What is the difference between weight and body mass?

In daily life, the terms Mass Weight is often confused.

mass, amount of matter

Body mass gives an indication of how much Thing which constitutes it. And therefore, body mass It is a directionless and constant quantity – as long as the object does not undergo any change – which is related to number and nature atoms who makes it.

In the international system, the unit of measurement for mass is Kg.

Weight, force related to gravity

The body weight, meanwhile, relates to an act of force gravity on this body. In fact, weight is a quantity that is always directed toward the center tr (or any other celestial body) which depends on:

• The distance between the body and the Earth (or any other celestial body);
• of the mass of the bodies concerned.

So the weight of the body is higher on the ground than on the ground the moon.

In the international system, the unit of weight is Newton.

bathroom scale secret

However, it should not be concluded that a Scale It measures your mass, not your weight. In fact, if you jump on the scale, the indicator will increase significantly for a moment. This is a sign that the device is very sensitive to force, and therefore to your weight. Newton was not adopted as a unit of force until the late 1940s. Previously, we used the force of the kilogram, hence the confusion on the scale.

Correlation between mass and weight

If mass and weight are two different quantities, then they are related by a simple expression:

weight = mass xg

where g represents the intensity of gravity, and its value depends on where we are.