Watt Balance

A watt balance is an experimental electromechanical weight measuring instrument that measures the weight of a test object very precisely by the strength of an electric current and a voltage. It is being developed as a metrological instrument that may one day provide a definition of the kilogram unit of mass based on electronic units, a so-called "electronic kilogram". The name watt balance comes from the fact that the weight of the test mass is proportional to the product of the current and the voltage, which is measured in units of watts.

Read more about Watt Balance:  Design, Origin, Principle, Measurements

Famous quotes containing the words watt and/or balance:

    Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called “silent poetry,” and poetry “speaking painting.” The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.
    Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)