> If you use an American "short" ton and assume a factor of 9, you get:
Thanks for calculating this for me. I had tried all of those ways and
came to the same result, but my "internal Sheldon" did not accept such a
large difference.
In fact, in an earlier discussion on this mailing list, I'd computed the values for six possible ways of interpreting the evidence:
Here's what I wrote then:
Assuming KT = kiloton = 1000 tons, there's still the problem of
whether a "ton" is:
(1) "long" (or "imperial") ton: 2240 lb / 1016.047 kg
(2) "short" ton: 2000 lb / 907.185 kg
(3) metric ton: (or "tonne"): 2204.62 lb / 1000 kg
There's also the question of whether a {cheb'a'} is (A) 9 {cheb} or
(B) 10 {cheb} (or maybe even some other multiple).
The possibilities are:
(A1) 5.774 lb / 2.619 kg
(A2) 5.156 lb / 2.339 kg
(A3) 5.683 lb / 2.578 kg
(B1) 5.197 lb / 2.357 kg
(B2) 4.64 lb / 2.105 kg
(B3) 5.115 lb / 2.32 kg
None of these are particularly close to the state value of around 5 lb
/ 2.25 kg.
The interpretation that gets the closest value to "about five pounds (2.25 kg)" is in fact (B3): a {cheb'a'} is 10 {cheb} and a "KT" is a metric kiloton (one million kilograms). So it could be the case that "international" standards were indeed used on that BoP poster, and that Klingons have adopted (or have always had) a factor of 10 to convert between a {cheb} and a {cheb'a'}. Or it could be using a factor of 9 and imperial (American) tons. Since a pound is within 10% (i.e., the approximate percentage difference between 9 and 10) of 2 kg, either interpretation could be made to work with the stated values.
Until Dr. Okrand explicitly states that a {cheb'a'} is 9 (or 10) {cheb}, either interpretation could be correct.