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Mass, Weight and Density Physics Notes

This document discusses the differences between mass and weight. Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object, while weight is the gravitational force acting on an object. Weight depends on both mass and the gravitational field strength. The gravitational field strength of Earth is 10 N/kg, meaning objects have a weight of 10N for every 1kg of mass on Earth. The moon has a lower gravitational field strength of 1.6 N/kg. Inertia is an object's resistance to changes in motion due to its mass. Greater mass means greater inertia, so heavier objects like trains require more force to stop compared to lighter cars. Density is the ratio between an object's mass and volume. While steel and feathers have the

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130 views2 pages

Mass, Weight and Density Physics Notes

This document discusses the differences between mass and weight. Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object, while weight is the gravitational force acting on an object. Weight depends on both mass and the gravitational field strength. The gravitational field strength of Earth is 10 N/kg, meaning objects have a weight of 10N for every 1kg of mass on Earth. The moon has a lower gravitational field strength of 1.6 N/kg. Inertia is an object's resistance to changes in motion due to its mass. Greater mass means greater inertia, so heavier objects like trains require more force to stop compared to lighter cars. Density is the ratio between an object's mass and volume. While steel and feathers have the

Uploaded by

Ahmed Omar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Chapter 4 Mass, Weight and Density

(i)Mass and Weight

When you weigh yourself using a weighing scale, you’re not actually measuring your heaviness, or
weight. You are measuring how much mass you have. In everyday language mass and weight are
regarded as the same thing but in Physics they are vastly different quantities.

Mass is the amount of matter an object contains. It is always fixed for a particular object and it depends
on the amount of particles (atoms or molecules) an object contains. The SI unit for mass is the
kilogram(kg)

Weight is the gravitational force acting on an object with a fixed mass due to a gravitational field. The
weight of an object is not always the same. An object with a fixed mass may have different weights in
different gravitational fields.

But what exactly is a gravitational field? Well, Earth has a gravitational field which pulls any object near
the Earth. This “pull” a gravitational field exerts on an object is the weight. The SI unit for weight is the
Newton (N). Since weight is a force it has both direction and magnitude. The weight of an object always
acts towards the center of the center of the gravitational field in which the object is present. The
strength of a gravitational field is determined by it’s gravitational field strength. The stronger the
gravitational the more force it exerts on an object per unit of mass. Gravitational field strength is
measured in N kg-1 and it is the amount of force a gravitational field exerts on an object for every
kilogram of mass. The Gravitational Field Strength of Earth is 10 N kg -1. Meaning, Earth exerts a force of
10 N for every kilogram of mass. The moon, however, has a Gravitational field strength of 1.6 N kg -1.
Meaning an object with mass of 1kg will weigh 10N on Earth while the same object will weigh 1.6 N on
the Moon. This explains why astronauts can jump to high quite easily on the Moon. Because the Moon
doesn’t pull the astronauts as much.

As we can see, mass and weight are directly related. The greater the mass of an object the more force it
experiences and thus the heavier it is. In the previous chapter we learned that the force acting on an
accelerating on a moving particle is given by the product of it’s mass and acceleration. Well, here the
force acting on the particle is weight of the particle and the acceleration is the acceleration of free fall
which, for the gravitational field of earth is 10 ms -2. Notice that the acceleration of free fall for a
gravitational field is equal to it’s gravitational field strength. So, the acceleration of free fall on the moon
would be 1.6 ms-2.

(ii)Inertia

Surely, in movies (especially Bollywood movies) you’ve seen a damsel in distress being tied to a railway
track. Well, have you ever wondered why it takes so long for the train to come to a stoop when it pushes
it’s breaks? It doesn’t take cars that long to stop. It’s because of a concept known as inertia. Inertia is a
property of matter which refers to the resistance of an object to changes in it’s state of motion due to
it’s mass. The greater the inertia, the more resistant it will to be to come to a stop if it is moving or start
moving if it is stationary. The inertia for an object depends on it’s mass. If an object has more mass the
greater it’s inertia. This explains why heavier trains take so long to stop but cars come to a stop easily
(iii)Density

What’s heavier? A kilogram of steel or a kilogram of feathers? Steel, obviously. Wait, no. Both are a
kilogram. They have the same mass. But isn’t steel heavier than feathers?

Density is the number of atoms or molecules an object contains per unit of volume. Therefore, density is
mass per unit volume. When people say steel is “heavier” than feather what they mean is steel has a
greater density than feathers. Density can be measured using the formula

m
Þ= where p is density, m is mass and v is volume
v
The Si unit for density is kg m-3. However, the objects whose densities we measure everyday are usually
in small amounts. So instead we use g cm -3. Density can also be used to identify certain substances. Pure
gold has a density of 19 300 kg m-3. Objects made out of gold which don’t have a density of 19 300 kgm -3
are not made out of pure gold and contain some impurities.
Have you ever noticed that some objects float on water and some don’t? Objects which have a greater
density than water will sink while objects which have lower density than water float. This applies to all
liquids. However, a ship is made out of steel but it still floats on water. Well, when we want to
determine whether or not an object will float on water we have have to find it’s average density
meaning the ratio of it’s total volume and it’s total mass, not the densities of the substances with which
the object is made. The steel which a ship is made out of may be denser than water but the average
density of a ship is lower than that of water.

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