Evening star., 1925-05-30

The conference on weights and
measures which has been in session at
the Bureau of Standards this week
has not attracted the public interest
among laymen. 1t may seem to be
a dry and technical subject-perhaps
hackneyed. Why should men spend
hours talking about the length of a
yardstick, the size of quart, the su-
periority of meter over yard meas
ure or the tolerance of inaccuracy
in atgrocer's pound? Is not a pound
a pound the world round? Or, is it a
pint9
A scientific magazine published, last
month. humorous contribution by a
learned professor, setting forth a
method by which a corpulent person
| might reduce his weight without a
course Of painful exercising or even
dieting. While the method was not dis
cussed at the Bureau of Standards
conference it is accepted there as
strictly scientific. If the subject is liv-
ing with Explorer Amundsen at the
North Pole and has been dieting on
whale and seal SO that he weighs 200
pounds, all he needs to do is to hurry
to the Equator, where the spring scales
Will demonstrate that he weighs only
about l99 pounds. That is because the
old adage, "a pounds a pound the
| world round is false.
The North Pole is Is miles closer to
the center of the earth than is point
on the Equator. hence at the North
Pole, graVitation. due to the mass of
the earth. is greater than at the
Equator. Besides, the centrifugal force
at the Pole, due to the whirling of the
globe more than 1000 miles an hour.
tending to throw the body out into
space is nil, while at the Equator it
is maximum, and so tends to offset the
pull of gravity.
The United States Constitution
gives to Congress the right to regu-
late standards of weights and meas
ures. but Congress has neglected to
do it. The individual States have
each established its own set of
weights and measures. and, naturally,
the 4S sets do not accurately agree.
1t is the effort now of the Depart
ment of Commerce. of which the Bu-
reau of Standards is a part. to
standardize the diverging systems
and eventually have them established
by Federal law. Such agreement will
do much for commerce between the
manufacturers and merchants living
in different States. for the measures
of the State from which orders come
for goods manufactured in another
State often lead to disagreements and
law suits.
1t IS not, however, the far-off in
tricacies of commerce which the re-
cent conference has been most con-
cerned in discussion.
How heavy should a loaf of bread
be when sold to the ultimate con-
sumner? If it is marked as a half
pound loaf. perhaps the baker has
failed to make it weigh exactly half
rh o
ounces good bulky loaf. Should
that baker be arrested for giving
more than full weight? Is he not
overgenerous, or reckless of his own
interests? No, because the customer
does not weigh the loaf, nor pay at
tention to its nominal weight; he
sees a bulky loaf and confuses it
with a pound loaf, by reason of its
approach to the pound size, or bulk.
So, in practice, the overweight half
pound" is as tricky as the short
weight full pound" loaf.
x x X X
The greatest problem at the con-
ference had to do with selling ice
cream by weight instead of by meas
IRE, because no measure Of ice cream
is accurate.
When an ice-cream manufacturer
freezes 1000 gallons of cream he seizes
from oVU 10 l,zVU SalionS Oh ar, ana
the product is from 800 to 1900 gal
Ions of ice cream. He can put as
much air into his cream as he de-
sires, or as he thinks the traffic will
bear" Homemade ice cream contains
only about so per cent of air, but that
is because the home stirrer of the
freezer is not an adept in air. When
the professional knows that he can
sell air at the price of good rich cream
the temptation needs some influence
to protect weak human nature. With
wicked bond statesmen, 1.-The sky's the
limit" and so we have what is known