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In some contexts, the term "pound" is used almost exclusively to refer to the unit of force and not the unit of mass. In those applications, the preferred unit of mass is the slug, i.e. lbf⋅s 2 /ft. In other contexts, the unit "pound" refers to a unit of mass. The international standard symbol for the pound as a unit of mass is lb. [8]
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in both the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly 0.453 592 37 kilograms , and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces . [ 1 ]
See Weight for detail of mass/weight distinction and conversion. Avoirdupois is a system of mass based on a pound of 16 ounces, while Troy weight is the system of mass where 12 troy ounces equals one troy pound. The symbol g 0 is used to denote standard gravity in order to avoid confusion with the (upright) g symbol for gram.
Units for other physical quantities are derived from this set as needed. In English Engineering Units, the pound-mass and the pound-force are distinct base units, and Newton's Second Law of Motion takes the form = where is the acceleration in ft/s 2 and g c = 32.174 lb·ft/(lbf·s 2).
In engineering and physics, g c is a unit conversion factor used to convert mass to force or vice versa. [1] It is defined as = In unit systems where force is a derived unit, like in SI units, g c is equal to 1.
One slug is a mass equal to 32.17405 lb (14.59390 kg) based on standard gravity, the international foot, and the avoirdupois pound. [3] In other words, at the Earth's surface (in standard gravity), an object with a mass of 1 slug weighs approximately 32.17405 lbf or 143.1173 N. [ 4 ] [ 5 ]
The unit of substance in the FPS system is the pound-mole (lb-mol) = 273.16 × 10 24. Until the SI decided to adopt the gram-mole, the mole was directly derived from the mass unit as (mass unit)/(atomic mass unit). The unit (lbf⋅s 2 /ft)-mol also appears in a former definition of the atmosphere.
Other units of mass are also in use. Historical units include the stone, the pound, the carat, and the grain. For subatomic particles, physicists use the mass equivalent to the energy represented by an electronvolt (eV). At the atomic level, chemists use the mass of one-twelfth of a carbon-12 atom (the dalton).