In reply to Hoyt A. Stearns Jr.'s message of Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:29:17 -0700: Hi, [snip]
The definition of the gm was made, independent of any natural constants. It was originally intended to be the weight of a cubic centimeter of water. 1 cm = 1 meter / 100. See http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_metric_meter for the original definition of the meter:- "A meter is a fractional part of the circumference of the earth. Historically that is almost correct. It was the distance between marks on a metal bar which represented 1/10,000,000 (one ten millionth) of the distance between the equator and the north pole on the meridian passing through Paris. " Avogadro's number is defined as the number of atoms in 12 grams of Carbon 12. So it derives from the size of the Earth, the density of water, and the atomic mass of C12. It is not a natural constant. Perhaps needless to say, the size of the Earth is completely arbitrary. It is only one of trillions of planets in the Universe. Using Avogadro's number as a fundamental constant is just rearranging the deck chairs (i.e. algebra). >Avagadro's number is used to convert natural unit mass to conventional a >conventional unit: > > > Space-time Units Conventional Units >s space 4.558816?10-6 cm 4.558816?10-6 cm >t time 1.520655?10-16 sec 1.520655?10-16 sec >s/t speed 2.997930?1010 cm/sec 2.997930?1010 cm/sec >s/t2 acceleration 1.971473?1026 cm/sec2 1.971473?1026 >cm/sec2 >t/s energy 3.335635?10-11 see/cm 1.49175?10-3 ergs >t/s2 force 7.316889?10-6 sec/cm2 3.27223?102 dynes >t/s4 pressure 3.520646?105 sec/cm4 1.57449?1013 >dynes/cm2 >t2/s2 momentum 1.112646?10-21 sec2/cm2 4.97593?10-14 >g-cm/sec >t3/s3 inertial mass 3.711381?10-32 sec3/cm3 1.65979?10-24 g Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
