Tell Us About Newtons, Dummy!

Gravity...

Our research staff report that most of the times they encounter serious scientific illiteracy, it can be traced back to an education lacking in basic science courses. Typical fields of study cited by the illiterates include journalism, English and political science. Every once in a while, we run across people claiming science degrees who bungle their assignments (e.g., this one), but it's rare for someone with a BS – in a science, no less – to display ignorance at the level of Carolyn Robbins, who completely missed the point of "How to Convert Newtons to Kilogram-Force" at – you guessed it – eHow.com, sometimes called "The internet's motherlode of scientific illiteracy" (it's since been niched at Sciencing.com by Demand Media's new version, Leaf Group). Perhaps Robbins had problems caused by mixing biology and theology: we've seen lots of people whose scientific ignorance has been boosted at religious schools...

This Antisocial Network researcher, although no spring chicken, found himself unfamiliar with the unit "kilogram-force" so he did what any reasonable person (i.e., someone who isn't writing for eHow) would do: he googled it. Wikipedia (the site not allowed by Demand Media) says it's a deprecated unit in the SI system that's been replaced by the kilopond; the unit of downward force exerted by an object on the Earth. He's familiar with that one.

Apparently Robbins, BS in biology (and theology) or not, didn't google the kilogram-force or the kilopond. She just launched into her article by boldly stating that

"Weight is measured in Newtons and is equal to mass times the acceleration of gravity."

Well, no, Carolyn, it's not: weight is not measured in Newtons, force is measured in Newtons The Newton is the SI unit of force; a Newton is the force necessary to accelerate a mass of 1 kilogram to 1 meter per second per second. It's from Newton's first law, F = ma. Robbins (almost) got the remainder of the post correct, telling her readers that "To convert Newtons to kilograms [bold ours], divide by 9.81." Ummm, no, to convert Newtons to kiloponds, you divide by 9.81. Carolyn also has a problem with defining that number, which she says is "...the acceleration of gravity... [which] is a constant 9.81 m/s on Earth"

...which isn't fully accurate, since the acceleration of gravity varies indirectly as an object's distance from the center of the Earth varies (Newton's – him again – universal law of gravitation). In other words, it's not a constant; and if it were, it'd be 9.807 m/s², though there we're just being pedantic. What the heck: at least she got the math right...

We think two errors in the definition of scientific units and a misstatement of a physical constant -- all in the space of 120 words -- is sufficient to qualify Carolyn Robbins for a Dumbass of the Day award. You?

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