Comparing Mass: 100 kg of Goose Feathers vs. 100 kg of Mass - Explained

[easydoesit]

100 kg of goose feathers or 100 kg of mass and why[?]

 

[cookiemonster]

Kilograms are a measure of mass.

cookiemonster

 

[Deeviant]

Obviously, 100 kg of anything is going to have the same mass as 100kg of anything.

 

[russ_watters]

I asked this in another thread: How much does a 150lb man weigh on the moon?

 

[cookiemonster]

Earth pounds or Moon pounds?

cookiemonster

 

[Deeviant]

Mass and wieght are two entirely different things.

A 150 lb man would weight about 25 lb on the moon. But he would still mass 150 lb.

 

[Adrian Baker]

Originally posted by Deeviant
Mass and wieght are two entirely different things.

A 150 lb man would weight about 25 lb on the moon. But he would still mass 150 lb.

Weight is a force and should be measured in Newtons, not in lb.
The SI unit for mass is Kg

 

[brum]

Originally posted by Adrian Baker
Weight is a force and should be measured in Newtons, not in lb.
The SI unit for mass is Kg

The SI unit for weight may be the Newton, but it's perfectly legit to use the pound (lb) for weight. If someone uses the pound to describe an object's weight and not the Newton, so be it, there's nothing objectable to that. You can very easily switch between pounds and Newtons with a simple conversion, anyways.

 

[Adrian Baker]

Originally posted by brum
The SI unit for weight may be the Newton, but it's perfectly legit to use the pound (lb) for weight. If someone uses the pound to describe an object's weight and not the Newton, so be it, there's nothing objectable to that. You can very easily switch between pounds and Newtons with a simple conversion, anyways.

You can't use the pound for both mass and weight - they are completely different quantities!

The SI unit for Mass is Kg, the Imperial unit is the pound.

The SI unit for weight is the Newton, the Imperial unit is the pound-force, not the pound.

 

[Janus]

Originally posted by Adrian Baker
You can't use the pound for both mass and weight - they are completely different quantities!

The SI unit for Mass is Kg, the Imperial unit is the pound.

The SI unit for weight is the Newton, the Imperial unit is the pound-force, not the pound.

It entirely depends on what Unit system you are using.

In the absolute FPS system, the unit of force is the poundal and the unit of mass is the pound.

In the gravitational FPS system, the unit of force is the pound and the unit of mass is the slug.

In the American Engineering Standard, the pound is used for both mass and force. (sometimes designated as lb_m and lb_f , but many times you are just supposed to know what it is being used for by context.)

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by cookiemonster
Earth pounds or Moon pounds?

cookiemonster

Exactly...

A 150 lb man would weight about 25 lb on the moon. But he would still mass 150 lb

That's if he weighed 150lb on earth...who said anything about what he weighs on earth?

You can't use the pound for both mass and weight - they are completely different quantities!

In the US we do - layman and engineers alike. Heck, if you make your bathroom scale read in kg, its using kg as weight!

For more on lb vs kg, etc, see THIS thread in the General Engineering forum.

[/shameless plug]

 

[Adrian Baker]

Originally posted by russ_watters

In the US we do - layman and engineers alike. Heck, if you make your bathroom scale read in kg, its using kg as weight!

No wonder NASA sent a probe to Mars that missed completely as someone had used the wrong units for thrust calculations!

 

[NateTG]

Originally posted by Adrian Baker

The SI unit for Mass is Kg, the Imperial unit is the pound.
The SI unit for weight is the Newton, the Imperial unit is the pound-force, not the pound.

Actually, there are situations where pounds (force) and pounds (mass) are both used. For example, calculating specific impulse.

Specific impulse is a unit that describes the amount of thrust that is achieved per mass of fuel consumed per second.

In SI the units of specific thrus are:
Newtons / (Killograms/Second) = Meters Per Second.

(This is accurate since specific impulse is essentially determined by the relative velocity of the rocket exhaust.)

In standard the units of specific thrust are:
(Pounds (force))/(Pounds (mass)/Second)= seconds