprises only those words and terms with very specific and/or unique meanings in the discipline of mass metrology. --> ”

Greg L (my talk) 01:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

No longer a B-class article

This article has been greatly improved in the past year or so, and I think it should now be classified as an A class article. Personally, I think that the language is a still a bit dense in places, that the "Stability of the International Prototype Kilogram" and "Importance of the kilogram" sections have too much in common, that there are far too many comments for editors in the text, and that some of the notes are far too long and conversational. However, this really is a good article, and, while having B-class vital articles is a bad thing, I don't think that this article reflects poorly on Wikipedia at all. In fact, I think it reflects very well on Wikipedia. We can just list the article as "A" class in the Wikiproject Physics project, if others agree with me. I took a look at the Version 1.0 page, and I'm not sure what needs to be done to re-class the article for those purposes.

The next thing to do to improve this article is a Wikipedia peer review, and then it should be nominated to be a good article. If this route is taken, it makes sense to wait to re-class the article until after the peer review.

However, I'm not willing to spend the time and energy to shepherd this article through those processes, and I don't think I've corrected any vandalism or improved edits on this article in a long time (I just did a quick read through and a few edits), so I'm planning on removing this article from my watch list.

Suffice to say that kilogram doesn't need my help any more! - Enuja (talk) 02:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• I’m pleased you feel that way Enuja. As for nominations of any sort, I don’t look forward to that at all. It doesn’t benefit readers much that I can tell. In my opinion, “good article” is principally a gold star for some authors to feel good about themselves and maybe some other reasons that only certain long-time editors might appreciate. Personally, just going through the Featured Picture nomination process (one win, one loss) was so thoroughly distasteful that I never want to do it again. Featured Picture is simply a venue that some—I’m not saying all—editors use as a soap box to stand on and show what good taste they have by demonstrating how damned critical they can be of ridiculously trivial points (like “it was saved as a JPEG, and not a blankety-blank file type). I think I’d just as soon put on tire chains on a summit pass in a blizzard laying on my back in slush with frozen fingers (I did that once), than watch—or worse yet—participate in some sort of peer review.

  Simply knowing that my efforts have contributed to winning you over as an admirer of this article is all the reward I need. You’ve been tough and critical and have forced me to keep my text as tight and succinct as possible. This article, and Wikipedia in turn, has benefited from your input. I hope we can just leave it at that.

  I’m glad that you don’t have the energy to shepherd Kilogram through the peer review process. I’m heading into a 12-pig study on a medical device here in a few weeks and don’t need an enjoyable hobby turned into a energy-sapping nightmare. Suffice to say, my energy level for shepherding this article through the peer review process is between zero and reciprocal-infinity. Greg L (my talk) 02:58, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I just noticed that the assessment scale page I was looking at is actually at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment so, yeah, as involved editors we can certainly change the rating of the article ourselves to "A", so that's what I've done. I'll argue that rating articles as not needing radical revision is really important. In other words since this article is much better, it should be classified as an A class instead of a B class article. I honestly couldn't care less about GA or FA status for this article, even though I might want the shiny button of shepharding an article to FA status someday, it will be an article that I have more personal interest in the subject of. - Enuja (talk) 04:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

• Very good. Cheers. Greg L (my talk) 07:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Location of SI multiples section

I only have one major reason to put the SI multiples section at the end of the article; it isn't readable. It's not part of the narrative of the article. It's a section people should go to for reference, not something to read in a narrative flow. Essentially, I think having the section near the top of the article will prevent most readers from actually reading the article. They'll get to that section and figure that if the article already has devolved to the point of being an informational table with notes that it isn't worth reading any more.

On the formatting; if images are large, there will not be enough text to fill the spaces between them, no matter how long the text is. So, following the recommendation in the manual of style, I've removed the pixel specification on all of the images except the lead image and the graph (which would be unreadable in a smaller size). If readers want to see the full glory of the image, they can allows follow the link. There are some seriously wonky formatting problems with images sometimes, but having the next section start before the image from the previous section has ended is, not, to me, a serious formatting issue. I've reduced the size of the caption (you know, made it short and sweet, like I do). It takes a fairly wide window to get the formatting "problem" now, but I don't really think it's a problem. The SI multiples section has a short bit of text and then the centered table, so the image from the previous section is actually making the formatting more pleasing to me. I also don't think there is anything wrong with six paragraphs without images.

Because GregL invited me to change the article back again if I had a strong reason, and I wanted to show my suggested formatting changes, I've done the edit. Don't worry, I'll keep this article watched until this spate of collaboration settles down. - Enuja (talk) 20:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

A precise and controlled 5:1 reduction in size (264 pixels wide) in a high-contrast image like this results in a very attractive, tack-sharp image.

180, 200, 250, or 300-pixel widths (depending on user preference settings), make high contrast images with fine details look fuzzy. Here, a 250-pixel user preference is illustrated. It is close to the 264-pixel width but isn’t an exact integer divisor (±1 pixel) of the original image’s 1319-pixel file size.

* That’s fine Enuja. Rational reasons implemented to good effect. I revised (and necessarily slightly expanded) the caption. The photo of the Meissner effect would amount to little more than pretty decoration if the caption doesn't truly enhance the reader’s understanding of the experiment. Since you’ve been working on the Kilogram article for a long time and you didn’t understand the nature of the actual experiment, then there were undoubtedly many other readers getting it wrong too. Greg L (my talk) 22:25, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. One of the Japanese experimenters’ big problems was magnetic hystereis due to flux trapping at the edges of the material and asymetrical forces. They also had problems keeping track of sideways or tilting motions. Even the helium gas adhering to the mass at the low temperatures was a significant correction. There are some others now trying to do levitation a bit differently. Unfortunately, I haven’t received any information or published papers on these newer experiments. Greg L (my talk) 22:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

P.P.S. As you can see, I left all your changes to picture size alone except for one, for reasons illustrated above. Besides, this particular image is mostly decorative and there’s plenty of room in that section for it—regardless of window width. The picture is supposed to have an effect at an intuitive, almost emotional level: electricity and light beams being affected by a hunk of metal. It's better when the picture really pops. Greg L (my talk) 23:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

“So far lost” (days elapsed times factor)

I’ve provided this mostly for my own personal interest but it should be of interest for others. At Importance of the kilogram, there is a paragraph showing how the IPK has “likely already lost 8.2 micrograms.”  That number is a template-generated, auto-updating value that will eventually increment in the near future. Shown below is that value with excess precision so one can see when it is getting close to incrementing another count:

“ Since the third periodic verification 35 years ago, the IPK has likely already lost (relative to the average of the worldwide ensemble of its replicas) 8.1949858 µg. This value currently rounds to, and is displayed in the article as, 8.2 µg. ”

To save you the trouble of having to click on [edit], the template is coded as {{days elapsed times factor|1989|7|1|0.0006434|1}}, which parses as {{ Days elapsed times factor | Year | Month | Day | Factor | Decimal places }}. Essentially, this template increments the value one count every 155 days. As of this writing, the value will increment from 4.5 to 4.6 at 00:00 on 10 Nov 2008 (UTC). Many thanks to Random832 for this template.

Greg L (talk) 21:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed article split

I'd like to split the "Proposed future definitions" section into its own article, perhaps "Proposed definitions of the kilogram". The new article would be able to focus entirely on the various theoretical possibilities, and this article would become smaller and more focussed on the practical aspect of the unit. Thoughts? Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 18:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• SheffieldSteel, there would be quite a lot of overlap between two separate articles that talk about the existing kilogram (the IPK) and the alternative definitions because they are so intertwined. It’s easy enough to simply not read the last section of the Kilogram article rather than either 1) duplicate the Stability…, Importance of the kilogram, and Glossary sections across the two articles, or 2) put what would amount to a “Continue to page 2” link directing a reader to an article discussing only the alternative definitions kilograms. Besides, the entire Mass versus weight used to be part of Kilogram at one point (I wrote most of that). A lot of other editors weighed in (no pun intended) on moving that section to a separate article and all seemed to be quite content with the content of Kilogram after that split. When you think about it, the topic of mass v.s. weight really can—and should—be an stand-alone article. But given all the lead up required to explain the need for the new definitions of the kilogram, it would be awkward to bifurcate what is really a single topic. Greg L (my talk) 23:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That's perfectly okay. I wasn't about to climb the Reichstag over this. I just wondered if 'new definitions' was actually a separate topic. Sheffield Steel^talk_stalk 21:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Le Grand K

There as been a bit of a Revert War between Greg L and me over my insertion of "Le Grand K". Greg claims the following when I said it is used in other parts of the English-speaking world: "As a matter of fact, I DO know that the rest of the English-speaking world doesn't use that terminology. Please read ALL the below-cited references and stop reading too much into the LA Times". A rather silly statement, if you ask me. No one on the planet, expert in linguistics or otherwise, could make such a claim. And the claim is verifiably false. A simple Google search will yield hundreds (maybe even thousands) of _English_ articles written by professionals (journalists and academics) and published in respected and/or well-circulated newspapers, journals, etc (and not just the "LA Times", which I rarely, if ever, read). I must say that I am surprised that I would have to debate this with a seemingly seasoned editor. The reasons for keeping "Le Grand K" in the article should be obvious and there are thousands of examples all over the English Wikipedia to give precedent. Look at any country article and you will see both the English name and the local language name (and any other variation) of the country in question. Look at the list of French phrases many of us use in every day English to see that calling the IPK "Le Grand K" is not unique or unheard of. It is very much used in the English-speaking circles I move in (academics). One of my professors (from America) used it in our Physical Chemistry class (and never mentioned "IPK"). If someone reads or hears "Le Grand K" in an English setting and wants to look it up in Wikipedia, I doubt they will turn to the French version of the kilogram article. Le Grand K should stay. --Thorwald (talk) 23:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

• The issue is notability and relevance of the citations. You are throwing around wild generalizations about how common it is in the English language but I see no citations. Not a single one of the publications from the BIPM, NIST, CGPM and the Journal of Research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and elsewhere that were cited in this article use Le Grand K. That is an French-language term. I don’t care what your professor used in a lecture. Cite a notable English-language scientific paper that uses it. I’ll leave your addition in on the assumption that you’ll find something. Greg L (talk) 00:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I never wrote that it was in "common use". I simply stated that it has appeared in many newspapers (LA Times, BBC, Wired Science, Science Daily, Space Daily, Sandia National Laboratories: Highbeam Research, Photonics, Baltimore Sun, etc., etc.) and journals (including the very prestigious "Science" journal). References of "notable English-language scientific [papers]" include:

    Kestenbaum D (1998). Recipe for a Kilogram. Science, 280(5365):823-824. doi:10.1126/science.280.5365.823

    Walker G (2004). A Most Unbearable Weight. Science, 304(5672):812-813. doi:10.1126/science.304.5672.812

    Schaub B (1999). Weight of the world rests on le grand K (kilogram). Equinox, 17(102):38 (supplement)

  I could go on and on with many more references (all in English), but I think you get the point and could have done the research yourself. It is easy to throw around your "hogwash" statements, but they hold no sway on me. Every time you remove it, I shall restore it. There are many, many French-language terms most English-speakers use every day and they appear in the English Wikiepdia. --Thorwald (talk) 01:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

• Fine. I agree. Due to that term’s not-infrequent use in English-language articles directed to a general-interest readership, it is appropriate to mention that it is also known as the Le Grand K. Greg L (talk) 01:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Possible Source Error

They concluded that one cubic decimeter of water at its maximum density was equal to 99.92072% of the mass of the provisional kilogram made four years earlier. - There may be an error in the original source here. Will someone please check me on this reasoning -- For two equal volumes of equal types of matter at different temperatures, the volume of the higher density will contain more mass. Therefore, one liter of water at maximum density (~4c) should have more mass than one liter of water at maximum temperature stability (~0c). The source states instead that the higher density (4c) equal volume of water has 99.92072% the mass of one liter at (0c). (it "weighs less"). Could the original source have these ratio inverted? Thanks. Drakcap (talk) 03:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• Indeed, I hadn’t noticed that. Either the researchers who made the provisional kilogram in 1795 were off by quite a bit, or the cited source has their percentage reciprocated. The density of water at 0 °C is 999.8395 kg/m³ and at 3.984 °C, is 999.97495 kg/m³. So one would expect that if the researchers had accurately made the provisional kilogram to equal a cubic decimeter of water at its ice point, a cubic decimeter of water at 4 °C would have a mass that is 100.013547% that of the provisional kilogram. The reciprocal of this is 99.98645% (compare to the cited 99.92072%). The linked Web site cites Richard Steiner (who is currently working on the watt balance for the NIST) and Dr. Terry Quinn, who used to head the BIPM and who authored a book on the kilogram; these are two heavy hitters on the kilogram and I’ve e-mailed them both many times during the writing of this article. I just e-mailed Dr. Quinn about this. My guess is that since it was a “provisional” kilogram that was just banged out without the benefit of any of the years of research on the true density of water, it simply hadn’t been made accurately. If that proves to be the case, I’ll expand the footnote to clarify this point. Thanks. Greg L (talk) 20:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• I just e-mailed Dr. Quinn again. He was busy the first time and just heading out the door and I think he forgot. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Greg L (talk) 22:18, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• There. Addressed (here in note #8). It was a crappy earlier measurement of the density of 0 °C water that lead to an over-weight provisional kilogram. Greg L (talk) 19:53, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Historical concerns about stability of standard weights

I found this 1910 article about a test in which the US standard troy pound was found to have increased in mass by .007 grain (450 µg/1.2 ppm) and it made me think that it might be useful to add a brief section about the historical perspective of concerns about mass standards losing or gaining mass - anyone know if there are any similarly old articles concerning the kilogram itself? --Random832 (contribs) 14:46, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• “It might be useful to add a brief section about the historical perspective of concerns about mass standards losing or gaining mass” Random832, have you read the current article? I would think that Stability of the International Prototype Kilogram would be enough of a treatment on the subject of instability in mass standards. The current treatment begins in 1889. Greg L (talk) 17:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

• P.S. The scientists in 1910 declared the proper, scientifically valid conclusion: the 0.007-grain change in documented mass was “negligible” and within the tolerances. Further, the New York Times’ headline that it “gained weight” was not in error, unlike what has recently been reported in the popular press that the IPK “lost 50 µg”. As the NY Times article correctly pointed out, the pound standard that was being weighed in 1910 was A) made of brass that had seriously oxidized and had never been polished or cleaned. It was now a slightly purple, smokey deep green. And B) it was being weighed for the first time relative to new mass standards at what is today the NIST and those standards had without a doubt been calibrated relative to K4, the U.S.’s platinum-iridium prototype, which had been allocated to the U.S. in 21 years earlier 1889. Further, the brass pound standard was being weighed on a then-new, highly accurate type of scale, the Rueprecht Balance. The only conclusions that could be made is that 1) due to obvious oxidation, the brass standard must certainly have gained some mass after first being manufactured (an issue that was obvious and clear at that time), and 2) exactly how much it gained can not be known with any certainty since no calibration trail to a single, highly stable mass artifact had been maintained and no mass comparison could be made to an invariant of nature at the necessary level of precision. Accordingly, it can not correctly be stated that the pound artifact gained 0.007 grain, only that its documented mass changed by that amount. Greg L (talk) 17:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Milligram

Just letting you know that Milligram redirects here, when it would be better if it redirects to gram. :) Intothewoods29 (talk) 20:32, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Mass is the only dimension where the base SI unit has a prefix - so we have seconds, metres, and kilograms. While it seems strange, this is the right article for other unit articles to link to. That's my understanding anyway. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Though either Kilogram or Gram would work fine with me, the more complete article (Kilogram) is probably better. Although I must say, typing “milligram” and ending up on an article as if one had typed “kilogram” does seem a bit strange compared to just leaving off the prefix and going to the root unit “gram”. But I also see that “centigram” redirects here too. So for consistency, completeness, and since—as SheffieldStee wrote above—the kilogram is actually the base unit of mass for the SI system (notwithstanding that it has a prefix as part of its name), it’s probably better to redirect here. Greg L (talk) 03:58, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Citation template linking to year

Hi Greg! You're really doing excellent work here! I did end up reverting one of your edits, though: I put back the book citation template for the Hall citation, even though it produces a link to the year 1964. Citation templates make it easier to keep a uniform citation style throughout Wikipedia, and greatly ease updates to citation style. If you don't think it's appropriate to link bare years in citations, that is a reasonable point of view, and one for which I have much sympathy, but one which should really be sorted out at Template:cite book. --Slashme (talk) 11:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you for the ‘ata boy.’ As regards the cite template, very well. I responded in depth on your talk page here. Greg L (talk) 03:49, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I figured it out: use "year" instead of "date" as the parameter and it doesn't get linked. --Slashme (talk) 05:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

• Fabulous. Thanks. I appreciate your valuable edits and help here. Greg L (talk) 21:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Alloy designations

LeadSongDog, thanks for your help. But as a card-carrying member of ASM (formerly known as the American Society for Metals), I am quite certain there is no percent sign in alloy designations, such as the ubiquitous titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V. But your edit speaks to how cryptic terminology shouldn’t be introduced abruptly without proper introduction. I have revised to better lead into the notation. If readers are to be introduced to the world of metallurgy, they need to be properly exposed to the most basic terminology metalurgists use.

As of this morning, here is the ∆ to Kilogram as a result of your, my, and Tifoo’s efforts over a period of only 17 hours. The article slowly gets better and better. It gives one a real appreciation for how the experts can put together huge professional encyclopedias in perma-ink on paper and have so few errors. Greg L (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The cited source, describing the "International Prototype and Prototypes Numbered 1 to 63", says it this way:

“ On the advice of H. Sainte-Claire Deville an alloy of platinum-10 per cent iridium by weight was chosen for the international prototypes of both the metre and the kilogram. ”

It's more or less readable from a google OCR'd scan: [1]LeadSongDog (talk) 19:43, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

• Sure. We’re both right. When describing and discussing alloy contents, which this article does in three places, it is perfectly OK to use percents and the percent symbol; for instance where it says “…which is 90% platinum and 10% iridium (by weight)”. All I’m saying is that when one uses the “Pt-10Ir” alloy-style notation of metallurgists, one leaves off the percent symbols. It is not “Pt-10%Ir” nor is it “Ti-6%Al-4%V”; it’s not done that way in metallurgy. Greg L (talk) 20:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Understood, but we're writing for a general readership, not just for metallurgy historians who know the notation forms used in the 1870s and today;/) The source gives the metallurgy some human dimension. Given that the choice of alloy is now (retrospectively) seen as possibly contributing to mass drift (due to airborne Hg affinity) an attribution may be of interest to readers. You be the judge.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

• The two existing citations I provided to that paper (#11 as of this writing), are cited in a paragraph that already uses the plain-speak you are advocating:

The IPK is made of a platinum alloy known as “Pt‑10Ir”, which is 90% platinum and 10% iridium (by weight) and is machined into a right-circular cylinder (height = diameter) of 39.17 mm to minimize its surface area.^[1]

1. ^ New Techniques in the Manufacture of Platinum-Iridium Mass Standards, T. J. Quinn, Platinum Metals Rev., 1986, 30, (2), pp. 74–79

This sort of plain-speak (with the percentages spelled out using the % symbol) are used later in the article too. It is only later on in the article that the succinct, metallurgist-style notation “Pt‑10Ir” are used. And they are used only after a proper introduction (twice). But when they are used, they are shown in their proper form (without percentage symbols), just like Ti‑6Al‑4V. Note too that if one is within a lengthy list of alloys of a particular element—such as within a handbook of titanium alloys—one dispenses with the preceding “Ti” and just writes “6Al‑4V” (pronounced as “six ay el four vee”). This article isn’t a lengthy discussion of various platinum alloys so it wouldn’t be appropriate to just describe the alloy as simply “10Ir” here.

I am only saying that it is great to write “90% platinum and 10% iridium” in the article (which it does), but where it uses the succinct metallurgist-style notation, we mustn’t bastardize them with percent symbols. That’s all. Greg L (talk) 18:36, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I just realized that I never replied on this. It looks reasonable. Thank you for the explication.LeadSongDog (talk) 19:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

lowercase "kilogram" vice "Kilogram"

It was recently put by user:Indefatigable that upper case is perfectly acceptible in the title. I would argue that even if it is, lowercase is the better and more appropriate choice to avoid misleading readers into thinking it is always in capitals.LeadSongDog (talk) 19:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• LeadSongDog, if this article was an island all by itself, I wouldn’t much care if it the article title was capitalized or not (Kilogram or kilogram). Were it me defining how Wikipedia ought to work, I might have done it like World Book, which puts article titles in all uppercase. However, this is Wikipedia and it has its own conventions for doing things. With very rare exception, Wikipedia article titles are capitalized. Why? Because MOS:Article titles says this on the issue:

• The initial letter of a title is capitalized (except in very rare cases, such as eBay). Otherwise, capital letters are used only where implied by normal capitalization rules (Funding of UNESCO projects, not Funding of UNESCO Projects).

I note too, this notable exception: iPhone is also not capitalized. So your edit begs this question: is “kilogram” a special case like “eBay” and “iPhone” are? I think Indefatigable is clearly correct here. The article title has long been capitalized and I hadn’t noticed that you changed it seven days ago. Your argument, that this article should be an exception to the rule to avoid misleading readers into thinking that “kilogram” should always be capitalized doesn’t withstand scrutiny since virtually all article titles on Wikipedia are capitalized. Further, the second word of the body text makes it clear that that the proper unit name is not capitalized. I see no compelling reason (not even a non-compelling one) that this article’s title should be any different from that used for Gram, Newton, and Pound (mass). Oh… and Kilometer, which I see you had changed too. Greg L (talk) 02:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Capitalizing the article title. And “why does this article use “meter” v.s. “metre?”

That same section first says

Article titles should conform to Wikipedia's naming conventions, including "Use English".

So consulting naming conventions we find this instruction to consult major dictionaries. Going to the three suggested and searching for the caps version using US spelling we find ([2] [3] [4]) consistent use of lowercase in preference to caps. Also, checking Britannica Online we find the same thing. We also find that Britannica and Oxford speak directly to the existence of the alternative US spelling "-er" whereas Webster and American Heritage omit mention of the "-re" spelling. What justifies us inventing custom behaviour for WP? LeadSongDog (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• Sheesh, you are nothing if not persistent LeadSongDog. Wasn’t our first go around here on my talk page convincing enough for you?

  First issue: Using sentence-case for the article title. This issue has to do with the sentence-case used for the article title: “Kilogram” and not “kilogram”. You changed it and then Indefatigable changed it back. We discussed this but you’re here again, with “proof” that this article’s title should be lowercase because the various dictionaries you’ve cited above show the word is not capitalized. That’s absurd.

  The word “kilogram” is not a proper noun and is not capitalized unless it starts a sentence or is being used as a rubric in title-case, sentence-case, or all-cap. My print edition of the World Book dictionary uses all-caps for entires. I’ve yet to find anyone who is confused by World Book and thinks all words are supposed to be spelled out in uppercase, like “KILOGRAM”. Wikipedia’s article titles use sentence capitalization (Kilogram). Do you think this practice is unwise because it’s confusing to some special breed of moron that frequents Wikipedia?

  Don’t complain to me and stop hounding way on this issue; I didn’t set the convention used on Wikipedia. Why are you even arguing this point here? Do you think someone died and made me Boss, with the power to influence Wikipedia’s article title style convention? We’re not going to have you wading into Wikipedia’s Kilogram and Kilometre articles and changing them all to lowercase^[5][6] (so they join the ranks of the special exceptions like eBay and iPhone). They are not exceptions to the rule. And all your citings above, showing that the word is lower-case is absurd; this is strictly an issue of the convention used in article titles.

  So let’s examine the wisdom of Wikipedia’s convention. One could legitimately ask “Is Wikipedia’s convention inconvenient because it obscures proper nouns?” Perhaps. But the second word in the body text makes it clear as glass that the word is not a proper noun. So no one with an I.Q. bigger than their shoe size is going to be confused. I see no need to change Wikipedia’s convention and the effort to do so certainly isn’t going to start here. End of story.

  Then the second issue: The spelling of words like “meter” and “liter” in the Kilogram article. Why use American English? Just one reason LeadSongDog: Because according to MOS:Consistency:

If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style. When it is unclear whether an article has been stable, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

So let’s establish some facts. Has this article been stable using one dialect of English? This is the first version of the Kilogram article. Note the spelling of “liter” (not litre) and “gram” (not gramme); the article was first written in American English. That author, User:Mike dill is an American. Then let’s examine whether I have been a major contributor. This is what the article looked like on 8 March 2007, just before I started revising it. At that time, it was small, was organized like a piece of crap, had only one illustration, and had too many errors to shake a stick at—some of them glaring. And here is what it looked like 227 days later, on 21 October 2007. So I am the the first major contributor to the current version. I am American and use American English. Therefore, per MOS, the article has been stable in a given style, and I am the first major contributor. On both counts, this article, according to MOS guidelines, should stay as it is.

The second issue to be explored is whether “meter” and “kilometer” are American-English spellings. Note that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision)#Conflicts over precision mentions that editors should look towards the “most authoritative” encyclopedias, including American Heritage. Well, I happen to own the full, unabridged version of American Heritage Dictionary. It states this regarding “metre”:

---

metre

n. Chiefly British

  Variant of meter.

---

and under “meter”, it says this:

---

meter

n. Abr. m

  The international standard unit of length, approximately equal… [blah, blah, etc.].

---

I also own World Book Dictionary, and Webster’s New World College Dictionary. Same spelling in those too.

OK, so maybe you might concede that the unit is spelled “meter” in American English but you might argue that this doesn’t prove it’s a *correct* or *proper* practice. Well… please note that when it comes to how the unit is officially spelled in the the U.S., the NIST follows the practices prescribed in the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual, which follows the country-wide practices observed in the U.S.: “meter”. At the NIST Guide to the SI, it states as follows:

• the spelling of English-language words - for example, "meter," "liter," and "deka" are used instead of "metre," "litre," and "deca" - is in accordance with the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual [3], which follows Webster's Third New International Dictionary rather than the Oxford Dictionary used in many English-speaking countries. This spelling also reflects recommended United States practice (see Secs. C.1 and C.5);

Now, I pointed this out to you earlier on my talk page. I quoted the above text from the NIST Guide to the SI explaining how for British-dialect English, an example dictionary to look to would be the Oxford Dictionary. And for American-dialect English, one would look to a dictionary like Webster's Third New International Dictionary. Yet here your are again, harping on this same issue. This debate is entirely unnecessary.

Clearly, the NIST simply follows the BIPM with regard to definitions, and observes common U.S. practices when it comes to spelling. Once again, this is clearly a dialect issue and nothing more. It is not an issue of right or wrong. If you want to change MOS policy, go lobby to have it changed on WT:MOS. Personally, I think the current policy is wise, as it encourages editors to roll up their sleeves and make meaningful contributions and it prohibits editors from wading into articles that others have slaved over just to change spelling on some words because they think their dialect of English should hold dominion over planet Earth. Such editwarring was found to be discouraging and took much of the fun out of the hobby of contributing to Wikipedia.

Now… Please stop hounding away on this issue, arguing that, somehow, British English is the only dialect of English that is *correct*, and that British English is the only dialect that isn’t confusing on Wikipedia, and that the only *official* spellings are British English, which have been beatified by the Pope and anointed with holy oils. The British weren’t even involved in inventing the meter; the translations from French are purely a matter of style. Do you think you should get your way because you guys have James Bond?

Finally, your last rhetorical question in your post above, “What justifies us inventing custom behaviour for WP?” is utterly fallacious. In case you haven’t yet figured it out, I am not inventing the spellings “kilogram”, “meter”, nor “liter” (or for that matter “behavior”, “color”, and “realize”). And if you think titling this article “Kilogram” (uppercase) is “custom behavior”, then I think I’ll back away slowly (*sound of uncomfortable side-step shuffling*)  and go back to my universe now… Greg L (talk) 02:01, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Let's just back up a moment here. First off, I'll thank you for your recognition of persistence, coming from a master such as yourself. However, your assumption that I'm British is incorrect (although I have visited there for about two weeks of my life, I've spent waaaay more time in the US, both physically and virtually present.) I recognize the fact that you have been the largest contributor to this article, which is the main reason for engaging so much energy in this discussion with you. I'd like to pursuade you that there is merit in having systemic consistency across the SI metrology articles, not just within this one. Clearly I got off on the wrong foot with my edits, but that doesn't mean I should give it up.

The "-re" spellings are used in (nearly?) every major version of English except US English, including Indian English, Pakistani English, South African English, Australian English, and Canadian English, not to mention being used in the original French text of the Convention (albeit with an accent and with allcaps title). The American Heritage Dictionary may be an authority on American English, and I am impressed that you took the time to compare the print version, but clearly it is not a principal authority on other variations of English. To reciprocate, I'll consult my Concise Oxford, where I find

meter¹ n., & v.t. 1. n. person or thing that measures esp. instrument for recording quantity supplied (GAS, WATER, meter) or present (humidity meter) or needed (exposure meter); = PARKing-meter, TAXIMETER; ~maid, woman employed to report offences gainst parking-meter regulations. 2. v.t. measure by meter. [ME, f. METE + -ER]
*meter^2,3. See METRE^1,2

Perhaps that makes it a little clearer why the "meter" spelling is such a precarious matter for English-speaking aliens? ;/)As I've tried to make clear, it's not a question of style per se, but of unnecessary ambiguity. In regards to the use of caps, if you check pages that link to Template:Lowercase you'll see that there are over 4000 of them, including many technical terms and SI prefixes (from yocto- to yotta-). The kilo- article varies from the pattern, and even from wikt:kilo-, which uses lowercase. (You'll note that I had nothing to do with that Wiktionary entry.) See also Talk:Peta-, another article with which I had nothing to do. Lowercase is both the correct, standard-compliant form and the conventional thing to do here. If we look to US sources, page 8 of "63 FR 40334-40340" has

3. When the name of a unit is spelled out, it is always written with a lowercase initial letter unless it begins a sentence. (my emphasis)

examine page 18 of NIST's SP330, we see how they neatly avoided using unit names as section titles by adopting the formulation "Unit of mass (kilogram)". That approach might cut the Gordian knot on the use of caps in the title, but it isn't exactly in line with WP practice for article titles either. LeadSongDog (talk) 22:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I think you've hit the nail on the head, LeadSongDog. WP has a practice for the capitalization of article titles, you can find it at WP:NAME#Lowercase: first word always capitalized, second and subsequent words in lower case unless they would otherwise be capitalized in a normal English sentence (eg, proper nouns, trade marks, other exceptions). {{Lowercase}} was introduced to deal with hard cases such as eBay or pH – it may become more standard practice in the future (Wiktionary has always had lowercase titles), but it hasn't yet. Insisting on a lower case first letter for kilogram, an article titled with a (very) common noun, is simply WP:POINT. You should take this discussion to WT:NC. Physchim62 (talk) 22:28, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• LeadSongDog. Ok, I understand. There are many dialects of English, such as Pakistani English and only one (American English) has a word with a dual meaning that spells the international unit of length identically to the measuring instrument. Fortunately, this article doesn’t use the word “meter” to mean the measuring instrument; the word here has only one meaning: the unit of length. Across the entire Wikipedia project, I don’t see this as a relative shortcoming however; I’m quite certain that American English isn’t the only dialect that has words with dual meanings.

  Whereas I do see some virtue in keeping dialect consistency across metrology-related articles on Wikipedia, I see the virtues as tenuous. Just as compelling an argument can be made that Americans—who are slowly being dragged kicking & screaming into the metric system—shouldn’t have to wonder if they’ve been redirected to a British version of Wikipedia when they try to research an article on the kilogram (“you realise, of course, that you should take your colourful, ten-kilogramme, two-metre-long bouquet and store it in the boot).” I think we all really should be a bit more tolerant of everyone else’s dialects, with their quirky homonyms and words that have dual meanings. I think the confusion you are alluding to is A) a two-way street, and B) is a problem that is more imaginary than real. Greg L (talk) 02:29, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• Nice. How about "you are aware that your beautiful 2 m flowers would be safer stowed than carried inside the cab?" It's usually not that difficult to find a usage that end-runs the homonyms...;/) Anyhow, in light of your wish to see this discussion go elsewhere, I've posed the caps question at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Measurement. If you feel like continuing it, that is probably a more appropriate venue. Perhaps we can agree to let the "-er" vs "-re" question stand on the back burner for now. LeadSongDog (talk) 17:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Good article nomination

I think I'm sufficiently uninvolved on this article to nominate it for WP:GA status, so I have done. Congrats to all editors who have helped to improve it. Physchim62 (talk) 20:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Kilogram/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   The note in parentheses about relativistic mass (in "The nature of mass" is probably not necessary, as it's not really relevant to the topic, and it may give the reader an incorrect understanding of relativistic mass.

   • Hmm, the statement seems correct to me, and the increase in observed (and not "invariant") inertial mass at high relative speeds is fairly well known: so well known that it isn't even mentioned in articles such as Special relativity (GA) or Consequences of special relativity. There is an article, Mass in special relativity, which could be linked to and which describes the pedagogic problems of variant mass. However, I think it's necessary to have a short section on the nature of mass in the article, simply because sometimes it is counterintuitive. Physchim62 (talk) 17:59, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
   • Indeed. The issue of relativistic effect on mass is quite germane to the issue of mass constancy. Without this text, there had been ediit warring over the issue because the notion of mass constancy was incomplete. The article has been stable and correct with it. Greg L (talk) 20:10, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

   When I first read it, I had assumed it was referring to (invariant) rest mass, so I think linking to the Mass in special relativity article, and maybe rewording it to make it more clear what is intended, will help. - Algorerhythms (talk) 20:16, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

   • Done. Thanks. That is a much more suitable article; I didn’t know it existed. Greg L (talk) 20:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

   B. MoS compliance:

   In "Early definitions", the Notable Events of 1795 link is not necessary, and should probably be removed. In addition, there are a couple "See also"s in the text that can be turned into links (specifically, there's a "See watt balance below" link, when watt balance is linked in the previous sentence.) In addition, you may want to change the references template to Template:reflist rather than <references/>, since there are a large number of references for the article.

   • The notes section is more than a list of citations that aren’t intended to be read (such as the References section of the United States of America  article). Here on Kilogram, instead of just citations, there are notes that provide supplemental reading. Small text, particularly the italicized portions, is extremely hard to read on certain browser/OS combinations and this is aggravated by the fact that this article uses quite a few superscripted numbers—an issue that doesn’t affect normal citations. Yes, the section is expansive, but it is  at the bottom—where it stays out of the way—and the text and those numbers are much easier to read in normal-size text.

     As for the link date to 1795, that was a demonstrated technique to use as a paradigm in making a point in an ongoing MOSNUM debate. Agreed. Best leave Kilogram out of it. Greg L (talk) 20:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

   • I agree with Greg about the "Notes and references": after checking a couple of browsers at different text sizes, the final product looks better (to me) with that section in a normal font. I've removed the text reference to Notable events of 1795; I've no opinion as to whether it should be linked more discretely or not. As for the internal references, it's quite a delicate task: some can probably go, but I don't think we can reasonably get down to zero. The article tells a story which is more complicated than it appears at first sight, and the "see alsos" are a consequence of this, guiding the reader to section which s/he would never have thought of looking at before arriving at the article. IMHO at least! Physchim62 (talk) 23:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

   Yeah, on second thought, the larger font is better for this case. What I had in mind for the See Also links such as the one for the watt balance section is that the links in the prose could link to that section, and there could be a main article template at the top of the Watt balance section pointing to the article. It's not a big deal, though. - Algorerhythms (talk) 23:49, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Nice article, a few small changes, and it can easily pass.

   Passing after changes made. - Algorerhythms (talk) 22:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

---

Quick link back to Kilogram

Glossary

The glossary needs references. Further to earlier edits to Artifact, see:
Howarth, Preben (December 2003). Metrology in short (PDF) (2nd ed. ed.). p. 54. ISBN 87-988154-1-2. Artefact An object fashioned by human hand. Examples of artefacts made for taking measurements are a weight and a measuring rod. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Check |isbn= value: checksum (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) LeadSongDog (talk) 02:18, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

• That definition is too broad and is inaccurate. It would encompass things like watt balance (it is an object), and would rule out objects that were fashioned with the help of machines. Greg L (talk) 03:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

  P.S. By the way, thank you for pointing out the 1795 in science article. I didn’t know those types of articles existed. I added a couple of them to the See also section. We don’t want it aliased as [[1795 in science|1795]] since any experience reader of Wikipedia will normally avoid such links. With two of them now in the See also section, that should clue the reader on how to type any other year they might be interested in further researching by just typing it into the search field. These sort of links are quite germane to the subject at hand and beat the hell out of our general trivia articles that Wikipedians have traditionally been linking to. Greg L (talk) 03:49, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, it is broad, but I think not too broad. An artifact is simply a thing which is artificial or literally "made by art". The term also incorporates my left shoe, the 60Hz hum on the phone, your coffee mug, the Sphynx and the International Space Station. "By human hand" is clearly someone's rephrasing of "manmade" for PC reasons. In this context the point is to distinguish an artificial reference from possible natural references such as the geometric ;/) survey reference originally used to establish the metre or the mass of "a cubic decimetre of water". Each watt balance made is an artefact, but of course it is neither a prototype nor a standard. LeadSongDog (talk) 07:00, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

• There are two famous artifacts that quickly come to mind: the IPK and the old meter stick. There is also a quartz sphere at the NIST which delineates density (but isn’t a defining standard); it is an artifact. There is also the stone “Stack of Charlemagne” that was the basis of France’s old poids de marc system. That too was an artifact. Describing these sort of things as “A simple human-made object used directly as a comparative standard in the measurement of a physical quantity” covers these quite nicely and neatly excludes complex apparatus used as abstracted practical realizations.

  You know, I paused for about 30 seconds when I was contemplating tweaking the Glossary. I actually realized doing so would draw attention to it and elicit just this sort of thing—and probably from you. Please note that there were huge, huge, vitriolic edit wars here over a variety of issues shortly after I landed here. One outcome of all those battles was the removal of the entire section (Mass versus weight) to its own article. One editor who “wouldn’t let go” eventually got blocked for a week because his hair was on fire over my use of a non-SI unit of measure (µGal). And in all that time, not a single editor—not even Mr. Hair-on-fire—raised a single objection to the Glossary being in the article or what was in it. A major concern I had with the very the notion of this article being subject to the above GA review was because this article is quite unique in that it features a glossary. Yet… what was in it—and even its very existence—didn’t even come up during the GA review. The glossary has been extraordinarily stable for a long long time. Now I regret having gone back for a tweak. Can we just walk away from this now? I promise to do the same. Greg L (talk) 17:55, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're invoking edit wars and vitriol you may have had with other editors, but it's not really a reason to stop improving an article, particularly one with "Top" importance. But I'm always willing to discuss changes constructively. GA isn't the end of the road, just a milestone ;/) If the article is to get to FA it will need quality refs for everything in it. The Metrology-in-short ref seems like a good place to start, but I'm not hung up on it. Perhaps you might consider that the definition given conflates the concepts of artifact, prototype and standard. Most artifacts have other purposes that have nothing to do with metrology. LeadSongDog (talk) 21:58, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Fraction 1000/12

Hey, isn't 1000/12=92.5, not 93.5 as the article keeps saying? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.234.116.219 (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

• Huh? It says 1000⁄12 (83⅓) moles (which is correct). I can’t find what you are talking about. I find no “92.5” nor “93.5” in the article now, nor were those two values in the version of the article in effect at the time you wrote the above post. I doubt that from where you hail, the University of California, they teach that 1000⁄12 = 92.5. Thank you though, for not *correcting* the article, nor adding “The kilogram eats cheese” or some similar contribution. Wikipedia is a resource for all mankind to benefit from. Greg L (talk) 05:50, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently wrong units

In the watt balance section, there seems to be an error. I've never met the gal before now (I've made the unit name lower case in the article, which is certainly an error correction), but this can't be right:

3.1 µgal/cm (≈3 µg/cm)

Please excuse my inability to express this properly in HTML:

Gals have dimensions of L T^(-2), so:

On the LHS, the dimensions are T^(-2).

On the RHS, the dimensions are M L^(-1).

That's inconsistent, unless someone can explain how dimensions of T^(-2) are equal to dimensions of M L^(-1).

While I have a physics degree, I'm not familiar with gals or the reason for using the unit so I'm loathe to change anything myself.

But it's wrong!

And is there any particular reason why cgs-type units are being used at all? SI has been mks for a long while. For example, elsewhere I see a reference to a quantity expressed in units of g/ml, when it would be better to say kg/l (identical size).

The way it's put is "sub-optimal", but it's not actually incorrect. What that point is trying to imply is that the measured mass of a one kilogram test mass will be different by 3 μg for every one centimetre difference in elevation. However, it has become too abbreviated and so unclear. Incidentally, the gal has the symbol Gal, with a capital letter, as do all symbols of units whose names are derived from proper nouns. Although it's a cgs unit, it approved for use with the SI and is defined in terms of SI units (as, for that matter, is the litre). Physchim62 (talk) 09:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that any equation is incorrect if the units do not match on each side of the equals sign. In this case, the units do not match: the equation is certainly wrong.

But you've explained what is being described by the incorrect equation, which seems reasonable and useful (hence the continuing use of gals, I suspect) - but also wrong. Can anyone correct it? I've tried to get my head round it, and I can't see a way to do it.

You are also incorrect to state that all units derived from proper nouns begin with capital letters: all SI units have names that begin with lower case letters, although the unit *symbol* might begin with an upper case letter. Gal is not an SI unit, but it's approved for use with SI and is written with a lower case 'g' on the Wikipedia page for 'gal'.

But I've just now read the entirety of the page on that unit, which states: "As with the torr and its symbol, the unit name (gal) and its symbol (Gal) are spelled identically except that the latter is capitalized. The unit should not be confused with the identical all-lowercase abbreviation for gallon, (gal)."

It seems I've gone off half-cocked and introduced an error when I was sure I was surely right. Apologies to all - but the units are still certainly wrong.

Don't worry about having "introduced an error": the point you were making is perfectly valid. As for why we use cgs units here, I assume that's because they're the units used in practice by NIST (who run the Watt balance described here). As the gal is defined exactly and unequivocally in terms of SI units, there's little harm in using it if that's what people are used to. Physchim62 (talk) 10:28, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

The entire Imperial system of measurement is defined exactly and unequivocally in terms of SI units these days, but that's no excuse for continuing to use it.

The US's NIST might well use gals itself, but they are not `all people'. US sources often use units in a fashion that I find very confusing but is clearly what US engineers are used to - see below for a good example. I reckon you're better off doing it the formally correct way so that people who are not familiar with the corruption of correct practice presented here can work out what's going on. No, no, not gals, that's just a minor quibble, there's a link to explain them, I mean that dodgy equation.

Am I being chauvinistic to suggest that I'd rather pay attention to what the UK's NPL uses (also in possession of a Watt balance), because they're more likely to be using metric properly than a US outfit, what with the UK having gone metric pretty thoroughly several decades back (when I was very young indeed). But that's a minor point.

What's still a serious problem is that we've still got a patently incorrect equation in the article. The RHS needs a factor applied to it with - assuming I've not slipped up - these dimensions:

L M^(-1) T^(-2)

for it to have validity - and a numerical value of `1 somethings'. But I can't get my head round it. Can anyone else?

The actual units ought to be something like:

cm/(gs^2) - well, the /g makes sense, because you write that the RHS refers to a `per kilogram' quantity, except we're working in cgs. But you're also talking about per metre (or cm), then - well, erm, the cm (or whatever unit of length dimension is needed) in that factor ought to be underneath, not on top, right?

So I'm horribly confused.

End of deadly serious bit.

(btw, people get used to all sorts of junk. There's plenty of harm in using stuff that people `got used to', because that stuff's often invalid from the strict point of view and therefore wrong and confusing, especially to people who haven't met that particular local form of `what we've got used to'. Or don't you wince when you see references to pressure in, say pounds? (a common error from the USA, to take one example - what's wrong with pascals? Or psi if you insist on sticking in the past - although that one's still allowed if the gauges haven't been replaced since 1955).

Another example: specific impulse of a rocket engine is measured in m/s (assuming modern units). But almost all US sources cite rocket engine specific impulse (so-called) in seconds! Huh? I looked it up: that only works if you introduce a factor of `g' for acceleration due to gravity into the works - acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface, and that's supposedly valid in a *rocket* equation? Sorry, that's just plain wrong, and confusing, and gives you a less useful parameter: specific impulse is also the effective exhaust velocity of your rocket engine. The US corruption of specific impulse gives what is to me a meaningless parameter.

I present that purely as an example of why it's almost always a better idea to do things the formally correct way (not to mention in metric), rather than the ad-hoc `what we are used to' way, if only because `what we are used to' is not what everyone is used to, while the formally correct approach is what everyone's supposed to know. It's best for reliable communication, you dig, man?.

Look, people got used to Imperial units, but metric's easier - it seems to be due to confusion over pounds force and pounds mass that US engineers came up with their crazy interpretation of specific impulse. cgs is awkward compared to mks (and anyway units called dyne and erg are silly if you ask me). ARGH! Who the hell uses cgs at all these days anyway? As one engineer taught me: `centimetres are for dress-making, use millimetres or metres'... Sorry, a little rant there, don't mind me. He was right, though - stick with the engineering multiples, it's more convenient. No messing with centi this or deca that.)

• To I.P. user 86.134.156.45 from Amsterdam: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, the purpose of which is to educate readers on subjects and properly prepare them for their continuing studies elsewhere. The SI system is a splendid system of measurement. However, not all disciplines use the SI. It does our readers no service to express the world-wide, historical cost of crude oil here on Wikipedia as €219.10/m³ when the world-wide practice in commodities trading is to express it as US$44.12 per barrel. And notwithstanding your distaste of the cgs system of measurement, Wikipedia also follows current literature on Japanese motorcycle engine displacement; it is 750 cc Yamaha engine and not 750 mL Yamaha engine. Nor do we write about a computer with 512 kibibytes (KiB) of RAM notwithstanding the shortcomings and ambiguity inherent in the computer industry’s universal practice of writing 512 kilobytes (KB) of RAM. This principle is upheld at WP:MOS, Which system to use, which says as follows:

* In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI, but not always; for example, natural units are often used in relativistic and quantum physics, and Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s⁻¹.

I perceive no need to change MOS on this subject. Furthermore, the Kilogram article is fully compliant with WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM. As to this particular unit of measure (the gal), in the world of professional metrology and gravimetry, the gal is the unit of measure used. Furthermore, the manufacturer of the highest-sensitivity gravimeters, Micro-g LaCoste, and their FG‑5 absolute gravimeter, measure instrument output in Gal and µGal. That is simply the way things work in that discipline.

I note that you wrote above The actual units ought to be something like… and pushed that theme (how things ought to be) many times in various ways. Notwithstanding the undeniable virtues of the SI, it is not the role of Wikipedia to change the world and promote the adoption of the SI by leading by example, where we show the way to a Better and More Logical Future™®© through our unilateral use of units of measure that are unused in a given discipline; we simply reflect how the world actually works. Again, it is our role to prepare readers for their studies elsewhere and ensure they will be conversant with someone skilled in the art. When it is most common for the professional metrology world to measure gravity gradient in terms of 3.1×10⁻⁶ s^–2, then Wikipedia will follow that practice.

As Physchim62 properly pointed out, the parenthetical conversion while “sub-optimal”, was correct because it was perfectly clear from the context that the parenthetical was providing the proportional effect on the IPK, which has a mass of one kilogram. As a result of your vigilance, the new wording is even clearer and unambiguous. Thanks. Greg L (talk) 01:06, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you like the change to the text Greg: I was sure you'd spot the discussion sooner or later! Physchim62 (talk) 01:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

• I much appreciate your running with the ball on this one. Thanks especially to you. Greg L (talk) 05:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Traveling at a relativistic speed

A. di M.:

Thanks for this series of edits. It improved the article a great deal by correcting an error. I swear I looked at the actual 1905 paper Einstein wrote and copied its title verbatim, but I must have accidentally looked at his later paper. Good catch.

I’ve tweaked that note to emphasize a critical point. Many people commonly refer to relativistic effects as occurring only when an object is traveling at “close to the speed of light.” Indeed, whereas 10% the speed of light is exceedingly fast and is not—as you put it—an “everyday” speed, it is not “close to the speed of light” by any measure. Nor is it “a significant fraction” of the speed of light (as you also put it). If I coauthored a book and was promised a “significant fraction of the royalties” from my coauthor, I’d be quite displeased when I found I got 10% and he got 90%. What I’m doing is explaining that the proper language to use is “traveling at a relativistic speed” (which is logically and scientifically true while still providing a built-in bit of fudge room depending upon the level of precision at which one performs the experiment) and that it is improper to use the term “traveling at close to the speed of light.” I’ve left your correction of fact untouched but have revised it[7] to better make this distinction without sounding overly argumentative. Greg L (talk) 20:51, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I guess it depends on what one means by "significant fraction" (if 10% of people in Paris had immigrated from Africa wouldn't you say that a significant fraction of Paris's population is African?) Normally I would just say "at speeds much less than the speed of light", but many readers wouldn't realize that in physics lingo "much less than" usually means "at least tens of times smaller". Maybe "comparable with"? No, even that could be misunderstood to mean "at least half". ... OK, I give up. I wish the emphasis were more on "unless you go *really* fast" than on "but not necessarily very close to c", but I can't think of a wording which would accomplish that right now. --A. di M. (talk) 03:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

BTW, a month or two ago, I wrote the director of the BIPM to see if they had a photograph of the IPK (without its bell jars) to release to Wikipedia under a GNU license. The response I got was polite, but could be characterized as “F*** no”. They’d never take such a picture (fainting French physicists) and don’t do that sort of thing with their intellectual property (if I recall the e-mail correctly). The computer-generated illustration is the best closeup we’ve got of the IPK. Australia’s ACPO was a lot more cooperative. They didn’t dig up an old, unused photo; they took the copyrighted one used on their Web site and released it to me under a GNU license. Good Joes. All I did was square the picture up as the original was tilted a few degrees and adjust the color and contrast (compare to original). Greg L (talk) 21:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

[struggling hard to keep my fingers from typing more anti-French rant, which I would be unable to write in a polite way at 4 o' clock in the morning] --A. di M. (talk) 03:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• I’m fine with your counterproposal. Thanks. What you now have still gets the point across that even at small percentages of the speed of light, relativistic effects become significant enough to affect even industrial-grade measurements. Many readers interested in technical matters have read about particle accelerators and how particle speeds are 99.999% (five nines) the speed of light (or six or seven nines the speed of light, etc.) and this leads many people to somehow believe that one has to be pushing on the rubber molding on the speed of light’s bumper before mass, time, and length are significantly affected. In fact, M is affected 5% at on 30.5% c—hardly “close to the speed of light” (it would take over four seconds to get to the moon). Our compromise wording accomplishes that end, and does so with even less of an “argumentative” tone. Very good. Greg L (talk) 18:10, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Relativity revisited

With all respect to the above contributors, I have to ask myself "Is the kilogram actually defined in relativistic terms?". If you look at the definition of the mole, it has certain relativistic corrections which are metrologically important at the most precise level (eg, the binding energy of the electrons): there are none of these in the definition of the kilogram. The kilogram is currently defined as what the observer observes: hence the popular idea that particles gain mass by moving faster. There is an implicit assumption in the 1889 definition that the observer an the reference mass are stationary with respect to one another: hardly surprising, given that it would be another sixteen years before anyone would suggest that a relative speed might make a difference in an observation of mass. To try an include all this in a discussion of the kilogram fringes on Original Research, but then so does any assumption that relativity should be included in the original definition. Physchim62 (talk) 18:28, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• You are correct, Physchim62, the kilogram is not defined in relativistic terms. However, the “kilogram” is not the subject that particular text is addressing. The article, while making the distinction between the (highly) variable nature of weight and the constancy of mass makes this statement: …the mass of matter is constant. Is mass absolutely constant? Well, not exactly; there is a notable and unusually famous exception. Further, that very issue had been raised by other editors here before, so (*sigh*), to properly cover the bases on this all-important anchor unit of the SI system of measurement (and in the Web’s arguably most authoritative article on the kilogram), this 14-word parenthetical qualifier was added: (assuming matter is not traveling at a relativistic speed with respect to an observer). The accompanying note (verbiage that is not part of the main body text) that A. di M. and I tweaked clarifies and expands on the parenthetical qualifier for the benefit of readers who A) don’t know anything about relativistic effects, and/or B) think that one has to be pushing something like “five nines” the speed of light for relativistic effects to become significant enough to be noticeable. Greg L (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
  • I can't help but thinking you're mixing apples and pears here. The kilogram is defined in terms of Galilean frames of reference: if you take SR into account, mass is no longer a unique dimension in quantity calculus, and the International System of Units breaks down (unless, of course, you include new defining equations, as is done in practice). Why pretend to explain something which can't be explained? SI is a practical system, it works very well for normal earth-based observations: if you want to do strange observations, you have to take the strangeness of your observations into account when reporting your results. Physchim62 (talk) 22:57, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• It would be incomplete and inappropriate to simply state this:

While the weight of matter is entirely dependent upon the strength of gravity, the mass of matter is constant.

The definition of the kilogram (the mass of the IPK = 1 kg) is entirely sufficient and there is no need to introduce the subject of relativistic effects nor compensate for it in the definition; it is totally irrelevant. But if we simply left the above statement like that, it would be (very) scientifically incomplete and not true. You know as well as I do that if we deleted the caveat, some 17-year-old will weigh in with an edit that amounts to “nyuah uhhhh”. Greg L (talk) 23:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with you in practical terms, and I don't have a quick and easy solution – if I had one, I'd just edit the article, as you well know! ;) On the other hand, I'm sure that, if you ever learn how to ride rodeo on an electron, you will measure its mass to be constant (by definition, equal to the electron rest mass). Physchim62 (talk) 23:20, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• Good. What the parenthetical caveat is doing is agreeing with your point by essentially saying “Yeah, yeah; ignoring relativistic effects so shut the hell up”. The caveat is acknowledging that relativistic effects could theoretically apply but can be ignored in any practical discussion of the definition of the kilogram. Greg L (talk) 23:24, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• If I ever have a quiet six weeks or so, I'd love to re-write that whole section… But I'm not going to do it on the quick, because what we have isn't bad, just sub-optimal in one set of eyes (mine). Note that, even in a theoretical discussion of the kilogram, you have to ignore relativity by assuming that it is an independent dimension in quantity calculus. Also, at present, standard masses are compared by comparing weights at constant local gravity: to add that fairly fundamental point about the (current) kilogram complicates matters still further with the technical discussion about the nature of mass. Physchim62 (talk) 23:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• How’s this? Please revert if unnecessary or revise as you see fit. Greg L (talk) 23:56, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that this is the right place to be discussing this, but then I'm only a chemist; so if I can spot the faults in the discussion, they must be fairly obvious! SR teaches us two things:

1. that observed mass is not constant, but depends on the relative speed of the reference frames;
2. that the observed mass of a system is not necessarily equal to the sum the masses of its (non-interacting) parts.

• GR (in my very basic understanding of it) says the same things, but generalizes them for relatively accelerating reference frames (ie, your lab on the Earth vs. everything else, even if the corrections are usually minute to the point of being negligible). The second of my relativistic corrections is important in determining the relative atomic masses of more than two dozen nuclides (including all those that play an important role in the later part of the article). As I said above, I don't have a quick solution to my complaints, nor do I think that one will appear this evening, but I would at least like to point out that the problems exist (without unduly criticizing the rest of the article)! Physchim62 (talk) 00:22, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
• Another problem in the same section is defining mass in terms of Newton's second law. That's all very well and good, so long as you have a separate definition of force. On the other hand, if you are talking about the SI unit of mass, the kilogram, it is force which is defined by the Second Law, not mass. A much more minor point is that the current wording makes it seem like Newton measured in SI units, which of course he didn't: if this were the only problem, I'd change it myself, but I would welcome comments on my other complaints before attacking this section with an edit window ;) Physchim62 (talk) 00:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)

• Quoting you: Another problem in the same section is defining mass in terms of Newton's second law You have misread what is there. It says:

Per Sir Isaac Newton’s 337-year-old laws of motion and an important formula that sprang from his work, F = ma, an object with a mass, m, of one kilogram will accelerate, a, at one meter per second per second.

That is correctly saying that mass, force, and acceleration are interrelated. That is far from defining mass in terms of Newton’s second law. The kilogram is defined as being the mass of the IPK and the article makes that much clear. As you went on to correctly point out, the magnitude of the newton depends on the magnitude of the IPK; not the other way around. The article makes that too quite clear here at Importance of the kilogram. As for implying that Newton worked with SI units, it doesn’t imply that at all; only that the SI’s units are in accordance with his formulas.

As for relativity, I find your points on this to be a bit too esoteric. The text is clear that, unlike weight, mass is constant (unless one wants to get nitpicky with relativity), and that relativistic effects have zero influence on the magnitude of the IPK. It says or implies nothing more.

Oceans of people have been reading that text for a long time now, and it just doesn’t seem to be eliciting the sort of confused responses one would expect from reading your objections. A. di M., who specializes in this sort of stuff, and I have arrived at compromise wording that makes us both happy. Perhaps you are overanalyzing it. If you still disagree, perhaps A. di M. will step in here. Greg L (talk) 03:21, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Mhh. First, let's make terminology clear here. In SR, the term mass can refer to two things: the rest mass and the relativistic mass. The former is a property of a body which, by definition, doesn't depend on the observer; the latter is essentially the total energy of the body (divided by the square of speed of light), and does depend on the observer. As the footnote says, M = γm₀ where γ is the Lorentz factor. (In fancier terms, the relativistic mass is the zeroth component of the body's four-momentum, and the rest mass is its norm—modulo signs and factors of c, which depend on which metric convention one decided to use when he got up this morning.) This is as with three-vectors, where the length of a vector doesn't depend on your choice of axes, but its third component depends on which axis you call z. The total relativistic mass of a system equals the sum of the relativistic masses of its parts, but its total rest mass can be more of the sum of the rest masses of its parts. (This is as with three-vectors, where the third component of a + b equals the sum of the third components of a and b, but its length can be less than the sum of their lengths.)

What does the unqualified term mass refers to? To the relativistic mass or to the rest mass? Well, it depends on whom you ask (see [8]). In the past the former meaning was more common, but more and more people are starting using the latter one. I think that on Wikipedia we should never use the unqualified term mass unless it is either obvious or irrelevant which meaning we are using, and we should say rest mass or relativistic mass in all other cases.

Is the kilogram a unit of rest mass or of relativistic mass? Well, AFAIK the BIPM has never decided (whereas it has decided that the second is a unit of proper time and that the metre is a unit of proper distance). So I guess it can be used for both, and the article should simply say that it is a unit of mass, as it currently does. In an ideal world the article about the kilogram would not even mention the distinction, but, as Greg said, You know as well as I do that if we deleted the caveat, some 17-year-old will weigh in with an edit that amounts to “nyuah uhhhh”. The bottom line is that I think that the current version of that sentence and of its footnote is just fine; I'm just not 100% sure that the second sentence of the footnote is needed (and what is "interesting" to someone, can be something about which someone else doesn't give a damn). Also, I don't think that the sentence about F = ma sounds like a definition; I'm just replacing "per" with "according to" per some part of the MoS which recommends using "for example" and "that is" rather than "e.g." and "i.e." and which I can't find right now, but it is otherwise fine. --A. di M. (talk) 15:57, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

reversion of changes which are principally stylistic

See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Greg_L. My position is that there's no reason to change the ref-margin for this article only. — CharlotteWebb 12:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

• CharlotteWebb, I thought your complaint there was a petty way to get your way. You waded deep into the history of this article and dug up an edit from March of 2008 to get your way (well before the restriction was placed on me). Note that you were properly advised at your complaint to be more careful next time. Please be aware that CSS is supported by Wikipedia’s rendering engine for a reason: the developers want it that way and editors are free to use CSS to improve Wikipedia. Your little stunt shows that hard work here on Wikipedia will not go unpunished. BTW, I’m appealing ArbCom to resolve that particular restriction, which I feel is unwarranted. Greg L (talk) 21:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)