I am trying to find more about it, but my first guess (which, for the record, I am completely and utterly unqualified to make) is that it is a bit like one of those old scales with counterbalances, but instead of relying on a fulcrum, it measures the amount of torque generated by the differences in weight between the thing you are weighing (long box on the right side) and the counterbalance (short box on the left side.) So, when you hang the thing to be weighed, it pulls down and based on the amount of torque generated by that action, it tells you exactly how much something weighs.
But I was a Humanities and Social Sciences major in college and didn't take any math or science, so are there any other more educated and informed guesses?
