Basic Physics (Mass, Force, Work, Newton's Second Law, Hooke's Law)

Mass

Definition

In physical science, one may distinguish conceptually between at least seven different aspects of mass, or seven physical notions that involve the concept of mass. Every experiment to date has shown these seven values to be proportional, and in some cases equal, and this proportionality gives rise to the abstract concept of mass. There are a number of ways mass can be measured or operationally defined:

• Inertial mass is a measure of an object's resistance to acceleration when a force is applied. It is determined by applying a force to an object and measuring the acceleration that results from that force. An object with small inertial mass will accelerate more than an object with large inertial mass when acted upon by the same force. One says the body of greater mass has greater inertia.
• Active gravitational mass is a measure of the strength of an object's gravitational flux (gravitational flux is equal to the surface integral of gravitational field over an enclosing surface). Gravitational field can be measured by allowing a small "test object" to fall freely and measuring its free-fall acceleration. For example, an object in free-fall near the Moon is subject to a smaller gravitational field, and hence accelerates more slowly, than the same object would if it were in free-fall near the Earth. The gravitational field near the Moon is weaker because the Moon has less active gravitational mass.
• Passive gravitational mass is a measure of the strength of an object's interaction with a gravitational field. Passive gravitational mass is determined by dividing an object's weight by its free-fall acceleration. Two objects within the same gravitational field will experience the same acceleration; however, the object with a smaller passive gravitational mass will experience a smaller force (less weight) than the object with a larger passive gravitational mass.
• Energy also has mass according to the principle of mass–energy equivalence. This equivalence is exemplified in a large number of physical processes including pair production, nuclear fusion, and the gravitational bending of light. Pair production and nuclear fusion are processes in which measurable amounts of mass are converted to energy or vice versa. In the gravitational bending of light, photons of pure energy are shown to exhibit a behavior similar to passive gravitational mass.
• Curvature of spacetime is a relativistic manifestation of the existence of mass. Such curvature is extremely weak and difficult to measure. For this reason, curvature was not discovered until after it was predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Extremely precise atomic clocks on the surface of the Earth, for example, are found to measure less time (run slower) when compared to similar clocks in space. This difference in elapsed time is a form of curvature called gravitational time dilation. Other forms of curvature have been measured using the Gravity Probe B satellite.
• Quantum mass manifests itself as a difference between an object's quantum frequency and its wave number. The quantum mass of a particle is proportional to the inverse Compton wavelength and can be determined through various forms of spectroscopy. In relativistic quantum mechanics, mass is one of the irreducible representation labels of the Poincaré group.

Unit of Mass

The International System of Units (SI) unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). The kilogram is 1000 grams (g), and was first defined in 1795 as the mass of one cubic decimetre of water at the melting point of ice. However, because precise measurement of a cubic decimetre of water at the specified temperature and pressure was difficult, in 1889 the kilogram was redefined as the mass of a metal object, and thus became independent of the metre and the properties of water, this being a copper prototype of the grave in 1793, the platinum Kilogramme des Archives in 1799, and the platinum-iridium International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK) in 1889.

However, the mass of the IPK and its national copies have been found to drift over time. The re-definition of the kilogram and several other units came into effect on 20 May 2019, following a final vote by the CGPM in November 2018. The new definition uses only invariant quantities of nature: the speed of light, the caesium hyperfine frequency, the Planck constant and the elementary charge.

Non-SI units accepted for use with SI units include:

• the tonne (t) (or "metric ton"), equal to 1000 kg

• the electronvolt (eV), a unit of energy, used to express mass in units of eV/c2 through mass–energy equivalence

• the dalton (Da), equal to 1/12 of the mass of a free carbon-12 atom, approximately 1.66×10−27 kg.

Outside the SI system, other units of mass include:

• the slug (sl), an Imperial unit of mass (about 14.6 kg)

• the pound (lb), a unit of mass (about 0.45 kg), which is used alongside the similarly named pound (force) (about 4.5 N), a unit of force[note 3]
• the Planck mass (about 2.18×10−8 kg), a quantity derived from fundamental constants
• the solar mass (M☉), defined as the mass of the Sun, primarily used in astronomy to compare large masses such as stars or galaxies (≈ 1.99×1030 kg)
• the mass of a particle, as identified with its inverse Compton wavelength (1 cm−1 ≘ 3.52×10−41 kg)
• the mass of a star or black hole, as identified with its Schwarzschild radius (1 cm ≘ 6.73×1024 kg).

Weight vs. Mass

In everyday usage, mass and "weight" are often used interchangeably. For instance, a person's weight may be stated as 75 kg. In a constant gravitational field, the weight of an object is proportional to its mass, and it is unproblematic to use the same unit for both concepts. But because of slight differences in the strength of the Earth's gravitational field at different places, the distinction becomes important for measurements with a precision better than a few percent, and for places far from the surface of the Earth, such as in space or on other planets. Conceptually, "mass" (measured in kilograms) refers to an intrinsic property of an object, whereas "weight" (measured in newtons) measures an object's resistance to deviating from its natural course of free fall, which can be influenced by the nearby gravitational field. No matter how strong the gravitational field, objects in free fall are weightless, though they still have mass.[6]

The force known as "weight" is proportional to mass and acceleration in all situations where the mass is accelerated away from free fall. For example, when a body is at rest in a gravitational field (rather than in free fall), it must be accelerated by a force from a scale or the surface of a planetary body such as the Earth or the Moon. This force keeps the object from going into free fall. Weight is the opposing force in such circumstances and is thus determined by the acceleration of free fall. On the surface of the Earth, for example, an object with a mass of 50 kilograms weighs 491 newtons, which means that 491 newtons is being applied to keep the object from going into free fall. By contrast, on the surface of the Moon, the same object still has a mass of 50 kilograms but weighs only 81.5 newtons, because only 81.5 newtons is required to keep this object from going into a free fall on the moon. Restated in mathematical terms, on the surface of the Earth, the weight W of an object is related to its mass m by W = mg, where g = 9.80665 m/s2 is the acceleration due to Earth's gravitational field, (expressed as the acceleration experienced by a free-falling object).

For other situations, such as when objects are subjected to mechanical accelerations from forces other than the resistance of a planetary surface, the weight force is proportional to the mass of an object multiplied by the total acceleration away from free fall, which is called the proper acceleration. Through such mechanisms, objects in elevators, vehicles, centrifuges, and the like, may experience weight forces many times those caused by resistance to the effects of gravity on objects, resulting from planetary surfaces. In such cases, the generalized equation for weight W of an object is related to its mass m by the equation W = –ma, where a is the proper acceleration of the object caused by all influences other than gravity. (Again, if gravity is the only influence, such as occurs when an object falls freely, its weight will be zero).

Inertial vs. Gravitational Mass

Although inertial mass, passive gravitational mass and active gravitational mass are conceptually distinct, no experiment has ever unambiguously demonstrated any difference between them. In classical mechanics, Newton's third law implies that active and passive gravitational mass must always be identical (or at least proportional), but the classical theory offers no compelling reason why the gravitational mass has to equal the inertial mass. That it does is merely an empirical fact.

Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity starting with the assumption that the inertial and passive gravitational masses are the same. This is known as the equivalence principle.

The particular equivalence often referred to as the "Galilean equivalence principle" or the "weak equivalence principle" has the most important consequence for freely falling objects. Suppose an object has inertial and gravitational masses m and M, respectively. If the only force acting on the object comes from a gravitational field g, the force on the object is:

F = Mg

Given this force, the acceleration of the object can be determined by Newton's second law:

F = ma

Putting these together, the gravitational acceleration is given by:

a = ${\frac {M}{m}}$ g

This says that the ratio of gravitational to inertial mass of any object is equal to some constant K if and only if all objects fall at the same rate in a given gravitational field. This phenomenon is referred to as the "universality of free-fall". In addition, the constant K can be taken as 1 by defining our units appropriately.

The first experiments demonstrating the universality of free-fall were—according to scientific 'folklore'—conducted by Galileo obtained by dropping objects from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This is most likely apocryphal: he is more likely to have performed his experiments with balls rolling down nearly frictionless inclined planes to slow the motion and increase the timing accuracy. Increasingly precise experiments have been performed, such as those performed by Loránd Eötvös, using the torsion balance pendulum, in 1889. As of 2008, no deviation from universality, and thus from Galilean equivalence, has ever been found, at least to the precision 10−12. More precise experimental efforts are still being carried out.

The universality of free-fall only applies to systems in which gravity is the only acting force. All other forces, especially friction and air resistance, must be absent or at least negligible. For example, if a hammer and a feather are dropped from the same height through the air on Earth, the feather will take much longer to reach the ground; the feather is not really in free-fall because the force of air resistance upwards against the feather is comparable to the downward force of gravity. On the other hand, if the experiment is performed in a vacuum, in which there is no air resistance, the hammer and the feather should hit the ground at exactly the same time (assuming the acceleration of both objects towards each other, and of the ground towards both objects, for its own part, is negligible). This can easily be done in a high school laboratory by dropping the objects in transparent tubes that have the air removed with a vacuum pump. It is even more dramatic when done in an environment that naturally has a vacuum, as David Scott did on the surface of the Moon during Apollo 15.

A stronger version of the equivalence principle, known as the Einstein equivalence principle or the strong equivalence principle, lies at the heart of the general theory of relativity. Einstein's equivalence principle states that within sufficiently small regions of space-time, it is impossible to distinguish between a uniform acceleration and a uniform gravitational field. Thus, the theory postulates that the force acting on a massive object caused by a gravitational field is a result of the object's tendency to move in a straight line (in other words its inertia) and should therefore be a function of its inertial mass and the strength of the gravitational field.