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Re: [Phys-l] The History of MASS



I suppose you need the distinction when the weight changes but the mass doesn't, as in moving away from the earth...so that suggests Newton.

joe

Joseph J. Bellina, Jr. Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556

On Oct 20, 2006, at 1:12 PM, David Abineri wrote:

Thanks to all for the comments and suggested resources.

The reason I asked the question is that, after many years of teaching
Physics, that the idea of separating the concepts of weight and mass
seems to be decidedly non trivial especially to thinkers who are trapped
on the earth's surface. We seem to take it for granted today,
especially in the space age, that the distinction is obvious but my
question was simply to get at the mechanism for its development. What
was it that lead to the need for this concept?

Thanks again, David Abineri



--
D. Abineri dabineri@fuse.net

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