How is mass different from weight?

682 views

Somebody said they are different because of gravity.

In: 33

31 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Simply said, mass is the sum of all the building blocks you’re made of. It’s a fixed number for solid objects like a rock, a glass or a car.

But for living creatures that eat, drink, sweat and breathe, this number changes from second to second.

Any two objects exert a gravitational force on eachother, and this is where the term weight comes in. The more mass either object has, the stronger the gravitational pull on the other, and vice versa. When one object has waaay more mass than the other, like you & the earth, the gravitational force is observed to be constant, always the same.

It is assumed for the sake of argument that the Earth has a mass that never changes (although it does, but not significantly).

How big that difference is between the two objects’ masses is what determines the weight of the lighter object. The moon has a smaller mass than the Earth, therefore your body is pulled less strongly toward it. When you jump on the Moon you will go up higher and fall more slowly. You weigh less on the moon than you do on Earth.

When there are no objects around you at all (as astronauts get to experience in space) you don’t feel any gravitational pull and so you feel weightless.

Throughout all of this your mass remains the same.

You are viewing 1 out of 31 answers, click here to view all answers.