08-26-2021, 12:39 PM
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Dazed and Confused
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: TN
Posts: 11,624
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by BEC
That bit bugged me as well....and then I did a little research and found that that they are, in fact, two distinct things. If an object is in a uniform gravity field, they work out to be the same.
But if it's not, as when something is in orbit around a non-uniform body (say, the Earth or the Moon) then they are distinctly different things.
That said, to many of us, including you and me, it looks redundant.
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That's no different than saying something "weighs" 40 kilograms. Kilograms is mass, not weight. Weight is in Newtons in the metric system. I see scientists and college professors using weight and mass interchangeably all the time when referring to an object's mass.
We know that your mass doesn't change unless your name is Grendel and I rip your arm off, but your weight varies based on your proximity and the mass of the object you are attracted to. (Assuming we can magically change locations quicker than we can change our mass by eating, dieting, etc.)
If we are hanging out on earth and deal with local things, it's all good. We can interchange CG and CM. We can substitute mass for weight and it's not that big of a deal except for adolescent science students who have trouble understanding anything beyond smart phone apps and lust for the opposite sex.
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