Why does the number on the scale fluctuate so much?

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Like when you see the numbers bounce around through several graduations on the digital scale till it settles down.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Essentially, because the scale isn’t measuring the mass of the thing on it, it’s measuring the force that’s pushing down and telling you the mass (weight) based on that.

You know that force is based on mass+acceleration, which is why a car going at 55 MPH into a wall makes a much bigger mess than the same car going at 1 MPH. Same difference between a fist hitting you fast vs being touched gently by a fist; or even a very light (in mass) bullet hitting something at supersonic speeds.

So when you step on the scale, what the scale is measuring is a combination of your mass AND the acceleration of your body in the downward direction. If you were completely immobile, the acceleration would only be from gravity and the force would be prety stable.

The shifting that you see comes from you not being completely immobile. So if you were to bend your legs for example, you are accelerating your legs up a little bit, working against your body’s momentum, and it takes a little bit of the force off the scale. Then as you stop bending your legs, the force goes up a little, and so on and so on… Every little bit of movement you do is changing the direction and amount of acceleration that is being sent directly down, which affects the force against the sensor, which it reports back to you.

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