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?
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Grams are not a measurement of weight. Grams are a measurement of mass, and mass simply means how much matter is in something. Weight, on the other hand, measures how much gravity is pulling on an object with mass.
So, something with a mass of 1 kilogram has a mass of 1 kilogram whether it is on Earth, on the moon, or in the vacuum of space. Because the amount of matter in that thing does not change, regardless of where it is. But an object that weighs 1 pound on Earth will only weigh 1/6th of a pound on the Moon, but will weigh nothing in space, because Earth has stronger gravity than the Moon, while there is practically no gravity in the void of space.
To summarize, mass is an inherent property of something, but weight depends on the object’s location in the universe (though you do use mass to calculate weight). Mass remains constant, but weight can change (in fact, your weight slightly fluctuates throughout the day as the Moon rotates around the Earth, slightly changing how much gravity is pulling on you). And an object made of matter can have zero weight (if it experiences no gravity) but can NEVER have zero mass.
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