What weighs more... a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?

Remember this old trick question from elementary school? Well, apparently the answer isn't what we thought...

(excerpted from NowIKnow.com)

Feathers, Lead, and Gold

The age-old riddle is simple: which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead? Your instnict may be to go with the lead -- in equal amounts, lead, after all, is heavier than feathers. But this is a trick question. A pound is a unit of weight; therefore, a pound of X weighs the same as a pound of Y.

Or does it?

If you put a pound of feathers on one side of a balance and a pound of lead on the other, the scale would rest with both sides even with one another. But what if we were to swap out the lead for gold? What would happen then?

In that case, the balance would end up tilted, showing that the feathers weigh more. But it has nothing to do with the feathers or the gold itself -- it has to do with how we measure their weights.

Whenever we use the term "pound" (to discuss mass/weight at least -- it means something else when discussing cakes and British currency), we're talking about pounds as defined by something called the Avoirdupois system. It's the standard, non-metric system you're familiar with if you're an American. In the avoirdupois system, are 16 ounces to an pound. Just to get some math out of the way -- we'll use it soon -- one avoirdupois ounce is equal to about 28.35 grams. Multiply those sixteen ounces by 28.35 grams and you end up with about 453.6 grams per avoirdupois pound.

Feathers, being not all that special, are measured in avoirdupois pounds -- and so is just about everything else, from cheese and rubber bands to graphite and yes, lead. But gold is special. It, and other precious metals and gemstones, are measured in something called troy pounds. (It's unclear why.). A troy pound has only 12 ounce and a troy ounce is equal to about 31.1 grams. Multiply that out, and it comes 373.2 grams per troy pound, or about 20% less than what a pound of feathers weighs.

So if you want to win a bar bet, put a pound of feathers on one side of your hypothetical balance and a (troy) pound of gold on the other. The feathers will weigh more. Of course, testing this in real life may be tough -- as of this writing, a troy pound of gold will run you more than $15,000.​

 

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feathers


oops:

read the title, answered, and then read the posting

 

Yeah, old trick. An ounce of gold will weigh more, but a pound of gold weighs less than a traditional pound.

Why oh why can't this country switch to metric and be done with these stupid antiquated measurement units. I am surprised we don't use the weight of an average hedgehog for some measure.

 

... or the air-speed velocity of an unladen Swallow... ;-)

<obligatory "Monty Python" reference...>

 

Thanks, love that line.

 

It depends on how you want to interpret the question.

A pound of x and a pound of y should weigh the same.

However with a pound of feather, you may think about the weight of the amount of lives taken to obtain such. On the other hand with gold... you never know how much bloodshed it could have gone through.

In conclusion - weight can be very subjective.

 

If you try to prove this in a bar, you will likely end up in a fight. Never try to reason with a drunk!

Chris

 

... not to mention that a drunk would just look at me funny when I say "avoir dupois"...

 

And now we can confuse everything by doing the weighing in a vacuum.

 

Oh there you go bringing physics into it... ;-)

 

A pound of x and a pound of y should weigh the same

 

And physics draws a distinction between weight and mass.

 

My generation wasted many moons learning the metric system for a "big switch" that never came. Let sleeping dogs lie!

 

Oops!

 

AFRICAN OR EUROPEAN ?

 

Many moons?
Weight is in grams, volume is in liters, distance is in meters
Going up or down to the next unit or any of them you just move the decimal point.
Going down from the base unit you use the prefixes Centi, Deci, and Milli.
Going up from the base unit you use the prefixes Centa, Deca, and Kilo.
1 unit is
10 centiunits or .1 centaunits
100 deciunits or .01 decaunits
1000 milliunits or .001 kilounits

There now you know the metric system.

The mistake the schools always did was to fixate on studying conversions from one system to the other. If they would just make the switch you don't do conversions.

 

We kind of do. An average hedgehog weighs about a pound.

I DON'T KNOW THAT!

 

Tell that to a football player!

Chris