Conceptually I understand that mass is a measure of the amount of stuff present in an object, while weight is a measure of the force of gravity applied to that object. An object of a given mass will have a bigger weight on Earth than on the moon because Earth’s gravity is stronger. But… mass is determined by weighing an object on a scale. And there is a simple mathematical conversion between grams (mass) and pounds (weight), implying that they’re just different units for the same concept. So what gives? (Also this is a question that applies to so many fields, I had no idea which flair to apply.)
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‘Weighing scales’ don’t really ‘weigh’ you, they measure your mass. Or rather they actually *do* measure your weight, but they ‘do’ the math and the reading you’re given is actually your mass.
Grams and pounds are both actually measurements of mass, just in different measuring systems. Weight is measured in newtons. That being said, there are plenty of fairly simple conversions between different unit types, we just give them a new unit name for convenience sake. For example, E=mc^2 means that energy could technically be measured in kgm/s^2, but that’s a pain so we call it joules
Hope this helps 🙂
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