Kilograms to Scruples (kg to ℈)

1 kilogram equals 771.6179176 scruples (rounded).

1 kilogram = 771.6179176 scruples

How to convert kilograms to scruples

To convert kilograms to scruples, multiply the number of kilograms by 771.6179176. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply scruples by 0.0012959782.

scruples = kilograms × 771.6179176

Example: 10 kilograms = 7,716.179176 scruples.

About these units

Kilogram (kg)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI base unit of mass. Since 2019 it is defined by fixing the value of the Planck constant, replacing the old platinum-iridium cylinder in Paris.

Oddly for a base unit, the kilogram began life as a derived one. In 1793 revolutionary France defined the grave as the mass of one litre of water, and a decree of 1795 then replaced it with the kilogramme, a name built from the Greek khilioi (a thousand) and gramma, a Late Latin word for a small weight. In 1799 a platinum cylinder, the Kilogramme des Archives, became the physical standard, matching a cubic decimetre of water at its densest, around 4 degrees Celsius. In 1889 the metric community adopted a platinum-iridium cylinder made in 1879, the International Prototype of the Kilogram, nicknamed Le Grand K.

The kilogram is still the only SI base unit with a prefix in its name. Because SI forbids stacked prefixes, a millionth of a kilogram is a milligram rather than a microkilogram, so every mass prefix is attached to the gram. Calibrating every national standard against one object in a vault near Paris meant that all of them drifted relative to it, so in November 2018 member states voted to tie the kilogram to a fixed value of the Planck constant. The change took effect on 20 May 2019. Day to day nothing shifted, but the definition no longer depends on a single piece of metal.

The kilogram is the reference unit for weight & mass on this site.

Sources: NIST: Kilogram introduction (SI redefinition); Wikipedia: Kilogram

Scruple (℈)

Troy & apothecaries'Historical unit (no longer in standard use)

20 grains (1.296 g). A unit of the old apothecaries' system of weights.

Physicians and pharmacists once wrote prescriptions in Latin, and the scruple appeared in them as a small symbol followed by a Roman numeral. At 20 grains, it was the smallest of the larger apothecaries' units and amounts to roughly 1.296 grams. Three scruples made a dram, and the grain beneath it is about 64.8 milligrams.

Pharmacists in Britain were pushed away from the old scheme in the nineteenth century. The Medical Act 1858 required avoirdupois weights, and the 1864 British Pharmacopoeia advised dropping the scruple and the dram, yet the troy-based apothecaries' system lingered in practice. It became obsolete for drugs when metric measures became mandatory in 1971, and the Weights and Measures Act 1976 abolished it.

Today the unit survives mainly as a historical curiosity in old recipes and medical texts. A modern pharmacist would give the same dose as about 1.3 grams.

1 scruple = 0.0012959782 kilograms (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Apothecaries' system; Wikipedia: Troy weight

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