What is the difference between mass and weight?

Answer 1

Weight (such as lbs.) is a force, and force is mass * acceleration. The weight of an object is its mass * the acceleration due to gravity. If you divided your weight in pounds by the local acceleration due to gravity, you'd know your mass.

Because weight is affected by gravity, your weight will change if you travel to a place where gravity is different, such as the very top of a mountain, or the Moon. Your mass is an inherent property of you, and that will not change if the value of gravity changes.

Answer 2

Mass is the "amount of matter" in something.

Weight is the strength with which gravity pulls on something.

On the surface of the earth, the two are related, and are sometimes used almost interchangeably. That's because the strength with which earth's gravity pulls on something, is exactly proportional to the amount of mass it has.

But say you take the thing (say a brick) far into outer space, where the earth's gravity is no longer pulling on it. In that case, the brick has no weight (it will float around without falling); but it still has mass (it still has the same amount of "matter" as always).

In addition to having weight, mass has another property called "inertia," which is basically a resistance to change (hard to stop if it's moving; hard to move if it's stopped). The brick has weight only when it's near a planet (i.e. in the planet's gravitational field). But the brick has inertia always; whether it's near a planet or far out in space.

Answer 3

Mass for an object is a numerical measure of inertia - it's a fundamental property and hard to measure in terms of something else. Mass is also constant for an object (except at speeds near the speed of light). Mass (m) is measured in kilograms in SI units.

Weight on the other hand is mass times the acceleration due to gravity. As a formula: w = mg and its SI units are Newtons.

Answer 4

Mass is that property of a body that causes it to be attracted to another mass. It is also the property of a body that resists motion. Mass is measured in kilograms or in less familiar units, such as 'slugs.'

Weight is the force exerted by the earth on a mass. It is equal to the force exerted on the earth by the mass. Weight is measured in pounds or in less familiar units such as newtons.

Answer 5

weight is the measure of your mass and Gravity which means weight changes in different places like moon and earth. But mass is the amount of things there are in the object(s) It doesn't change it is always the same like if you have two eyes in earth you will have two in moon.

Answer 6

Mass is often taken to be (in classical physics) as a fundemental measurable quantity. Weight is a certain type of force. A unit of weight is a unit of mass times a unit of distances divided by the square of a unit of time.

But, we usually deal with weight on earth and sea level, and weight is a measure of the force of gravity that pulls us toward earth (or another large body), but since we all live on earth, and most of us close enought to sea level, gravity pulls us with roughly the same acceleration everywhere, so weight is just a scalar function of mass on earth.

Units of weight include pounds force (english system) and newtons (SI system).

Units of mass include pounds mass (derived from pounds force), kilograms (and the related gram, miligram, etc.) (SI system), and slugs (english system).

Answer 7

On Earth if your mass is 75kg, it is, for example, the same on the moon .
Here on Earth, you can no longer say "My weight is 75kg".
The scientists in all their wisdom say that your weight on Earth is your mass times the force of gravity (9.81 metres per second).
Your Weight on Earth is therefore 75kg mass x 9.81m/s
= 735.75 Newtons.
But, on the moon it will be a 'Mass' of 75kg but a 'Weight' of
735.75 ÷ 6 = 122.625 Newtons. (The Moon's Gravity is 1/6th that of Earth).

Answer 8

Mass is a body of coherent matter
Weight is the amount a thing weighs

Answer 9

Mass refers to how big something is, weight refers to how heavy something is. For example - a litre of water has a mass of 100 cm. But it would have a weight of about 1 kilogram. Or, to put it in Imperial measures, a pint of water is half a quart, or two cups. That's the mass. It weighs about a pound.

Answer 10

Mass is size and weight is "heavy" can't think of better wording for weight;ie Mass is lets say a full balloon, weight is mercury,small amount weights a-lot but the mass is very small.