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