In an orbiting space shuttle you are handed 2 boxes. One with feathers,one sand.How can you tell the diff.....

Question

without opening the boxes?

Answer 1

I am not a physics major, but I would say give the box a hard shove. Because even if there is no gravity, the items do have mass and it will take more engergy to propel an object with greater mass. So you will be able to tell by how hard it is to push each box.

Answer 2

remember that am=F (force equals mass times acceleration)

In this case one of the boxes is going to have more mass (unless we are in the pound of feathers, pound of lead situation)

So to determin the mass we see that m = f/a

so if you apply an equal force to the two objects the acceleration will varrie inveresly to the mass.

(basicly it will be harder to push the box of sand. Or when you push the box of sand it will push back on you harder than the feathers.)

Answer 3

possibly the container packed with sand is the extra huge, wherein case its acceleration whilst pushed via a fixed length tension would be under that of the feather container. This effect would be glaring even however the two are "floating" in a "0 g" ecosystem.

Answer 4

Push both boxes towards a friend at the same speed.
The one that hurts the most when it hits your friend is the one with the greatest mass, the sand.

Answer 5

Well, in spite of weightlessness, objects still have inertia. Therefore, if you give each box a little push, the lighter box will accelerate more then the heavy one.

Answer 6

The box with sand will need more a push due to it having greater inertia.

Answer 7

Shake the box.
If you shake it's sand.
If the box shakes it's feathers.

Answer 8

Everyone else already got it. I'm just here for the two points. Inertia rules!

Answer 9

I agree with Michael B. But by just holding them, you wouldn't know because of lack of gravity.

Answer 10

shake them, unless the boxes are also filled with vacuum, you should be able to feel or hear the difference.