Weight and mass

From Conservapedia

Weight and mass are two distinct but interrelated concepts.

Mass is a measurement of the amount of matter in an object, and is recorded in units such as grams (metric) and pounds (imperial). The mass of a particular object is universal, that is it does not rely on the position of the object in space.

Weight is a measurement of the force acting on an object due to the position of its mass in a gravitational field, it is measured in newtons and depends on an objects location in space (for example, a ball resting on the surface of the earth will have a higher weight than an identical ball resting on the surface of the moon, as the earth has a stronger gravitational field than the moon).

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).