What is kilo in weight?
One day, Joe’s dad learned that he was running out of some vegetables needed to prepare a special dish for their dinner guests. Busy with his chores in the kitchen, he handed a list of vegetables—potatoes, tomatoes, onions, carrots, and broccoli—to Joe.
Little Joe is perplexed by looking at the numbers and the symbol “kg” (kilograms). Let’s help him buy the right amounts of vegetables by looking at the meaning of kilogram in math.
Kilogram is the SI unit of mass that equals approximately 2.204 lbs.
A kilogram is the standard unit of mass in the International System of Units. “Kilo” means thousand, and kilogram means a thousand grams. The symbol of the kilogram is “kg.”
From the definition, 1 kilogram measures 1000 grams. A kilogram is almost equal to the mass of 1000 cubic cm of water or 1 liter of water.
Kilogram is omnipresent. From the shopping list written by Joe’s dad to the measurement of jet fuel used in an aircraft, and from our body weight to the rocket payload, you can find it everywhere.
“I’m a kilogram,
Cherished with a thousand grams!
Look around you—and you’ll find me everywhere,
From simple shopping stuff to a flight through the air!”
Example 1: 5 kgs of vegetables
Example 2: Zanab weighs 50 kg.
Example 3: 1.5 kg butter
Example 4: 0.25 kg cake
Example 5: 5 kg dumbbells
The base unit of mass in the metric system is the gram. All other units are named by adding a prefix to gram. For example, kilogram has the prefix “kilo”, which means 1000.
Similarly, we add prefixes to “gram” to obtain other units of measuring weight.
The below chart summarizes some common prefixes.
We can use the below gram–kg chart to convert kilograms to SI prefixes of the gram.
We can use this metric ladder to convert one metric unit to the other SI prefixes of the base unit.
The acronym below can easily help convert between different units of measurement.
In this case of measurement of weight, the base unit will be grams.
From the conversion table, 1 kg $= 1 \times 10 \times 10 \times 10$ g
$= 1000$ g.
So, 1 kg $= 1000$ g
Similarly, 1 g $= 1 \div (10 \times 10 \times 10)$ kg
$= 0.001$ kg.
So, 1 g $= 0.001$ kg.
From the conversion table, 1 kg $= 1 \times 10 \times 10 \times 10 \times 10 \times 10 \times 10$ mg
$= 1,000,000$ mg
So, 1 kg $= 1,000,000$ mg.
Similarly, 1 mg $= 0.000001$ kg.
The most common US customary units of mass are ounce, pound, and ton. The below conversion chart summarizes their relationship:
1 kg $= 35.27$ oz
So, 1 oz $= 1 \div 35.27$ kg
$= 0.028$ kg
1 oz = 0.028 kg
From the conversion table, $35.27$ oz $= 35.27 \div 16$ lbs $= 2.204$ lbs
So, 1 kg $= 2.204$ lbs
Similarly, 1 lbs $= 0.45$ kg
From the conversion table, 2.204 lbs $= 2.204 \div 2,000$ US ton
$= 0.0011$ US ton
1 kg $= 0.0011$ US ton
Similarly, 1 US ton $= 907.18$ kg
Some things that weigh 1 kg are:
Colloquially, a kilogram is referred to as a “kilo.”
The US Congress legalized the use of “kilo” as an alternative to kilogram in 1866. However, it revoked the legal status of “kilo” in 1990.
The kilogram is the only SI base unit with a prefix.
Kilograms is the metric unit used to measure the weight of different objects. With the help of the exercises shared above, you can easily convert any unit of mass to kilograms and ace the concept of measuring weights conveniently.
1. A giant tortoise weighs 550 pounds. Its weight in kg is:
Solution: We know that 1 lb $= 0.45$ kg
So, 550 lb $= 0.45 \times 550$
$= 247.5$ kg
2. Examine the below shopping list. Joe’s dad purchases the groceries and puts them in a carry bag. What will be the weight of the carry bag?
Solution: 16 kg
Total weight of the groceries = weight of the bag $= 3 + 4 + 5 + 2 + 2$ kg
$= 16$ kg
3. Joe bought a 1.2 kg cake. Tom, his friend, ate 400 g, and Jay, his cousin, ate 7.05 oz. How much cake is Joe left with?
Solution:
First, let’s convert all the given data into kg.
Tom ate 400 g cake. From the conversion table, 400 g $= 400 \div 1000$ kg
$= 0.4$ kg
Jay ate 7.05 oz of cake.
1 oz $= 0.028$ kg
So, $7.05$ oz $= 7.05 \times 0.028$ kg
$= 0.19$ kg
Total cake left with Joe $= 1.2 – (0.4 + 0.19)$
$= 1.2 – 0.59$
$= 0.61$ kg or $610$ g
4. Joe’s kitten, Chase, weighs 880 oz. Lily’s kitten, Skye, weighs 2000 dcg. And Tom’s kitten, Penny, weighs 23 kg. Whose kitten is the heaviest, i.e., weighs the most?
Solution: Let’s convert all the given data into kg.
Chase weighs 881.84 oz.
1 oz $= 0.028$ kg
So, $881.84$ oz $= 880 \times 0.028$ kg
$= 24.64$ kg
Skye weighs 2000 dcg.
According to the conversion chart, 1 dcg $= 10$g $= 0.01$ kg
$2,000$ dcg $= 2000 \div (10 \times 10)$ kg
$= 20$ kg
Penny weighs 23 kg.
Therefore, Chase, Joe’s kitten, weighs the most.
5. Arrange the following in descending order:
Solution: 8000 g, 6 kg, and 2,000,000 mg
First, let’s convert them to kg.
First = 6 kg . . . (1)
Second $= 8000$ g
We know 1 kg $= 1000$ g
So 1 g $= 1 \div 1000$ kg
$8,000$ g $= 8,000 \div 1000$ kg
$= 8$ kg . . . (2)
We know, 1 kg $= 1,000,000$ mg
Similarly, 1 mg $= 1 \div 1,000,000$ kg.
$2,000,000$ mg $= 2,000,000 \div 1,000,000$ kg
$= 2$ kg . . . (3)
So, the order will be 8 kg (2), 6 kg (1), and 2 kg (3)
The kilogram is the base SI unit for the measurement of weight and mass. This is derived on the basis of the fixed numeric value of the Planck constant which is roughly equivalent to 6.62607015 × 10-34. The term kilogram is derived from the French term Kilogramme, which translates to thousand in English. The kilogram is the only measurement unit that uses its very own SI prefix. Previously, a kilogram was defined as being equal to the mass of one liter of water at freezing point.
As originally stated, the kilogram was denoted by a solid platinum cylinder in the late 18th century. This was because denoting the measurement of one kilo through the measurement of the mass of the volume of water proved to be inconsistent and imprecise. This measurement was overruled in 1889 by the standard measurement of the kilogram, which was also a solid cylinder with a diameter equivalent to its height. This was made of the same platinum-iridium alloy which was used as the standard for defining a meter.
In order to avoid the problem of having the definition of kilogram linked to an object with changing mass, it was decided in 2011 to redefine the kilogram as a fundamental physical constant instead of a physical artifact. Thus Planck’s constant was defined as the physical constant which was equal to 6.62607015 × 10−34 joule second.
The unit Kilograms has wide-ranging applications all over the world in several different fields. Although, the exception to this is the USA, where the use of pounds is much more prevalent. The kilogram is used in various fields like government, military, industrial, and science. It is the base SI unit of measurement of mass and weight.
A pound is a unit of mass and weight measurement that is used widely in the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Even though many definitions have been in use, the most commonly used is the international Avoirdupois pound. This can be legally defined as being equal to 0.45359237 kilograms, which can be further subdivided into 16 avoirdupois ounces. The symbol for this unit of measurement is ‘lbs’.
The ‘pound’ was mainly used in the Mediterranean region and was introduced to Europe through land routes, where it became the main unit of weight and money. The term 'pound’ is derived from the Roman word libra, which is why this unit is denoted by the symbol ‘lbs’. This word translates to ‘balance’ or ‘scales’ in English. In medieval times, there were a number of interpretations of the word, however, the definition of metric pound supersedes all of them.
The pound is a unit of measurement that is mainly used to measure the weight of the human body and other objects. This unit is preferred over the kilogram throughout the USA for the measurement of mass. The pound is mainly used to label food items and packaged products. The pound is used in the UK over kilograms, for the measurement of body weight.
All you need to do in order to convert kilograms to pounds is to remember the conversion factor associated with these two units. The important thing to keep in mind is that 1 kg = 2.2046 lbs. So if you wish to convert kilograms to pounds, all you have to do is multiply the value in kilograms by 2.2046.
Given below is the formula for converting kilograms to pounds with ease:
Pounds = Kilograms * 2.2046
The relationship between kilograms to pounds is actually pretty straightforward and easy to understand. You can easily do the kg to lbs conversion if you know the right conversion formula and how to use it. The important thing to remember is that 1 kg is equal to 2.2046 pounds, while 1 pound is equal to 0.45359237 kilograms. This is the main thing you need to know to convert kilograms to pounds.
Let’s go through some examples of kilograms to pounds conversion with the help of some examples:
Example 1: What is 56 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 56 * 2.2046
= 123.4576 lbs
Example 2: What is 57 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 57 * 2.2046
= 125.6622 lbs
Example 3: What is 64 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 64 * 2.2046
= 141.0944 lbs
Example 4: What is 67 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 67 * 2.2046
= 147.7082 lbs
Example 5: What is 69 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 69 * 2.2046
= 152.1174 lbs
Example 6: What is 70 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 70 * 2.2046
= 154.322 lbs
Example 7: What is 73 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 73 * 2.2046
= 160.9358 lbs
Example 8: What is 74 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 74 * 2.2046
= 163.1404 lbs
Example 9: What is 76 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 76 * 2.2046
= 167.5496 lbs
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Example 10: What are 78 Kgs in Pounds
Formula Applied: Pounds= Kgs * 2.2046
Substituting the values in the formula we get,
Pounds = 78 * 2.2046
= 171.9588 lbs
Even though both units are used for the measurement of weight and mass, these units differ on several factors. Some of the differences between kilograms and pounds are as follows:
The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo colloquially. It means 'one thousand grams'.
The kilogram is defined in terms of the second and the metre, both of which are based on fundamental physical constants. This allows a properly equipped metrology laboratory to calibrate a mass measurement instrument such as a Kibble balance as the primary standard to determine an exact kilogram mass.
The kilogram was originally defined in 1795 during the French Revolution as the mass of one litre of water. The current definition of a kilogram agrees with this original definition to within 30 parts per million. In 1799, the platinum Kilogramme des Archives replaced it as the standard of mass. In 1889, a cylinder of platinum-iridium, the International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK), became the standard of the unit of mass for the metric system and remained so for 130 years, before the current standard was adopted in 2019.
The kilogram is defined in terms of three fundamental physical constants:
The formal definition according to the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) is:
Defined in term of those units, the kg is formulated as:
This definition is generally consistent with previous definitions: the mass remains within 30 ppm of the mass of one litre of water.
The kilogram is the only base SI unit with an SI prefix (kilo) as part of its name. The word kilogramme or kilogram is derived from the French kilogramme, which itself was a learned coinage, prefixing the Greek stem of χίλιοι khilioi "a thousand" to gramma, a Late Latin term for "a small weight", itself from Greek γράμμα. The word kilogramme was written into French law in 1795, in the Decree of 18 Germinal, which revised the provisional system of units introduced by the French National Convention two years earlier, where the gravet had been defined as weight (poids) of a cubic centimetre of water, equal to 1/1000 of a grave. In the decree of 1795, the term gramme thus replaced gravet, and kilogramme replaced grave.
The French spelling was adopted in Great Britain when the word was used for the first time in English in 1795, with the spelling kilogram being adopted in the United States. In the United Kingdom both spellings are used, with "kilogram" having become by far the more common. UK law regulating the units to be used when trading by weight or measure does not prevent the use of either spelling.
In the 19th century the French word kilo, a shortening of kilogramme, was imported into the English language where it has been used to mean both kilogram and kilometre. While kilo as an alternative is acceptable, to The Economist for example, the Canadian government's Termium Plus system states that "SI (International System of Units) usage, followed in scientific and technical writing" does not allow its usage and it is described as "a common informal name" on Russ Rowlett's Dictionary of Units of Measurement. When the United States Congress gave the metric system legal status in 1866, it permitted the use of the word kilo as an alternative to the word kilogram, but in 1990 revoked the status of the word kilo.
The SI system was introduced in 1960 and in 1970 the BIPM started publishing the SI Brochure, which contains all relevant decisions and recommendations by the CGPM concerning units. The SI Brochure states that "It is not permissible to use abbreviations for unit symbols or unit names ...".
It is primarily because of units for electromagnetism that the kilogram rather than the gram was eventually adopted as the base unit of mass in the SI. The relevant series of discussions and decisions started roughly in the 1850s and effectively concluded in 1946. By the end of the 19th century, the 'practical units' for electric and magnetic quantities such as the ampere and the volt were well established in practical use (e.g. for telegraphy). Unfortunately, they did not form a coherent system of units with the then-prevailing base units for length and mass, the centimetre, and the gram. However, the 'practical units' also included some purely mechanical units. In particular, the product of the ampere and the volt gives a purely mechanical unit of power, the watt. It was noticed that the purely mechanical practical units such as the watt would be coherent in a system in which the base unit of length was the metre and the base unit of mass was the kilogram. Because no one wanted to replace the second as the base unit of time, the metre and the kilogram are the only pair of base units of length and mass such that (1) the watt is a coherent unit of power, (2) the base units of length and time are integer-power-of-ten ratios to the metre and the gram (so that the system remains 'metric'), and (3) the sizes of the base units of length and mass are convenient for practical use. This would still leave out the purely electrical and magnetic units: while the purely mechanical practical units such as the watt are coherent in the metre-kilogram-second system, the explicitly electrical and magnetic units such as the volt, the ampere, etc. are not. The only way to also make those units coherent with the metre-kilogram-second system is to modify that system in a different way: the number of fundamental dimensions must be increased from three (length, mass, and time) to four (the previous three, plus one purely electrical one).
During the second half of the 19th century, the centimetre–gram–second system of units was becoming widely accepted for scientific work, treating the gram as the fundamental unit of mass and the kilogram as a decimal multiple of the base unit formed by using a metric prefix. However, as the century drew to a close, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the units for electricity and magnetism in the CGS system: they were so small (or large) that realistic measurements involved very large (or small) numbers. There were two obvious choices for absolute units of electromagnetism: the ‘electrostatic’ (CGS-ESU) system and the ‘electromagnetic’ (CGS-EMU) system. But the sizes of coherent electric and magnetic units were not convenient in either of these systems; for example, the ESU unit of electrical resistance, which was later named the statohm, corresponds to about 9×1011 ohm, while the EMU unit, which was later named the abohm, corresponds to 10−9 ohm.
To circumvent this difficulty, a third set of units was introduced: the so-called practical units. The practical units were obtained as decimal multiples of coherent CGS-EMU units, chosen so that the resulting magnitudes were convenient for practical use and so that the practical units were, as far as possible, coherent with each other. The practical units included such units as the volt, the ampere, the ohm, etc., which were later incorporated in the SI system and which are used to this day. The reason the metre and the kilogram were later chosen to be the base units of length and mass was that they are the only combination of reasonably sized decimal multiples or submultiples of the metre and the gram that can be made coherent with the volt, the ampere, etc.
The reason is that electrical quantities cannot be isolated from mechanical and thermal ones: they are connected by relations such as current × electric potential difference = power. For this reason, the practical system also included coherent units for certain mechanical quantities. For example, the previous equation implies that ampere × volt is a coherent derived practical unit of power; this unit was named the watt. The coherent unit of energy is then the watt times the second, which was named the joule. The joule and the watt also have convenient magnitudes and are decimal multiples of CGS coherent units for energy (the erg) and power (the erg per second). The watt is not coherent in the centimetre-gram-second system, but it is coherent in the metre-kilogram-second system—and in no other system whose base units of length and mass are reasonably sized decimal multiples or submultiples of the metre and the gram.
However, unlike the watt and the joule, the explicitly electrical and magnetic units (the volt, the ampere...) are not coherent even in the (absolute three-dimensional) metre-kilogram-second system. Indeed, one can work out what the base units of length and mass have to be in order for all the practical units to be coherent (the watt and the joule as well as the volt, the ampere, etc.). The values are 107 metres (one half of a meridian of the Earth, called a quadrant) and 10−11 grams (called an eleventh-gram).
Therefore, the full absolute system of units in which the practical electrical units are coherent is the quadrant–eleventh-gram–second (QES) system. However, the extremely inconvenient magnitudes of the base units for length and mass made it so that no one seriously considered adopting the QES system. Thus, people working on practical applications of electricity had to use units for electrical quantities and for energy and power that were not coherent with the units they were using for e.g. length, mass, and force.
Meanwhile, scientists developed yet another fully coherent absolute system, which came to be called the Gaussian system, in which the units for purely electrical quantities are taken from CGE-ESU, while the units for magnetic quantities are taken from the CGS-EMU. This system proved very convenient for scientific work and is still widely used. However, the sizes of its units remained either too large or too small—by many orders of magnitude—for practical applications.
Finally, in both CGS-ESU and CGS-EMU as well as in the Gaussian system, Maxwell's equations are 'unrationalized', meaning that they contain various factors of 4π that many workers found awkward. So yet another system was developed to rectify that: the 'rationalized' Gaussian system, usually called the Heaviside–Lorentz system. This system is still used in some subfields of physics. However, the units in that system are related to Gaussian units by factors of √4π ≈ 3.5, which means that their magnitudes remained, like those of the Gaussian units, either far too large or far too small for practical applications.
In 1901, Giovanni Giorgi proposed a new system of units that would remedy this situation. He noted that the mechanical practical units such as the joule and the watt are coherent not only in the QES system, but also in the metre-kilogram-second (MKS) system. It was of course known that adopting the metre and the kilogram as base units—obtaining the three dimensional MKS system—would not solve the problem: while the watt and the joule would be coherent, this would not be so for the volt, the ampere, the ohm, and the rest of the practical units for electric and magnetic quantities (the only three-dimensional absolute system in which all practical units are coherent is the QES system).
But Giorgi pointed out that the volt and the rest could be made coherent if the idea that all physical quantities must be expressible in terms of dimensions of length, mass, and time, is relinquished and a fourth base dimension is added for electric quantities. Any practical electrical unit could be chosen as the new fundamental unit, independent from the metre, kilogram, and second. Likely candidates for the fourth independent unit included the coulomb, the ampere, the volt, and the ohm, but eventually, the ampere proved to be the most convenient for metrology. Moreover, the freedom gained by making an electric unit independent from the mechanical units could be used to rationalize Maxwell's equations.
The idea that one should give up on having a purely 'absolute' system (i.e. one where only length, mass, and time are the base dimensions) was a departure from a viewpoint that seemed to underlie the early breakthroughs by Gauss and Weber (especially their famous 'absolute measurements' of Earth's magnetic field: 54–56 ), and it took some time for the scientific community to accept it—not least because many scientists clung to the notion that the dimensions of a quantity in terms of length, mass, and time somehow specify its 'fundamental physical nature'.:24, 26
By the 1920s, dimensional analysis had become much better understood and it was becoming widely accepted that the choice both of the number and of the identities of the "fundamental" dimensions should be dictated by convenience only and that there is nothing really fundamental about the dimensions of a quantity. In 1935, Giorgi's proposal was adopted by the IEC as the Giorgi system. It is this system that has since then been called the MKS system, although ‘MKSA’ appears in careful usage. In 1946 the CIPM approved a proposal to adopt the ampere as the electromagnetic unit of the "MKSA system".: 109, 110 In 1948 the CGPM commissioned the CIPM "to make recommendations for a single practical system of units of measurement, suitable for adoption by all countries adhering to the Metre Convention". This led to the launch of SI in 1960.
To summarize, the ultimate reason that the kilogram was chosen over the gram as the base unit of mass was, in one word, the volt-ampere. Namely, the combination of the metre and the kilogram was the only choice of base units of length and mass such that 1. the volt-ampere—which is also called the watt and which is the unit of power in the practical system of electrical units—is coherent, 2. the base units of length and mass are decimal multiples or submultiples of the metre and the gram, and 3. the base units of length and mass have convenient sizes.
The CGS and MKS systems co-existed during much of the early-to-mid-20th century, but as a result of the decision to adopt the "Giorgi system" as the international system of units in 1960, the kilogram is now the SI base unit for mass, while the definition of the gram is derived.
The replacement of the International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK) as the primary standard was motivated by evidence accumulated over a long period of time that the mass of the IPK and its replicas had been changing; the IPK had diverged from its replicas by approximately 50 micrograms since their manufacture late in the 19th century. This led to several competing efforts to develop measurement technology precise enough to warrant replacing the kilogram artefact with a definition based directly on physical fundamental constants. Physical standard masses such as the IPK and its replicas still serve as secondary standards.
The International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) approved a redefinition of the SI base units in November 2018 that defines the kilogram by defining the Planck constant to be exactly 6.62607015×10−34 kg⋅m2⋅s−1, effectively defining the kilogram in terms of the second and the metre. The new definition took effect on May 20, 2019.
Prior to the redefinition, the kilogram and several other SI units based on the kilogram were defined by a man-made metal artifact: the Kilogramme des Archives from 1799 to 1889, and the IPK from 1889 to 2019.
In 1960, the metre, previously similarly having been defined with reference to a single platinum-iridium bar with two marks on it, was redefined in terms of an invariant physical constant (the wavelength of a particular emission of light emitted by krypton, and later the speed of light) so that the standard can be independently reproduced in different laboratories by following a written specification.
At the 94th Meeting of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) in 2005, it was recommended that the same be done with the kilogram.
In October 2010, the CIPM voted to submit a resolution for consideration at the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM), to "take note of an intention" that the kilogram be defined in terms of the Planck constant, h (which has dimensions of energy times time, thus mass × length2 / time) together with other physical constants. This resolution was accepted by the 24th conference of the CGPM in October 2011 and further discussed at the 25th conference in 2014. Although the Committee recognised that significant progress had been made, they concluded that the data did not yet appear sufficiently robust to adopt the revised definition, and that work should continue to enable the adoption at the 26th meeting, scheduled for 2018. Such a definition would theoretically permit any apparatus that was capable of delineating the kilogram in terms of the Planck constant to be used as long as it possessed sufficient precision, accuracy and stability. The Kibble balance is one way to do this.
As part of this project, a variety of very different technologies and approaches were considered and explored over many years. Some of these approaches were based on equipment and procedures that would enable the reproducible production of new, kilogram-mass prototypes on demand (albeit with extraordinary effort) using measurement techniques and material properties that are ultimately based on, or traceable to, physical constants. Others were based on devices that measured either the acceleration or weight of hand-tuned kilogram test masses and which expressed their magnitudes in electrical terms via special components that permit traceability to physical constants. All approaches depend on converting a weight measurement to a mass and therefore require precise measurement of the strength of gravity in laboratories (gravimetry). All approaches would have precisely fixed one or more constants of nature at a defined value.
Because an SI unit may not have multiple prefixes (see SI prefix), prefixes are added to gram, rather than the base unit kilogram, which already has a prefix as part of its name. For instance, one-millionth of a kilogram is 1 mg (one milligram), not 1 μkg (one microkilogram).
A kilogram is abbreviated as kilo or kg. A pound is equal to 0.4535 kilograms. One kilogram is equal to 2.2046 pounds.