In a nutshell/Tombits: (Short) weighty matters

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/01/2011 (5577 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WE all know what it means when our butcher or our grocer has her thumb on the scale. It means that she is short-weighting us, charging us for a pound of pork or chickpeas when she is actually giving us only 15 ounces — anti-imperialists can translate that into metric for themselves.

What it translates to in any system, however, is cheating on a small scale. It’s pretty easy to figure out that the customer in this situation is getting the fuzzy side of the lollipop, as customers often do. And on a much grander stage, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what it means when the scientific establishment has its thumb on the scale that’s used to measure out everything for all humanity — it means we are getting short-changed, metaphysically speaking.

The standard measure for a kilogram (2.2 pounds) is a cylinder of platinum entrusted to scientists to keep safe so that we can all be sure that we get honest measure for our money. Unfortunately, that platinum cylinder no longer weighs one kilogram — it comes up 50 micrograms short.

One microgram is one-one millionth of a gram, or if you prefer, 3.5273396*10-to-the-negative-power-of-eight ounces, which may not seem like a lot at first glance, but when you add up the short-weight from every scale in every place in every part of the world, you are probably getting pretty close to a whole cow or several bushels of broccoli, even once you have removed the butcher’s thumb.

One is tempted to yell “Stop, thief!” but there is actually no thief to stop. This is kind of a cosmic thing. No one is shaving minute slices of platinum off the sacred cylinder. This is not a plot by physicists, bankers or even international butchers to short-weight the world.

Rather, it seems to be a simple case of what we journalists call cosmic readjustment — the universe is returning to its natural state of nothing. Scientists tell us that everything is diminishing — so you can take some comfort from that, if you thought it was just you — and will eventually return to the nothingness from it which it sprang.

The proof of this can be seen in the fact that the platinum cylinder that weighed one kilogram or 2.2 pounds in 1879, when it was first weighed, is now 50 micrograms or 3.5273396*10-to-the-negative-power-of-eight ounces lighter, a loss that occurred over a span of less than 133 years. It’s not a particularly cheerful thought, but at that rate of reduction, we will all be back where we belong in no time at all. In the meantime, console yourself with the thought of the weight you are losing.