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From a Serious Newbie
Have been interested in and fascinated by physics for a number of years now and am a total layman but watch every science/astronomy programme I can and have read a couple of very basic books on the subject, and have now steeled myself to read “A Brief History of Time”. I know this is going to sound very stupid but there is one simple thing I cannot get my head around (perhaps I should have taken up some other subject – maybe not being the type of mind to grasp these things! Knitting perhaps?)
Regarding Newton’s first and second law (second page in of Chapter 2 of Stephen Hawking’s book):
Is mass an object’s weight, density or size, or a combination of all three?
A one ton ball of lead would be smaller than a one ton ball of rock – ignoring air resistance both would fall to the ground at the same rate, and I get that; but what about attraction?
If they were both in space would the rock attract more than the lead because of its bigger size or the lead because of its greater density?
Thanking you in advance, and please excuse my naivety
Have been interested in and fascinated by physics for a number of years now and am a total layman but watch every science/astronomy programme I can and have read a couple of very basic books on the subject, and have now steeled myself to read “A Brief History of Time”. I know this is going to sound very stupid but there is one simple thing I cannot get my head around (perhaps I should have taken up some other subject – maybe not being the type of mind to grasp these things! Knitting perhaps?)
Regarding Newton’s first and second law (second page in of Chapter 2 of Stephen Hawking’s book):
Is mass an object’s weight, density or size, or a combination of all three?
A one ton ball of lead would be smaller than a one ton ball of rock – ignoring air resistance both would fall to the ground at the same rate, and I get that; but what about attraction?
If they were both in space would the rock attract more than the lead because of its bigger size or the lead because of its greater density?
Thanking you in advance, and please excuse my naivety