Most people often confuse the concepts of mass and weight, but physically they are very different concepts; there are those who think they are the same, while others exchange their meanings; Confusing this is something totally normal, since the same daily life is in charge and shows us these terms erroneously, for example the scale that you have at home to “weigh yourself” or the one that your doctor has will give you a “weight” in Kilograms, when what you are really doing is measuring your mass and not your weight (some do it in (N) Newtons, which would be correct). Likewise, we always hear about weight when something is in Kilograms and that unit of measurement is really that of mass.
Through this article, we explain the differences between these two concepts so that it is clear to you; basically the difference is that the mass is the amount of matter that a body has and the weight is the force with which this same body is attracted by gravity.
It is important to want to learn and be clear about the differences in mass and weight so as not to confuse them again.
What do you need
Read the instructions well
Instructions
- Mass: is the matter from which a body is built and is given by the number of particles that make it up; every body is made up of matter to a lesser or greater extent; Mass is everything that occupies a place in space.
Weight: force by which the body is attracted by the gravity of the earth, that is, it causes the bodies to fall, but this will depend on the mass of said body. - Weight: has a vector magnitude and produces accelerations; Depending on the altitude and latitude, the terrestrial attraction changes.
Mass : has a scalar magnitude, suffers from accelerations, and does not depend on latitude and altitude. - Weight is given by the following formula weight=mass*gravity.
- Mass: its unit of measurement is given in Kilograms and is done by means of a scale. Other measurements such as pounds, grams, tons, etc. can also be used. In the SI the measure is the kilogram and in the CGS system the unit of measure is the gram.
Weight: its unit of measurement is given in Newtons, N, and it is done with a dynamometer; also the unit of measurement can be given in kg-force. - The weight can vary thanks to gravity, for example it will not be the same weight on Mars as on Earth, while the mass will be the same in both places.
- The mass is constant and the weight is given according to gravity, that is, it is variable.
- The mass is divided into two: gravitational mass and inertial mass; Physics uses the latter, which is the most common and has a measure that can be quantified, which is given by the resistance of an object to acceleration, while gravitational mass is a measure of the magnitude of the attractive force that is exerts on a certain body. We also find the atomic mass, which is the mass of an atom, this is given by the sum of neutrons and protons without counting the electrons, since they are not significant for the mass.
- Like matter, energy is a different form of mass, according to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, who confirmed that electromagnetic waves also have mass. If we base ourselves on this theory, there are 2 types of mass: the relativistic mass and the mass at rest; this theory implies that the mass is not maintained in a constant way; the relativistic mass occurs when the object is in motion and the mass at rest, as its name indicates, is when the mass is still.
- Weight is a concept that was developed by Newton’s gravitational law and the laws of motion; Thanks to this, the concepts of mass and weight were separated.
Tips
- If you read the differences between mass and weight carefully, you see that the unit of measurement is given in kilograms, grams, pounds, etc., so what they generally tell us is the weight of an object is really its mass, for that’s so easy to get confused with these concepts. The kilogram, then, comes to be a measure of mass and not weight, despite the fact that scales and scales have their measurements in grams or kilograms, which further helps to change or confuse the terms mass and weight.
- So then, when you get on a scale to weigh yourself, what you are really doing is measuring the amount of mass you have, only that it is expressed in kilograms.