Defining Gbar units
Let's begin with the mass, length, duration units just as if we were
going to the NIST fundamental constants website to look up the
conventional Planck units.
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/
At this site, in the "Universal" section, there are metric values for
the conventional Planck mass, length, duration, and temperature
http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Category?view=html&Universal.x=87&Universal.y=12
For this preliminary rough calculation I wont show error bounds or
round off. Here are the corresponding Gbar quantities: what
you get if you use
Gbar = 8 pi G, instead of G itself. Besides the mass, length, duration,
and temperature quantities analagous to what NIST lists, an energy unit
has been added.
mass unit = 4.34139 micrograms
length unit = 8.10263 × 10-35
meters
duration unit = 2.70275 × 10-43
seconds
temperature
unit = 0.282609 × 1032
kelvin
energy
unit = 3.90185 × 108
joule
This is what you get for basic units if you set the values of Gbar,
hbar, c, and k equal to 1.
Later we will include the elementary charge e (the charge on the
electron)
|Gbar| = |hbar| = |c| = |k| = |e| = 1
Because the sizes of the Planck quantities are extreme, we will here
use some
named power-of-ten scaled versions.
108
mass units = 434 grams = pound (because it's about a pound of
mass)
1033
length units = 8.10 centimeters = hand (because it's some 3 and 1/4
inches, about a handbreadth)
1042 duration
units = 0.270275 second = count
(because at 222 to the minute it's about as fast as I can count)
10-32
temperature
unit = 0.282609 kelvin = degree Fahrenhalf (because it's about half a
Fahrenheit degree)
10-10
energy
unit = 0.0390185 joule = jot (placeholder name, because it's a tiny
amount of energy)
The same humanscale units can
be defined by
assigning these power-of-ten values to the fundamental constants
Gbar = 10-7
hand3count-2pound-1
c = 109
hand count-1
hbar = 10-32
jot
count
k = 10-22
jot degree-1
e = 10-18
dram (charge unit)
Here for reference are sizes of
the main humanscale Gbar units:
the time unit
(count)
comes out 222 to the minute.
the temperature degree
turns out to be about half a Fahrenheit
the mass unit pound
comes out to 434 grams, roughly one conventional pound.
the length unit hand
is 8.10 centimeters (around 3 and 1/4
inches)
the force unit mark
is 0.4816 newton, a couple of ounces of
force.
the energy unit jot
works out to around 0.04 joule or 1/100 of a
calorie.
the charge unit dram
since it is 1018
electron's
worth, has a metric equivalent of 0.1602 Coulomb
the unit current is about 2/3 of a conventional ampere
the unit voltage quartervolt
(Q) is about 1/4 of a conventional
volt.
the power unit jot per count
is approx. 1/6 watt.
the area unit square
hand is about 65.65 square
centimeters.
the volume unit cubic hand
comes out to 532 cubic centimeters, somewhat more than an ordinary pint.
the pressure unit mark
per square hand is about 73.3
pascals.
the mass density unit pound
per cubic hand is
about 0.816 standard (g/cc) density.
the acceleration unit hand
per square count is
about 1.11 meters per sq. second,
roughly a ninth of the conventional gee.
eQ = 10-18
jot
k = 10-22
jot degree-1 =10-4 eQ degree-1
hbar = 10-14 eQ count
hbar × c = 10-5 eQ hand = 10 eQ
microhand
Light with angular wavelength of 1 microhand is green, and has photon
energy 10 eQ.
By way of comparison the surface temperature of the sun is 20,000
degrees, in energy terms 2 eQ.
It may be useful to know that the pound defined here is equal to about
2.6E26 proton masses.
Rough approximations of conditions at the earth's surface, for working
the exercises:
pressure 1400 mk per sq. hd, absolute temperature 1000 deg, gravity 9
hd per sq. ct.
One reason you might regard 8piG (or "Gbar") as more fundamental
than G is that the 1915 Einstein equation, the main classical equation
about
gravity, is often written:
Gab
=
(8piG)Tab
This already assumes that the units have been adjusted to make c = 1,
because the actual
coefficient is 8piG/c4. Then, by
adjusting
units so that 8piG = 1, relativists will often write the main gravity
equation in this squeaky clean
form:
Gab
=
Tab
The coefficient 8piG/c4 in the Einstein equation is the
reciprocal of a force c4/8piG which is the unit of force in
this version of Planck units. In our humanscale system, the force
amounts to
exactly 1043 mark.