Talk:Newton (unit)

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This article was selected as the article for improvement on 22 January 2024 for a period of one week.

Origin of name / History section

I think there should maybe be a "History" section that explains when this unit was created and named. Obviously it's named after Newton and the article says that, but when was it named? And by who? Nog642 (talk) 01:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

sounds good, go for it. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Conversion Factor / Derivation

I think it would be useful to have the true conversion factor for converting from newtons to the US lbf unit. I've worked it out and it is EXACTLY:

254,000,000,000,000 / 1,129,848,290,276,167

The derivation might also be interesting and I can provide it if anyone is interested in adding it to the article. I am not that familiar with editing Wiki articles, so maybe someone else would be more competent to do it so that I don't accidentally screw something up. NavyVet1959 (talk) 16:16, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You've got the correct answer, but the fraction is not in its lowest terms, which is 2000000000000 / 8896443230521. I see the string "254", so did you somehow involve inches in the calculation? That's totally unnecessary. Here's the calculation in Python:

>>> import fractions
>>> lb = fractions.Fraction("0.45359237")
>>> lb
Fraction(45359237, 100000000)
>>> gn = fractions.Fraction("9.80665")
>>> gn
Fraction(196133, 20000)
>>> lbf = lb * gn
>>> lbf
Fraction(8896443230521, 2000000000000)

However, this is original research and of dubious utility to the reader. The decimal conversion factor in the article (0.224809) with six decimal places is sufficient for all practical purposes. The exact conversion factor is only an interesting recreational mathematics problem. Indefatigable (talk) 03:59, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]