cengland0 (3/22/2011)
SanDroid (3/22/2011)
I was talking about when the pounds are converted to Kilos before calculating displacement, since Kilos is the way to go, the math is always done wrong.What you are trying to point out...:-P That you know why we use Kilo's in the Balast programs?
Just that I would never use pounds in the formula.
Also, when speaking of Tons, you have the metric ton which is 1000 kilograms and that is about 2205 pounds. Most people assume ton as a "short ton" which is 2000 pounds. As you can see, there's a couple hundred pounds difference between the two so it might not be a conversion issue but an assumed unit problem.
I've heard of short tons before, but never seen a case where they have been used (maybe that's because I don't live where people do USA measures). A metric ton (tonne) is 1000kg, and a long ton is 2240lb, so the difference between the two commonly used tons is only about 1.5%, not the 10% difference between the short ton and the tonne or the 12% difference between the short ton and the long ton. This means that the error mentioned (something over 1000 tons in 100000, so a bit over 1%) is far too big to have been cause by confusing short tons and metric tonnes and although it's about the right size for confusing metric tonnes and long tons that seems very unlikely to me because Sandroid wrote explicitly about conversion from pounds to kilograms, so it really is rounding error not terminological confusion.
Tom