Talk:Mass and weight

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• Many people, particularly those without a scientific background, will confuse mass and weight as being the same concept. As such the word weight will often be used in popular speech to refer to an object's mass. On factor influencing this is the tendency of scales to display weight in units used for mass (kilograms and pounds). A set of scales in fact measures a person's weight in newtons, however they are calibrated to display mass, that said scales will only be accurate if they are used in a gravitation field equal in strength to the one they are calculated for (for example, scales calibrated to a gravitational acceleration of 9.8m^s will provide a incorrectly heavier reading when gravity provides an acceleration greater than 9.8m^s, an an incorrectly lighter reading when gravity provides an acceleration less than 9.8m^s).

The examples given are not of people confusing the concepts. Rather, they are about people using the word "weight" where a purist would insist on mass. A scale calibrated in pounds gives weight, and this is correct. When people start weighting things on the moon, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. --Ed Poor ^Talk 16:58, 28 September 2010 (EDT)