What Is A Slug Physics

What is a Slug?

The slug is the unit of mass in the US common system of units, where the pound is the unit of force. The pound is therefore the unit of weight since weight is divers as the force of gravity on an object. While the pound force and pound weight are the widely used units for commerce in the United States, their use is strongly discouraged in scientific piece of work. The standard units for most of scientific work are the SI units.

A newton can exist seen to exist the forcefulness required to accelerate 1 kg of mass at 1 1000/south². To accelerate a ane kg mass at 9.8 m/south² would crave 9.8 newtons, so on World the weight of 1 kg is nine.viii newtons. Similarly, a pound can exist seen to be the force required to accelerate 1 slug of mass at ane ft/due south². Since the dispatch of gravity in US common units is 32.2 ft/due south², it follows that the weight of 1 slug is 32.two pounds.

The comparison of the slug and the pound makes it clear why the size of the pound is more practical for commerce. Simply at the precision obtainable in electric current scientific work, it is undesirable to take the weight of an object as a standard because the value of k does change measurably at dissimilar points on the Earth. It is much better to accept a standard in terms of mass. The standard kilogram is the mass reference for scientific work.