Incredible Shrinking Kilogram

The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight - if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.


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One Comment

  1. speedbird
    Posted September 20, 2007 at 4:22 am | Permalink

    I love this sort of thing. Replacing the standard for the kg with something other than a ‘lump of stuff’ is big business in the trade… but no-one’s worked out how to do it yet.

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