Question

Differentiate between mass and weight?

Answer 1

Mass is an intrinsic property of an object while weight is a Force that depends upon the conditions and surrounding of the location of the object.

Explanation:

Mass can be seen as the amount of matter contained in an object; this is probably a weak definition because matter itself is difficult to define. Consider matter as made up of particles (`~~`atoms) each one thought as a very small spheres.
An object, say a brick, will have mass due to its content of these small spheres; if you consider a gas in a bottle it will have a mass as well being composed of small spheres (even if more spaced between them).

Weight is different because it depends upon the "external" conditions and it is, basically, the name that we give to Gravitational Force.
A brick has a certain mass (fixed) but different weight depending upon its location, say, on Earth or the Moon, because the Gravitational Force on it will be different on the Earth or on the Moon.

So, when your brick (of fixed mass `m`) is on the surface (radius `r_E`) of the Earth (mass `M_E`) it "feels" an attraction given as:

`F_(gE)=G(mM_E)/r_E^2` which is its weight on Earth;

when your brick (of fixed mass `m`) is on the surface (radius `r_M`) of the Moon (mass `M_M`) it "feels" an attraction given as:

`F_(gM)=G(mM_M)/r_M^2` which is its weight on the Moon;

here you can imagine that the results will be different (masses and radii of the Earth and Moon are different) giving different weights!!!

[ `G` is a constant ]

Hope it helps!