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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Dougmeister, post: 2413574, member: 56842&quot;]Remember this old trick question from elementary school? Well, apparently the answer isn&#039;t what we thought...</p><p><br /></p><p>(excerpted from NowIKnow.com)</p><p><br /></p><blockquote><p><font size="4"><b>Feathers, Lead, and Gold</b></font></p><p><font size="4"><br /></font></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or does it?</p><p><br /></p><p>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?</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p><p><br /></p><p>Whenever we use the term &quot;pound&quot; (to discuss mass/weight at least -- it means something else when discussing cakes and British currency), we&#039;re talking about pounds as defined by something called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoirdupois" rel="nofollow">the Avoirdupois system</a>. It&#039;s the standard, non-metric system you&#039;re familiar with if you&#039;re an American. In the avoirdupois system, are 16 ounces to an pound. Just to get some math out of the way -- we&#039;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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight#Origin" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_weight#Origin" rel="nofollow">It&#039;s unclear why.</a>). 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.</p><p><br /></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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