Difference between Mass and Weight
let's accept it most of us think that mass and weight are pretty much the same thing are they're not there's a very simple way to understand the difference mass is simply the amount of matter that's present in the object now consider two situations one in which an object is on the earth and second in which the same object is on the moon will the mass of the object be different in these cases to answer this question we ask ourselves another simple question well the amount of matter present in the object be different in these cases absolutely not the matter in the object is not changing at all which is why the mass will be the same in each of the cases the mass of an object remains constant no matter where it is placed the standard metric unit of mass is the kilogram another concept we'd ‘learns’ about an object's mass was that it is a measure of its inertia greater the mass of an object greater will be its inertia is nothing but the tendency of an object to resist change in its state of motion ‘so’ now we have an idea about what masses but what's weight then how do we understand the weight of an object mass is nothing but the measure of how much matter an object has weight is a measure of how strongly gravity pulls on that matter it's the measurement of the gravitational pull of an object let's understand this using a simple example say there are two places place a and place B and there is an object of mass M in place ‘a’ ‘the’ pull of gravity is X units and in place B the pull of gravity is 2x units clearly the pull of gravity is stronger at least B now understand this well the mass of the object will be M at both the places ‘but’ the weight of the object will be greater at place B because the pull of gravity is stronger as the gravity is twice as bigger weight of the object will be twice as much at place B as compared to place a so the weight of an object is a measurement of gravitational force acting on it how can we understand weight using a formula we know the Newton's second law of motion which says that the force acting on an object is the product of its mass and acceleration when its acceleration due to gravity we can replace a with a lowercase G this force due to gravity is nothing but the weight of the object so if we consider the weight of an object to be uppercase W we can rewrite this equation as W equals M times G ‘so’ the weight of an object is the product of its mass and acceleration YouTube gravity what will be the SI unit of weight can you guess it will be the same as that of force Newton as the value of G at a particular place is constant we can also say that the weight of the object is directly proportional to its mass here's the main takeaway from this video the mass of an object remains constant everywhere Whereas its weight depends on the gravitational force at the location amount of matter an object contains while weight is a force of the gravitational attraction of the object Feels towards another object like the Earth's center mass is measured by using So in conclusions mass is a measure of how much matter something contains which equals the number of atoms in it weight is a measure of how strongly gravity pulls on something the SI unit for mass is kilograms the SI unit for weight is the Newton for an example an object with a mass of one kilogram has a weight of about 9.8 Newton's on the surface of the earth and about one-sixth as much on the moon a balance comparing a known amount of matter to an unknown amount of matter weight is measured on a scale the mass of an object doesn't change when an object's location changes weight on the other hand changes with location the mass of an object is a measure of the amount of matter in it or in other words the amount of stuff it contains the SI unit for mass is the kilogram was originally defined in 1795 as the amount of mass of one liter of water it has since changed if you use the imperial system the unit for mass is the slug yes the slug which has a mass of 32 pounds so if you weigh 161 pounds on earth your mass is 5 slugs yes slugs weight is a measure of the force that gravity is pulling on the object gravity is a force and therefore weight technically should be measured in Newton’s a Newton is equal to the acceleration of 1 kilogram 1 meter per second squared for an example let's take an object with a mass of 1 kilogram it has a weight of about 9.8 Newton's on the surface of the earth but here's where it may get a little confusing there are other units that are used to describe weight that sound like mass the imperial system uses the pound to measure weight ‘and’ it's defined in terms of the kilogram as exactly 0.45 three five nine to thirty–seven kilograms your weight can change based on the gravitational pull your weight varies on the moon and other planets ‘but’ your mass remains the same if a cube has a mass of ninety point nine one kilograms and a weight of 200 pounds on earth it will weigh 32 pounds on the moon but still has a mass of ninety point nine one kilogram’s on Mars the cube would weigh 76 pounds ‘but’ it still has the same mass of 90.9 11 kilograms on Jupiter the cube
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