I'm working through a text that talks about mechanical vibrations, and I found something I haven't seen before, nor understand, yet. In the example, it gives me a weight of 16 lb. It says this is actually a measure of weight and not mass. To convert to mass, I must divide by 32. Now, I understand that, if I have a measure of weight, then dividing by g will give me the mass of the thing. What I don't understand is this:
$\frac{16 lb}{32 \frac{ft}{sec^2}} = \frac{1}{2}\frac{(lb)sec^2}{ft}$
That's the example it gives and it says that the mass is $\frac{1}{2}$. Is that nonsense?
Is the unit of mass lb($sec^2$)/ft ? Why not kg?