On 15-May-07, at 10:35 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
On May 15, 2007, at 5:59 AM, dhbailey wrote:
I learned the "pint's a pound the world round" also, but when I
asked the person who told it to me if a pint of gasoline would
weigh the same as a pint of mercury, he thought for a moment, said
"Bah!" and walked away.
A pint is *by definition* the volume occupied by a pound of water.
The proverb (in addition to being a good mnemonic for that fact)
says in effect that certain things are true under all circumstances.
Which pint, Imperial or British? (careful, trick question, as the
British pint is the one used by Americans, while the Imperial one was
used by the British until the adoption of the metric system.)
Also, change the temperature, change the volume. Also pound is a
measure of weight, not mass, so at the top of Mount Everest it will
weigh slightly more than in the Dutch lowlands (atmospheric buoyancy
being what it is). And I understand there are fluctuations in the
Earth's gravity field, particularly in the Canadian Shield area,
which might cause microscopic fluctuations in measure. Which only
goes to show that while SOME things are true under all circumstances,
this particular saying is not.
Christopher
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