What is the difference between the mass and weight of a bowling ball?
The ball has both weight and mass. Its weight makes it hard to lift. Its mass makes it hard to get rolling, and also hard to stop. –What do we mean by the ball’s weight? Its weight is the force by which gravity pulls the ball down. — What do we mean by the ball’s mass? The ball’s mass is its inertia, its resistance to acceleration. — Suppose that some time, in the far future, a bowling alley is built on the Moon, where gravity is 1/6 of what it is on Earth. Would it be easier there to roll the ball down the alley? It would be easier to lift the ball off the floor, but not any easier to get it rolling. –An astronaut in a space suit, in the space shuttle bay, tries to push a one-ton scientific satellite out of the bay, but the satellite proves very hard to move. If it is weightless, why should it be so? In the moving frame of reference of the space shuttle, it has no weight, but it has one ton of mass. –Should the astronaut give up trying to push it? Not necessarily. If he keeps pus
