Talk:Newton (unit)
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The Coalition to Prevent Gratuitous Misuse (CPGM) was organized in 1901 to protest the (then) common misuse of the word weight to mean mass. The movement gained momentum (defined as the vector product of its velocity and mass) when SI was officially adopted in place of metric system, which no longer carried its weight. This movement captured the imagination of the mass of scientists througout the world, although the general public remained unmoved, since a body at rest tends to remain at rest (see Newton's Laws).
- D'oh! Thaanks to the person who caught my gaffe... obviously not only silly, but careless right now. I shall have to drink more caffiene... -- April
Note: SI unit names are not capitalized, even if they are named after a person (newton, kelvin, hertz, watt, etc.) Unit symbols are capitalized if they are named after a person (N, K, Hz, W). -- DrBob
I don't know where y'all are from, but round here, apples don't reach 1 kg. Those are some mighty hefty apples you've got going there. Monsanto make those apples? Graft
- An apple massing 102 grams would weigh 1.0 N, get it? --Ed Poor
- ah, gotcha... operating on N = kg * g, bad premise.
1kg does not equal 1 newton. Although you're right to be worried about Monsanto! -- Tarquin
- I agree, Tarquin. Please look at the 102g WEIGHS 1 N thing in the article, and see if you can make it clearer. Otherwises the masses will complain, and science will lose momentum. --Ed Poor
I put the apple thing in there because at school I found it a handy way of getting a grasp on the amount of force a Newton represents. The concept of force is hard to understand at first: it's a very concrete thing to hold an apple and think "this is pressing down with 1N". I suppose we could say "1 newton is approximately the amount of force exerted by gravity on an average apple: in other words, its weight". Wordier, but accurate and less chance of confusion. -- t
Original text of Newton:
A compound SI unit, the Newton is the unit of force, defined as the amount of force required to accelerate a one kilogram mass at a rate of one metre per second per second. It is also the unit of weight, as weight is the force acting between two objects due to gravity. It is named after Sir Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on gravity.