Mass explanation: I’ve always been told that mass was not the same as weight, and that grams are the metric unit of mass. But grams are a measurement of weight, so am I stupid, was it was explained to me wrong, or is science just not make sense?

Question

Mass explanation: I’ve always been told that mass was not the same as weight, and that grams are the metric unit of mass. But grams are a measurement of weight, so am I stupid, was it was explained to me wrong, or is science just not make sense?

In: 140

Answer 1

Mass is a measure of the amount of an object. Weight is the measure of force acting on an object due to gravity. Something that is 10 grams on earth will still be 10 grams on the moon but the weight will be different at these two locations. We can relate weight to mass on the earth because we know the gravitational force.