Talk:Weight

This page is basically a long argument that the historically correct usage of weight is mass. But the origins of words do not determine their proper use, and anyways, weight was first coined back when people didn't have any concept of the distinction between mass and force due to gravity. I've removed the bit about scales, since it is the least sensical - scales measure force due to gravity in circumstances where it will ideally be proportional to mass, so to claim they are truly measures of one or the other seems kind of absurd. The rest could stand some editing, though. The distinction between pounds and pound-forces is not supported by older physics texts, which usually use pounds as forces and slugs for mass, while acknowledging a different system where pounds are masses and poundals are forces.

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Admitedly the terminology for pounds is confusing, but you will find that the legal definition of pounds in the United States today is as a unit of mass.

A balance scale compares masses, it does not measure force due to gravity. You put the object to be weighed on one end of the balance. You then add weights of known mass on the other end of the balance, until the balance is level. This procedure requires acceleration due to gravity to work, but doesn't depend on the actual value of the acceleration. So it is a measure of mass, not force due to gravity. -- SJK

Disagree. You can use the exact same device to measure charges in an electromagnetic field, or the relative strengths of two springs. It's only measuring mass when you decide to interpret the results as mass; when you decide to interpret them as forces, it's measuring forces. It doesn't make any sense to talk about what a device is "truly" measuring when it's measuring two coincident things! I really think this article's emphasis on whether or not usages are correct, rather than what weight is, is a bad thing, and would vote for this passage to be removed and others to be rewritten, but I don't want to get into a back and forth edit war.

But when you use it to compare masses, the result does not depend on the force due to gravity. A scale balance will give you the same result on Earth as it will on Mars. A spring balance will not. -- SJK

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However, scales depend on factors other than the masses and force due to gravity. When you try to use scales underwater, and the objects being weighed do not have the same density, you get incorrect measurements. Actually, this phenomenon (Archimedes' Force) occurs in any medium other than a vacuum, but it is almost negligible in air. In general, if you apply some vertical force on the masses, you mess up the scales' readings. What they really do is compare the forces acting on each side of the balance. Thus, I would not say that they measure mass. For something to measure a quantity, its output has to depend only on that quantity. For example, a barometer always measures air pressure; although it can be used to calculate elevation (if you know the relationship between elevation and air pressure) that is not what it actually measures. --KA

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Minor correction: scales do not measure forces. If they did, the doctor's office couldn't weigh you with those small masses on the scales. Scales compare torques: when torques are imbalanced, the lever arm rotates, when the lever arm holds still the torques are the same (in opposite direction). Add a little geometry, and you can convert the torques to the net force directed radially. That is as much as you can say about a balance without adding other factors. If the forces are applied to the ends of strings attached to the lever arms of the balance (much the same way many balances have susbended trays on them) you can tell the direction of the force (a useful way to convert radial force to net force). To get to a measurement of mass takes: 1, a unidrectional field (maybe, this one could be corrected for with the strings, I'd have to think more to say for sure); 2, a uniform field (at least uniform enough that the geometry of the balance and/or the object does not effect the net force); 3, a field that is only proportional to the quantity you wish to measure.

BlackGriffen

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Maybe this page explains what I was trying to get across better http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Gene_Nygaard/weight.htm

The comments still apply. Ancient peoples couldn't be talking about mass as opposed to gravitational force if they didn't have distinct concepts of each. Scales measure mass when you use masses for reference and forces when you use forces for references, and so to speak of them truly measuring one or the other is silly, modulo KA's comments above. And, btw, does anyone know if there is an official usage for the pound in Britain or elsewhere? America hardly determines universal standards for units, as the gallon proves.

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The pound (technically, the pound advoirpois) is defined in the same way in both countries, since the 1950s, in terms of the kilogram. -- SJK

Ok. Well, one still finds a considerable body of literature using pounds exclusively as a unit of force, especially in derivative units (e.g. 550 foot-pounds/second = 1 horsepower), and it would be somewhat hypocritical to talk about historical usage and then turn around and label these as simple obsoletes. I think that, when usage is varied, an article should reflect varied usage and not try and impose a false order on reality.

An example of a case where common usage refers to force, and not mass, is when people say objects in space are weightless.

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I'm not saying that weight cannot mean force, just that it is historically mistaken to claim that it should only mean force, or that people who say that "I weigh 50kg" are somehow being inaccurate.

Also, yes people in past centuries weren't entirely clear on the difference between mass and force due to gravity, but most of the time it was mass, not force due to gravity they were worrying about. If you weigh out 5 troy ounces of gold, do you want 5 ounces mass or 5 ounces force due to gravity? You are interested in the mass, not the force due to gravity. Similarly, if an apothecary weighed out 1 grain of some medicinal substance, they wanted 1 grain mass, not 1 grain force. Weighing is (and more importantly was) most commonly done to determine the amount of substance, not to determine how heavy it is. So even if they weren't entirely clear on the difference, they wanted mass. -- SJK

On Earth, weight refers to that quantity which is both mass and gravitational force because the two are identical there, and elsewhere the meaning is considerably clear. It doesn't matter which of mass and force people really wanted to be talking about back when they didn't distinguish the two, because they didn't distinguish the two. Nowadays the word tends to mean force when there is a difference, though it still is used to mean mass a lot of the time. Language changes. We want to reflect use, not what we believe use should be, or what we believe historical use better represented - actual historical use being of course both simultaneously.

The bit about scales I'd like to see removed, since as argued above it is incorrect, and the bit about weight historically meaning mass I'd like to see altered, since it is misleading at best. I'd also like to see the approach to legal resolutions straightened out, since we seem to accept the universality of the recommendation that pounds be mass but treat the recommendation that weight be force as a mere suggestion. If I change the article to take these into account, can I trust that you will not revert it, at least not without further discussion?

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How about:

Weight, in physics the force that gravity exerts on a body. Compare mass.

What's all the fuss about? Sheesh. Ed Poor

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At the very least, we should make clear that, historical usage aside, this encyclopedia uses the term weight to refer to force due to gravity. Otherwise, every link to this article will leave the reader confused: "Which meaning of weight are they currently using?" --AxelBoldt

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I've finally done it, I've gone and blown it all up. Right now the article says that weight should mean force, at least in technical literature, which is possibly overkill but already present in the new introduction, and certainly in line with both what seems to be wikipedian consensus and the CPGM resolution. The stuff about weight historically meaning one or the other has been removed, since they were not distinguished and it is a bad idea to try and determine which people really meant, and the stuff about scales actually measuring one or the other has been removed, as the above comments (not all by me) provide ample justification for such a change, I'd say. I apologize for how radical this edit is and how completely it reverses the position, and would be more than happy for SJK or someone else to temper the article somewhat towards accepting mass as a valid alternate. I just don't think we should try and argue that it is somehow a better meaning.

(This means that most of this Talk page is now obsolete...)

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Oops, I did it again (with apologies to B. Spears) I missed the SI thing at the bottom. So, let's discuss how to make the article serve all its purposes

• distinguish between weight and mass, so we know which is which.
• point out that they're still used interchangeably (at least by laymen)
• give some sort of endorsement to the scientific usage.

I think the current article does just that, no? --AxelBoldt

When discussing scientific or engineering matters, I take pains to use force (measured in N-m or lb-ft) to mean force. But contemporary usage is fraught with references to 'weight' which "really" refer to mass. I used 'weights' on a balance scale to 'weigh' objects and determine their 'weight' (really mass, of course) in high school science classes.

N-m is work or energy, not force. --AxelBoldt

How weighty an issue is this, anyway (wink)?

Ed Poor