Trick Question on Weights and Measures

What is heavier, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?

Three possibilities: The same, gold weighs more, or feathers weigh more.

This one stumped a few people at a Connecticut coin shop yesterday, the owner got it. Anyone have a concise, lucid answer on this? Thanks.

 

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they wiegh the same, but the feathers have a greater volume than the gold

 

The feathers weigh more because gold is measured in Troy weight.

It appears that if you had said an ounce of each, then the gold would have weighed more.
One troy ounce (oz t) is equal to 31.1034768 grams.
One oz = 28.3495231 grams.

 

last time i checked there was a troy oz but nit a troy pound

 

It's probably obsolete these days. In that case the Gold weighs more.

I tried some searches and can't find out when the TP was used... except for ebay scams!

 

Parquet, you have it almost right except there are only 12 troy ounces in a troy pound. Thus the feathers will weigh more.

 

From the wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight

 

Yes, that was my first choice (reply #3).

If Troy pounds are no longer used, won't the gold weigh more? (16 Troy oz versus 16 regular oz)

 

Nope. A troy pound is 12 troy ounces, and an avoirdupois pound is 16 avoirdupois ounces. 16 troy ounces isn't any sort of pound at all, except for wishful eBay bidders and the deceitful eBay sellers who prey on them.

 

But if we aren't using Troy Pounds anymore (reply #7) but we do still use Troy ounces, how much does a pound of gold weigh?

 

Ahhh!...but which will hit the ground first? :thumb:

 

In an enviroment not affected by outside variables, they would hit at the same time

 

Yes! ...if you assume the feathers are held together somehow (e.g. a bag...which would add additional weight). Of course, if you account for the tare weight...you would be correct. Otherwise, the feathers would fall at the rate of a single feather...which would be much slower.

 

Or a self contained vaccume chamber. The one feather would drop just as fast as 100 pounds of gold. 9.8 meters per second squared

 

Really? Are you saying that a single feather has the same mass as a pound (troy or otherwise) of gold? That would be a pretty big feather!

Newton's law of universal gravitation states that every point mass in the universe attracts every other point mass with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

 

Another reason to use the metric system, a gram doesn't come in a variety of flavors! And as far as Newton's law of universal gravitation, the mass of the earth would so far overshadow the mass of either one feather or a pound, there would be no measurable difference.

 

Yes, and Newton's Second Law of Motion states that the acceleration of an object is proportional to force and inversely proportional to its mass.

An object one hundred times as massive is attracted to the Earth with one hundred times the force, and so it accelerates at exactly the same rate, 9.8 m/s/s.

 

Let's not let Newton hijack the thread! Come on OP et al, how much does a pound of Gold weigh?

(Wouldn't it be funny if a bunch of coin and bullion collectors couldn't agree on the answer?!)

 

I'd say the pound of feathers. One pound of feathers is 453.59 grams while a troy pound of gold is roughly 373.2 grams.

Trick question with a trick answer.

 

What do we think of the posts and websites that declare that the use of the Troy Pound is obsolete as a unit of measure? Shouldn't we assume that the weight of the OP would be what it weighs in units that we use today? So if we are not using Troy Pounds anymore (but still using Troy ounces?), how much does a pound of gold weigh today?