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Re: weight vs. mass (was: Units and Conversions)



US grocery stores are a fine example of NOT distinguishing between
mass (g or kg) and weight (lbs, oz's)

The 'official' stance of our gummint is that these terms are
synonymous in the grocery store arena.

At 10:57 AM -0400 7/2/02, John S. Denker wrote:

===================================

the math book uses weight and mass nearly interchangeably.

For a math book, that's not the least bit unusual.
There are lots of real-world situations where, depending on
context, it may or may not be appropriate to
-- distinguish between cows and steers
-- distinguish between blue and cyan
-- distinguish between lawyer and attorney
-- distinguish between weight and mass
-- et cetera.

Sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn't. Even if _you_
are super-precise all the time, you can't expect everybody
else to make the distinctions when they don't matter. But
you _can_ insist that people in your class learn to recognize
when it does matter, and to do it right when it does matter.