A force is applied to an atom....

[motleycat]

1. A force is applied to an atom. What can be measured to determine the atom's mass? Explain your answer.2. No equations since this is a no-science physics course.3. I don't understand how part 1 is relating to part 2 of the question. As far as I know a spectrometer is used to determine an atom's mass.

 

[mfb]

What are part 1 and 2?

Do you know some equation that relates forces and masses with some other quantity?

 

[motleycat]

Hi and thank you for your reply!

What are part 1 and 2?

Part 1=A force is applied to an atom.
Part 2=What can be measured to determine the atom's mass?

Do you know some equation that relates forces and masses with some other quantity

I guess F=ma is one.

 

[andrevdh]

Correct. So in order to determine the mass one need to measure the other two quantities in the equation
and then calculate the mass using this equation. This equation is known as Newton's second law and it
relates the acceleration of an object to the force applied to it.