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Mass, Weight and Gravity.
What is Mass?
Mass
is an amount of substance. It is measured in kilograms.
The mass tells you how many particles
you have,
not what they weigh. Particles can be atoms,
ions or molecules.
What is Gravity?
Gravity is a force of
attraction between masses.
Gravity is a property of mass,
the bigger the mass, the bigger the
gravity.
The further away from each other the
masses are,
the weaker
the gravity between them
(similar to the forces between
magnets and
charges,
except that gravity always attracts).
On Earth the force of
gravity is 10 N/kg.
The acceleration due to gravity
(how fast things accelerate when you drop them)
is approximately 10 m/s2.
What is Weight?
Weight is the force
of gravity pulling on a mass.
Weight is a force, so it is
measured in Newtons, not kilograms.
weight = mass x gravity
w = m x g
This equation is important!
Compare this with the general
formula F
= m x a.
Weight is the force, gravity is the
acceleration.
What is the Difference between Weight and Mass?
If you go to the shops,
you will find fruit and vegetables weighed in kilograms.
In physics, this would be considered
to be wrong.
On Earth the force of gravity is
10 N/kg,
so you can convert mass into
weight by multiplying it by 10.
For example, 1kg of tomatoes weighs 10 N.
If you took your 1kg of tomatoes to
the moon,
you would still have the same mass
(because you still have the same number of tomatoes)
but they would weigh less
because the moon has less
gravity than the Earth.
People who sell
tomatoes are
not generally troubled
by the difference between mass and weight.
They are priced in kg, not
Newtons, since on the whole
they do not try to sell tomatoes on
different planets.
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