How is mass different from weight?

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Somebody said they are different because of gravity.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Mass is (effectively) constant. It’s a measure of how much “stuff” something is. You can easily measure it against a known quantity of stuff (those teeter totter balancing scales), but there are other ways too. Weight is subjective based on gravity. It’s basically a measure of mass modified by how much gravity is pulling on it.

Just a simple example would be your mass would be the same regardless of if you’re on Earth, the Moon, Mars, or even just floating in space. You’re approximately the same amount of “stuff” (atoms and all) regardless of where you are. Weight obviously would change based on how much gravity could pull on that “stuff”. It’s to the point where in space, far enough away from gravitational bodies, you’d essentially be at 0 weight because nothing is pulling on you but you’re still the same size and all.

In short, mass is just plain stuff. Weight is what happens to mass when being affected by gravity.

It’s kind of like the difference between how much money you have and what you can buy with it. Like if you put $10 in a safe and take it out in 20 years, it’ll still be $10, but the cost of stuff will make it probably buy less stuff than currently does. For an even shorter term example, $10 will buy different amount of gas today than it will tomorrow. It’s still $10, but it’s worth a different amount of goods.

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