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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Your typical bathroom scale that tells you your mass is actually doing a math conversion for you by measuring your weight and accounting for earth’s gravity. If you took that scale to the moon, it would not calculate your mass properly.
If you took a scale like you may have used in science class (often used for much smaller objects than people), it would measure mass properly on the Earth and moon because it is balancing the object you are measuring with an equivalent mass.
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