One of the last news stories of 2003 was the discovery in Indonesia last week of the world's largest-ever python, at 49 foot long, 17 feet longer than the previous record - and twice as heavy at 992 lbs. or 70 stone and 12 pounds (or 'nearly half a ton' as some put it)

All the papers gave the news in imperial lengths and weights, most papers and the radio opting for 'over 70 stone', thus easily enabling us to visualise, say, five Steve Humphreys [Warning: Married life is empirically proven to add several pounds to the weight of the average newly married man during the first two years of marriage].

As for '49 feet', most of us would say something like 'three times as long as our lounge' or perhaps 'nearly as long as our garden'.

'The Times' newspaper bravely started off its article in dual measurements but soon gave up and reverted to imperial units only as the article wore on

I saw that article and a follow-up article in The Times which gave its weight as 447kg.

Thus, there are three different weights - does anyone know of a weighing machine that can weigh and display a weight of 71 stones? I don't know of any, but I have seen machines that weight and display weights up to several tonnes in metric units.

<<<does anyone know of a weighing machine that can weigh and display a weight of 71 stones>>>

Even after the festive season mine cannot display such a weight!

What you could do, though, is divide the weight reported in LBs by 14 or if faced with the kg amount simply use the conversion factor.

SteveH wrote


<<
What you could do, though, is divide the weight reported in LBs by 14 or if faced with the kg amount simply use the conversion factor.
>>

Why not do the sensible thing and leave it in kg. Then look around for familar items that are of the same order of magnitude. One item that springs to mind is a motor car. My VW golf has a kerb weight of about 800kg, so I can relate to that quite easily.

Or we could just have a 10-lb stone or a 20lb score or centon.

Personally, I can compare my weight and the python's, as I know my weight in pounds.

<<<Why not do the sensible thing and leave it in kg. Then look around for familar items that are of the same order of magnitude. One item that springs to mind is a motor car. My VW golf has a kerb weight of about 800kg, so I can relate to that quite easily>>>

1) They translated it from indonesian so that I can read it in a language I am familiar with - thus, the imperial version is a translation to a measurement system i prefer. There is nothing non-sensible in that.

When I look around for familiar items I take myself - thus I know the magnitude now. Having never picked up a VW golf I cannot equate that so easily.

What's wrong with the news report saying those measures in weights familiar to the masses? I thought you weren't against that sort of thing - you know - people saying words not being restricted by the state?

Bryan,

Regarding your statement of January 2nd @ 3.39 p.m.

"Or we could just have 10 av.lb. for 1 av.st., or 20 av.lb. for 1 av. scorewt."

Bryan, all weights use the stone, and everyone of them is fourteen pounds. In the case of avoirdupois weight:

1 av.st. = 14 av.lb.

Bryan, avoirdupois weight does NOT use the scoreweight.

The only weights that use the scoreweight are, merchant weight and tron weight. A scoreweight is twenty-one pounds, NOT twenty. Whenever you see the term "weight" in a word, that cancels the number given. Whatever the number said, that's NOT the number. "Score" means twenty, so whatever scoreweight is, it's NOT twenty. In fact scoreweight is always twenty-one.

hundredweight is NOT 100
hundredweight is NOT 120
scoreweight is NOT 20
pennyweight is NOT 22 1/2

1 merc. scorewt. = 21 merc.lb.
1 merc. scorewt. = 23.040 av.lb.

1 tron scorewt. = 21 tron lb.
1 tron scorewt. = 28.800 av.lb.

More infor @:

http://www.weights-and-measures.com

And topics:

Merchant Weight
Tron Weight
old Avoirdupois Weight
New Avoirdupois Weight

Bryan,

May I restate the above:

pennyweight is NOT 1/60

More info @

http://www.weights-and-measures.com

And topic:

Tower Weight