There seems to be a lot of confusion about "mass" and "weight." This is likely due to the fact that the English dictionary has many definitions for each of these words, so they often get used interchangeably in everyday conversation. Most of those definitions are irrelevant for this video because, in a discussion about physics, the physics definition (if it exists) always takes priority. So let's properly define our terms: *Mass - The amount of matter in an object. It's measured in kilograms or slugs.* In Newtonian mechanics, mass stays the same no matter where you are or what you're doing. If my clone is 75 kg on Earth, then he's also 75 kg in an accelerating elevator and in low-Earth orbit and in deep space. The amount of matter inside you doesn't depend on those things. *Weight - The force of gravity from a large object (like a planet). It's measured in pounds or newtons.* That's it. It's just what we call the force of gravity in the situation when one mass is much larger than the other. I defined it at 1:49. This definition can be found in any introductory physics textbook. I even posted a few pictures from those textbooks on Twitter: twitter.com/NickLucid/status/1410763207879368705 Weight is the same no matter what you're doing. In an elevator, my clone has a weight of 165 pounds regardless of acceleration. Weight is _not_ the same regardless of where you are. My clone is 165 pounds on the ground, but he's 140 pounds on the ISS,and he's zero pounds very far from larges masses like stars, planets, and moons. You have to get _really_ far away for this to be a factor though. The top floor of a building isn't far enough. In a building, weight doesn't change. *Which does a scale measure?* Neither. Mass isn't even a force, so there's no way a scale could measure it. _I didn't bring it up in the video because it wasn't relevant._ Since weight is a force, you might expect the scale could measure it, but it doesn't. Scales can only measure forces that require physical contact and weight isn't a contact force. Push scales measure normal force. Pull scales measure tension. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Thank you for the reply. I think we were on the same page on mass and weight based on your reply. But again, regarding the scale measurement, don't you think the tension should be equivalent to the weight (force) as our body rests on it and is stationary? This can only happen when both forces due to gravity and opposing force exerted by scale are equal (This is when we consider tension measuring our weight is the ONLY force opposing our weight).
@The Science Asylum There are some mixed thoughts on how to define weight. You're correct, given your definition. I will stick with the normal force definition of weight because it's more useful, and it's likely what people usually mean by weight. On Earth's surface, weight is almost as invariant as mass, for all practical purposes, so I find it more useful to use a parameter that does significantly change.
Hey thanks for all your vids I’m learning lots and there made really well. Question for a video maybe I’m just learning about electrons and solar power, what is the difference between AC and DC power? And if solar panels create dc current why do we convert it to AC and… do we lose power in transition would it be better to make dc powered appliances. Sorry for silly question never really learnt physics till started researching it recently and I just really want to understand how the hell everything around me works (like solar energy, batteries and “space time”) and why everyone else’s understands it but I don’t I should have done better in school :( Thanks.
@@Wicky89 i hope you are well, i hope i didn't disturb you by replying, as many a times people expect reply from content creator Well ac is easy to manipulate (control) But with newer tech, this difference will become bleak I am a Healthcare Professional by the way
@@Krish-jm6ve My comment was about a series of jokes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I wasn't commenting about weight at all, including what "weightless" means or how to measure it. But your question is an interesting one. You can't measure weight as a force, so you have to measure it by determining the acceleration vector that is attributable to gravity. I don't know if there is a way to measure it directly, but you can measure it indirectly. It may be possible to measure it almost directly with an accelerometer. I don't know enough about how linear accelerometers work to know for sure.
@@ScienceAsylum sir I have one question if An elevator is moving downward with acceleration of say 12 m/S2 then effective g will be now (10-12) which is negative what is feel of this negative acceleration?? Please sir🤔tell m!! I am big fan of yours😊☺️
I remember doing this in my high school physics class and it was probably one of the most interesting lessons we did. The fun lessons like that are what made me love science in general, good teachers know how to keep class interesting.
@@toby9999 Most people think a 1/3 pound burger is smaller than a 1/4 burger, but it cost more. That's why fast food places took them off the menu. Yes, really.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 You are very wise. There are certain times in life where you just have to cover your eyes and plug your ears and say.... "la la la la la la la" .
I once argued with an intellectual that our Weight(not Mass) was a measure Gravity forcing you into an object that stops your free fall. And I was called ignorant lol And this is why I don't argue with people that claim to know everything about something.
@@Robert_McGarry_Poems Gotta love how the world's takeaway from dystopian literature was "Oh, so if I voluntarily let Big Brother in my house to watch and listen at all times, I can avoid typing a few characters per day? Sign me up! Alexa, play 'Despacito'!"
As a kid I started to have this same suspicion about what scales actually measured when I held the bottom half down and pulled the top half up and watched the dial spin the other way, effectively displaying what I called negative weight. I realized then it was measuring how hard I was pulling or pushing on it. 34 years later you make a video expertly explaining what me as a 10 year old was seeing. What other childhood observations will you help explain next? 😄 Great video!
We had an old spring scale that was effectively a sandwich of two steel plates around a series of springs that were attached to a dial when I was a kid. My mom told me to always pick it up by the bottom plate and never the top plate, which of course meant I had to pick it up by the top plate at least once just to see why I wasn't supposed to and saw the dial do the exact same thing. Also I ended up stretching some of the springs by doing that which meant my stepdad had to go through the tedious process of recalibrating the scale to account for the stretched springs but it was worth it to me.
For an even more straightforward example of "normal force" on a scale, try putting your scale on an incline. It won't give your entire weight, only the weight that's normal to the surface the scale is sitting on.
@@mids5854 No because it doesn't accelerate. The elevator demonstrated that once acceleration stops (elevator is at full speed) it shows your correct weight again. Then once braking begins, the opposite happens. To confirm planetary rotation as you described, you'd have to stop the rotation or change its speed first.
Just brilliant. I've been trying to explain this thing about scales, lifts and gravity to my son - but nowhere near as well as this. I can't wait to show him this video when he comes home from school later. Huge thanks, Science Guy!
You can use this effect in an elevator, when carrying grocery bags. When you enter the elevator in the parking floor, place the bags on the floor. Just before you reach your floor and the elevator begins to stop, lift you bags up again and they will be much lighter. This need perfect timing, but it works great.
@@5Siver I never thought of that, a sudden stop instead of decelerating would be awesome. The main question would be "Is it to childish for a 46 year old guy to play in elevators?" and if the answer is yes will that stop me?
I remember my first ever physics lesson in school about 8 years ago. The teacher talked about the difference between mass and weight. I was so fascinated that physics became my favourite subject on that day!
gravity works both ways so if the scale weighs 50N, the earth feels 50N of force towards the scale too, so in a weird way you really are measuring the "weight" of the earth in relation to the scale. just like you would measure the weight of something in relation to the earth
I've already went there with my mind... no need to physically take a scale anywhere. Thanks for the superb content; You are truly in my book as the gangsta of science within your respective fields!!!👍🏽🖖🏾
7:04 I disagree. The buoyancy force on snow and slush are both completely negligible. The reason slush is harder to shovel is that it is more dense, and so a shovel-full has a greater mass than a shovel-full of snow.
Very interesting! I had to do this exact experiment as a project for my AP Physics class years ago. Teacher told us to bring a bathroom scale on an elevator, videotape the change in measured weight, and use the footage to calculate the maximum and minimum acceleration of the elevator, exactly as you did here.
Reminds me of the first time when I learned that mass and weight are different things, back in high school in the 90s. Much needed for the new generations.
I was taught the difference between mass and weight back in middle school. Also the science channel. Really there is no excuse to not know, it's literally just basic physics.
This brought back to mind my days of running cranes. The point in time in which a load is lifted that it begins movement “going up” no matter what it is it becomes heavier for a fraction of a second. Depending on the speed at which it’s being hoisted that force can actually overload a crane. I remember learning in my crane certification classes that this point in time of initial force is called the moment of load. Interesting that I I’ve never even considered it since then in the elevator of all places.
"...AND DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK HERE AGAIN!!!" (Kicks Nick off the elevator). Nick rises and falls on a curve. Nick raises his finger, looks at the camera, and says, "Hey, Crazies! What happens when you get kicked in the hiney?"
I was literally reading about this yesterday but thanks anyways, for an altogether different video for which I actually landed on this page (The current not taking the path of least resistance). Keep doing the good work.
Ahh.. you listened in science class. Well done! I listened in high school science class, and started my college experience as a science major (now a software engineer). So I listened also.. but SO many people haven't been exposed to these ideas. It is why this channel is so wonderful.
Mass does stay constant. Weight can definitely change. You're correct there. Weight just isn't going to change on different floors of a building or in an elevator. You have to get _miles_ above the surface before you'll notice a difference in weight. See the pinned comment for more details.
@@ScienceAsylum This may be true if you use your definitions taken from dictionaries. But if you are a true scientist you know that dictionaries are a garbage place to look for scientific terms and concepts.
Normal in this context means the same thing as perpendicular. In the context of the normal force, the normal and lateral coordinates of a planar surface, and the normal line in optics, it means perpendicular. In the context of linear algebra, think of the idea unit vectors. Normal means divided by magnitude, so that its magnitude equals 1. In linear algebra, they prefer the term orthogonal to mean perpendicular. You might even see the two terms put together, as orthonormal. The ortho part indicates perpendicularity, and the normal part indicates unit length.
Even a lot of engineering graduates don't understand these fundamentals. This video is gonna be a great help to high schoolers, I remember my own suffering trying to understand this two years ago XD
Ei je Mukherjee dada, egineering college er jawa jonno amader ke JEE dite hoy, tai amader ke ei sob portei hoy, nahole college e admission ki kore pabo??!! 😂
2:50 falling sideways. falling and missing... Douglas Adams had this to say about it in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy... "There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. ... Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, that presents the difficulties" According to the Guide, the main thing that flying requires is the ability to throw yourself at the ground and miss. It says to throw yourself forward with all your weight and "the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt", however it will surely hurt if you fail to miss the ground. The difficulty is in missing the ground, and doing so accidentally, as "deliberately intending to miss the ground" does not work.
IKR, this guy is great, he should add some near death experiences and occasional life threatening explosion. He will go down in history as one of the greats!
@@danipent3550 Not by me. The moment a word starts to also mean it's opposite it becomes a useless word, though of course if you have nothing to say to begin with it may not be bothering you.
In my language we use this definition: Weight is the force with which the body pushes the support or pulls the suspension. (when we translate our word for weight) But then you call gravitational force weight and our "weight" apparent weight.
Hmm, I also use the definition “weight” is a force caused by the product of mass and acceleration. With a scale using a spring, you measure a force by reading the compression or extraction distance of the spring. To really measure mass, a balance scale is needed where a known mass is balanced against the unknown mass. To work, the whole arrangement need to be under the same acceleration. As we are standing on the earth or moon or any concentrates lump of matter having mass…
@@ScienceAsylum ... You should see the technical documents related with airplane design and testing including the certification requirements. They talk all the time about the aerodynamic loads to be all the time in equilibrium with inertial loads (instead of F=ma), about weight on the wheels (instead of normal force), and about how a 1G flight is unaccelerated but 0G is accelerated. Yuck!!! (and I am an aeronautical engineer and a pilot).
As I child I thought it would be funny to jump onto a scale. The result was that the meter jumped up and that I gained some intuitive understanding of this.
I was confused after seeing the title but then realised that the word in my language that translates to weight actually doesn't translate to weight at all, at least according to this video. In Lithuanian, "weight" is translated as "svoris" and is used that way in linguistics, dictionaries, every day language, etc. That's the official translation. However, it seems that "weight" does not mean "svoris" according to this video. We use "svoris" to describe the force that an object affects another surface, say, the ground or the scale, which is what you called the "push". We use the word "sunkis" to describe the force that gravity pulls you downward with (or towards another mass). And "sunkis" translates to "heaviness" in English instead of "weight". So the official translation of "weight" actually doesn't mean weight in Lithuanian. And the official translation of "heaviness" actually should be the translation of "weight". Interesting how linguistics and physics can differ so much, especially when different languages are concerned. EDIT: After some digging, I found that it's English physicists that's to blame for the misconception of weight and the weird "mistranslation" between English and Lithuanian. The word "weight" comes from Old-Germanic "wegan" which comes from Proto-Indo-European "wegh". And it means to move, carry, lift. So English physicists incorrectly chose the word "weight" to represent the force of gravity when it should have represented the push force that objects affect surfaces such as the ground or the scales since it's exactly THAT force that ancient people felt when they came up with the word "wegh/wegan". Apparent weight should be THE weight and what is weight in physics should probably use another word. So maybe it's not the people who say scales measure weight who are wrong but rather physicists who chose the wrong word?
Huh, I didn't connect this in my mind till now, but Douglas Adams' thing that flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing has a basis in reality.
Yeah. I think he has to get credit for that line. He certainly had a unique skill for concocting scientific parodies. There's a passage in one of his HHGTTG books about the anthropic principle, too. He explains it from the perspective of a puddle on the street that suddenly becomes self aware and conscious of its predicament. His improbability drive and restaurant at the edge of the universe are a bit of a stretch, but they're also based on actual science. I think he just loved to make people think while they are being entertained. Like Nick.
My flight instructor always told me the goal in flying is to learn to stay in the middle of the air, and don't go close to the edges except when you desire to terminate the flight.
Hey! I have a bone to pick! I was relegated to watching a rerun because you haven't posted a video in three weeks even though you usually do one every month. (P.S. I still enjoyed it)
"There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Sir, you have cleared my confusion of mass and weight. Thanks Sir. I would say only one thing after viewing this [great] video - 'This is the best Science channel on UA-cam for [crazy] people like me.'
Wow. I thought I were doing an odd thing by placing the scale on a spring mattress and bouncing up and down, to see the different readings when going up and when going down. A digital scale doesn't work well, because their sampling rate is too low - one per second, or less. One similarly interesting experiment, is to take a GPS speed meter on a motor boat, and comparing the reading to the speed indicator of the boat, which indicates the speed relative to the water - it uses a small turbine in the water. Or comparing it to the wind speed. Speed is so much more relative than weight... Thanks for the video...
you don't exert a force on the earth at all, because then they would cancel each other out - "gravity" that causes your weight is caused by your acceleration from the earth pushing you up to stop you from falling
in wikipedia article "mass versus weight! we can find "The mass of an object is a measure of the object’s inertial property, or the amount of matter it contains. The weight of an object is a measure of the force exerted on the object by gravity, or the force needed to support it. " that are the correct definitions
Good and illustrating video as always! What could be added regarding the old fashioned analogue scale, is the much higher weight measured once you step on it and before it stabilizes at static rest (I mean at the static floor now, not in the moving elevator). This is not a measuring error, it is in fact a true measure also due to sudden or moving load (not to be confused with impact loading) 🤓. Now, it's a shame the digital scales do not show the beauty of this as the added acceleration just when you step on the scale is not shown, at least not on my digital scale. The sudden or moving load is not equivalent to the static load measured at rest, even it's not an impact loading that is usually asociated with even shorter load duration.🤓keep up the good work, your videos are truly interesting and illustrates physics in a fascinating, educational and not to forget in a crazyfunny way!👍😊
Physforfun, digital scales often have higher internal resolution and do averaging to reduce noise at the expense of display update rate. They can also do some tricks in the background to null out drift. Fwiw the load cells can be sensitive to shock loads.
wow i just found you through your other channel where you talked about autism, i was diagnosed later than usual as well and it was tough. Seeing what you have achieved here and your great communication skills it gives me some hope :)
Actually (nerd clone here) the scale measures the normal force with which YOU push on the scale. Yes, it has equal in magnitude to the normal force with which the scale pushes on you because they are an action-and-reaction pair, but still. The scale can only measure a force acting on it, not a force acting on you. Which is another very good reason why a scale could never measure your weight (which also acts on you, not on the scale). Brilliant video.
@@chuckdeuces911 What a waste of a comment. This is for people interested in science to learn cool factoids, not for idiots to be shaming people that add even more factoids
There seem to be at least three different definitions of the word "weight". 1) Mass m in kg (as understood by most people and intended to be measured by the bathroom scales) 2) Force of gravity, mg in Newtons, as defined by US/EU textbooks 3) Force applied to a support, m(g+p) in Newtons, as defined by some Eastern European textbooks.
I will agree, you can’t feel “weight” what you feel is the normal force for the required acceleration. As in an aircraft, in a pull-up, “pulling gs” what your are feeling is the normal force, being provided by the seat of the aircraft, to accelerate you. Hence, if you are sitting on a scale in the aircraft you will see the required force to accelerate you with the aircrafts changing flight path (velocity)
@@AFmedic what you are feeling is the floor not only accelerating your mass, but the mass of the “fat ass”. The force is transmitted from the floor, thru your foot, to the fat ass.
@@antred11 It depends on how you define weight. Most people learn that weight is the pull of gravity, and in that case, you CANNOT feel your weight. You cannot feel the difference between accelerating through deep space at 9.8 m/s^2, and standing stationary in Earth's gravitational field of 9.8 N/kg. You feel the constraint force that keep you at rest in your immediate environment, and you instinctively assume the constraint force opposes your weight. If instead, you define weight as your reaction to a constraint force, then indeed you do feel it. In any case, you ultimately feel constraint forces, and you cannot feel the force of gravity.
I could hear you talking with your wife "I need to push a scale on your back." "Why?" [Inquisitive eyebrow raised] "Because SCIENCE! But in all actuality, I want to explain to the Crazies the difference of "weight" and push force." "OK, just don't get my face, I haven't done my makeup yet."
For conceptualizing orbits, I like to think the object is not just falling straight down, but that is cooking along with enough horizontal component to its velocity that misses, and continues to fall. Go faster in the horizontal, miss by more, have a higher orbit. Go slower, don't miss, and that's where you need to start thinking about all kinds of interesting interactions.
Dude you're so good at getting angry with your nerd clone, lmao. I bet a lot of work went into figuring out how to time that just right, with the i-i-i -it, and head shaking. Or maybe your just a brilliant genius who had an innate sense for how to deal with nerd clone.
it never even occurred to me to use a bathroom scale on an elevator and now I want to try it in a few different places: elevator, trampoline, bouncy house, see saw, waterbed, swimming pool. I'm not going to, though.
Old Timey Scientist "Look at my wonderful invention, it tells you how much things weigh" The Science A (Pushing and pulling mannicly on spring watching dial) Old TS (Takes back scale, locks in timeless vacuum chamber) "You're using it wrong!" The SA "But...... It was telling me something" I dunno why this episode made me laugh so hard, maybe I'm weigh too much of a nerd.
I wish I could double like this video. I never knew that the orbit of the space station gave the appearance of weightlessness. It makes sense. They’re in an almost endless fall.
I'd say the snow vs slush thing is much more about density than bouyancy: A shovel full of snow is going to be less dense and contain less mass than a shovel full of slush.
Yep. A very weird, misleading example. The point about bouyancy effect would be that shovelling 1 kg of snow would be indetectibly (to human senses) easier than shovelling 1kg of slush, as the displaced air due to the larger volume of 1kg of snow vs 1 kg of slush would be provide some tiny bouyancy effect in the vertical direction. In reality the greater wind resistance of moving a 1kg mass of snow vs a 1kg mass of slush would probably exceed the bouyancy effect. I'd say "leave it to 'The Science Asylum' to calculate if the wind resistance effect would be > or < the bouyacy effect in practice, but I doubt they would get the calculations correct...
Its like two days I find your page and I have a lots of exams but I don't care and I just watch your videos 😁👌🏻so nice video ♥ you show the real since🤝🏻
I was taught that "weight" is the force with which an object is pressing upon the surface on which it is standing, or the force with which it is pulling the object it is hanging from. With that definition, weight isn't constant, and scales are measuring exactly that (normal force is just a reactive force of this definition of weight). It's just the matter of definitions. Edit: spelling
Defining weight that way certainly solves the problem, but that's not how weight is defined. See the pinned comment for the official scientific definition of weight. This is my hill.
@@ScienceAsylum I don't disgree. The definition I was thought was the one from middleschool or highschool (I don't remember), and it's honestly not really useful overall. I think the definition you used in the video is more useful, and since you say it's the actual widely accepted definition, I have no reason not to accept it. I just wanted to share what I was taught, and how it's makes sense in given situation, I'm not too adamant about it. :)
I really like your style of teaching. I have watched almost all of your videos. I really used to like the style of the one which you made a year back around or so would like to see more of it.
Whenever I travel in an elevator while standing on bathroom scales I'm always holding on to a bunch of six helium-filled balloons. It's a quirk of mine. Whatcha gotta say about that effect, mister? Huh, smarty-pants?
thats a good one. it would still be push force measured I guess, with the balloons affecting your weight and your mass staying the same (unless you added the mass to your body)
The symmetry of this new set up is something else. He's either in the middle right down the line between the walls of there's 2 of him one on each side.
I believe that you may be confusing the terms weight and mass. Mass is the measure of how much matter makes up an object. Usually measured in grams. (g) Weight is a measurement an object's mass multiplied by the gravity/acceleration (m/s2) acting upon that object. Usually measured in Newtons. (N) or (g*m/s2) Since most Americans measure their weight in pounds, which have the same type of units as newtons, (mass x distance / time squared) and pounds use earths gravity as a constant of 1. It is very easy to confuse the two very different types of measurements. The average bathroom scale is doing this calculation for you and when you take the scale in the elevator you are changing your acceleration and thus changing the gravity constant that the scale needs to give you your appropriate weight.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about "mass" and "weight." This is likely due to the fact that the English dictionary has many definitions for each of these words, so they often get used interchangeably in everyday conversation. Most of those definitions are irrelevant for this video because, in a discussion about physics, the physics definition (if it exists) always takes priority. So let's properly define our terms:
*Mass - The amount of matter in an object. It's measured in kilograms or slugs.*
In Newtonian mechanics, mass stays the same no matter where you are or what you're doing. If my clone is 75 kg on Earth, then he's also 75 kg in an accelerating elevator and in low-Earth orbit and in deep space. The amount of matter inside you doesn't depend on those things.
*Weight - The force of gravity from a large object (like a planet). It's measured in pounds or newtons.*
That's it. It's just what we call the force of gravity in the situation when one mass is much larger than the other. I defined it at 1:49. This definition can be found in any introductory physics textbook. I even posted a few pictures from those textbooks on Twitter: twitter.com/NickLucid/status/1410763207879368705 Weight is the same no matter what you're doing. In an elevator, my clone has a weight of 165 pounds regardless of acceleration. Weight is _not_ the same regardless of where you are. My clone is 165 pounds on the ground, but he's 140 pounds on the ISS,and he's zero pounds very far from larges masses like stars, planets, and moons. You have to get _really_ far away for this to be a factor though. The top floor of a building isn't far enough. In a building, weight doesn't change.
*Which does a scale measure?*
Neither. Mass isn't even a force, so there's no way a scale could measure it. _I didn't bring it up in the video because it wasn't relevant._ Since weight is a force, you might expect the scale could measure it, but it doesn't. Scales can only measure forces that require physical contact and weight isn't a contact force. Push scales measure normal force. Pull scales measure tension.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
Thank you for the reply. I think we were on the same page on mass and weight based on your reply.
But again, regarding the scale measurement, don't you think the tension should be equivalent to the weight (force) as our body rests on it and is stationary? This can only happen when both forces due to gravity and opposing force exerted by scale are equal (This is when we consider tension measuring our weight is the ONLY force opposing our weight).
@The Science Asylum There are some mixed thoughts on how to define weight. You're correct, given your definition. I will stick with the normal force definition of weight because it's more useful, and it's likely what people usually mean by weight. On Earth's surface, weight is almost as invariant as mass, for all practical purposes, so I find it more useful to use a parameter that does significantly change.
Where I live we measure weight in kg 😉
Hey thanks for all your vids I’m learning lots and there made really well.
Question for a video maybe
I’m just learning about electrons and solar power, what is the difference between AC and DC power? And if solar panels create dc current why do we convert it to AC and… do we lose power in transition would it be better to make dc powered appliances.
Sorry for silly question never really learnt physics till started researching it recently and I just really want to understand how the hell everything around me works (like solar energy, batteries and “space time”) and why everyone else’s understands it but I don’t I should have done better in school :(
Thanks.
@@Wicky89 i hope you are well, i hope i didn't disturb you by replying, as many a times people expect reply from content creator
Well ac is easy to manipulate (control)
But with newer tech, this difference will become bleak
I am a Healthcare Professional by the way
I'm reminded of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which states that flying requires learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss...
That's the thought that went through my mind, too.
Turns out that's how to orbit.
The important thing is for the astronauts to be regularly distracted so they forget to hit the ground on each orbit.
like an orbit
@@ericwiddison7523 So how can weight be measured when you "feel" weightlessness ?
@@Krish-jm6ve My comment was about a series of jokes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I wasn't commenting about weight at all, including what "weightless" means or how to measure it.
But your question is an interesting one. You can't measure weight as a force, so you have to measure it by determining the acceleration vector that is attributable to gravity. I don't know if there is a way to measure it directly, but you can measure it indirectly.
It may be possible to measure it almost directly with an accelerometer. I don't know enough about how linear accelerometers work to know for sure.
You're a braver man than I referring to your wife as "or whatever" 🤣
😂
True! 😂
Also, I don't this is the way a man should push on a woman. 🤣
@@rauldumitrascu4929 well, the evidence suggests that she's no push-over.
@@ScienceAsylum sir I have one question if An elevator is moving downward with acceleration of say 12 m/S2 then effective g will be now (10-12) which is negative what is feel of this negative acceleration?? Please sir🤔tell m!! I am big fan of yours😊☺️
_I didn't forget about it. I ignored it._
Spoken like a true physicist. 😂
And also like a true Engineering student (You know what I mean lol)
and yet , when I ignore putting "+c" everyone loses their minds
@@kojak8403 What?
I remember doing this in my high school physics class and it was probably one of the most interesting lessons we did. The fun lessons like that are what made me love science in general, good teachers know how to keep class interesting.
So I've just learned that scales work exactly how I've known they have for my entire life. I thought this video was going to blow my mind or something
Nope, just 10 minutes of quibbling about the definition of weight
It didn't blow your mind because you already knew it but realise most people don't know it. Most people ate clueless of basic physics.
@@toby9999 Most people think a 1/3 pound burger is smaller than a 1/4 burger, but it cost more.
That's why fast food places took them off the menu. Yes, really.
@@mayorb3366 I refuse to believe it, for my own mental safety.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 You are very wise.
There are certain times in life where you just have to cover your eyes and plug your ears and say.... "la la la la la la la" .
“You don’t feel weight, you only feel pushes and pulls”… man I feel enlightened, thanks for the video
but isn't weight itself just "pull"
I read that precisely when he said it.
I once argued with an intellectual that our Weight(not Mass) was a measure Gravity forcing you into an object that stops your free fall. And I was called ignorant lol
And this is why I don't argue with people that claim to know everything about something.
We also don't feel temperature, but the heat transfer in or out of our bodies.
@@tektrixter Eat a lot and stand still, do nothing for a while after eat then you will feel it, guaranteed.
Careful. Using the scale other than as intended may void its warranty.
Whoa! Even for a bathroom scale!
This is why I love kitchen scales, because the manufacturer can't possibly know WHICH herb I'm weighing out in my kitchen...
@@superking208 Cell phones...I mean two decades ago, I would have totally agreed.
@@Robert_McGarry_Poems Gotta love how the world's takeaway from dystopian literature was "Oh, so if I voluntarily let Big Brother in my house to watch and listen at all times, I can avoid typing a few characters per day? Sign me up! Alexa, play 'Despacito'!"
True.
As a kid I started to have this same suspicion about what scales actually measured when I held the bottom half down and pulled the top half up and watched the dial spin the other way, effectively displaying what I called negative weight. I realized then it was measuring how hard I was pulling or pushing on it. 34 years later you make a video expertly explaining what me as a 10 year old was seeing. What other childhood observations will you help explain next? 😄 Great video!
We had an old spring scale that was effectively a sandwich of two steel plates around a series of springs that were attached to a dial when I was a kid. My mom told me to always pick it up by the bottom plate and never the top plate, which of course meant I had to pick it up by the top plate at least once just to see why I wasn't supposed to and saw the dial do the exact same thing. Also I ended up stretching some of the springs by doing that which meant my stepdad had to go through the tedious process of recalibrating the scale to account for the stretched springs but it was worth it to me.
So you broke your parents scales? Lol
@@Dargonhuman lol literally what I said 1st guy did broke scales. Your mom learned not to tell kids not to do stuff lol.
For an even more straightforward example of "normal force" on a scale, try putting your scale on an incline. It won't give your entire weight, only the weight that's normal to the surface the scale is sitting on.
Put it on a slope, east to west and west to east... with an accurate enough scale you should be able to confirm planitary rotation.
@@mids5854 No because it doesn't accelerate. The elevator demonstrated that once acceleration stops (elevator is at full speed) it shows your correct weight again. Then once braking begins, the opposite happens. To confirm planetary rotation as you described, you'd have to stop the rotation or change its speed first.
@@KarstenJohansson Superman did that all the time when I was a kid in the 60s.
Just brilliant. I've been trying to explain this thing about scales, lifts and gravity to my son - but nowhere near as well as this. I can't wait to show him this video when he comes home from school later. Huge thanks, Science Guy!
Glad it was helpful! 🤓
"This isn't flying, it's falling with style".
Hahahahha
Ohhhh, man. I was gonna say that😉
I don't think it's a good intuition to say an orbit is falling but the earth curves away. I'd rather go with falling is an extremely eccentric orbit.
Like the end of Dark Star?
"Falling but missing" is some hitchhikers guide to the galaxy stuff
@@SeanChandlerSF Me too! :D)
try Terry Pratchett
You can use this effect in an elevator, when carrying grocery bags. When you enter the elevator in the parking floor, place the bags on the floor. Just before you reach your floor and the elevator begins to stop, lift you bags up again and they will be much lighter. This need perfect timing, but it works great.
I find it fun to try to jump just as the elevator stops, you can get some serious "height" in relation to the elevator floor.
@@spindoctor6385 you can also cause the elevator to make an emergency stop.
@@5Siver I never thought of that, a sudden stop instead of decelerating would be awesome.
The main question would be "Is it to childish for a 46 year old guy to play in elevators?" and if the answer is yes will that stop me?
@@spindoctor6385 if you won't have a flight to miss (like I had) then you're fine :)
kawaii uwu
I remember my first ever physics lesson in school about 8 years ago. The teacher talked about the difference between mass and weight. I was so fascinated that physics became my favourite subject on that day!
“The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
the Guide is useful in so many ways…
what makes this funny is that I have an elevator scale in my bathroom.
Oh cool, I have a Kitchen scale in my livingroom.
I have a tiny scale in my nightstand drawer to measure how much push my bag of flower I just got has in it
Why do you call it an elevator scale? Because it goes up and down?
@@ChronicSkater me too!
o.0
Turn the scale upside down. The Earth now weighs ~your earth weight~ on planet You.
Doesn’t this only work in Soviet Russia?
Vsauce did it!
gravity works both ways so if the scale weighs 50N, the earth feels 50N of force towards the scale too, so in a weird way you really are measuring the "weight" of the earth in relation to the scale. just like you would measure the weight of something in relation to the earth
@@captaincruise8796 aaahhhhh I was gonna do that!
u don't have to flip the scale upside-down for that. That will just make it harder to read xD
I've already went there with my mind... no need to physically take a scale anywhere. Thanks for the superb content; You are truly in my book as the gangsta of science within your respective fields!!!👍🏽🖖🏾
7:04 I disagree. The buoyancy force on snow and slush are both completely negligible. The reason slush is harder to shovel is that it is more dense, and so a shovel-full has a greater mass than a shovel-full of snow.
WHY NOT ?!? Cheers!
Very interesting! I had to do this exact experiment as a project for my AP Physics class years ago. Teacher told us to bring a bathroom scale on an elevator, videotape the change in measured weight, and use the footage to calculate the maximum and minimum acceleration of the elevator, exactly as you did here.
It's a great student project!
Reminds me of the first time when I learned that mass and weight are different things, back in high school in the 90s. Much needed for the new generations.
I was taught the difference between mass and weight back in middle school. Also the science channel. Really there is no excuse to not know, it's literally just basic physics.
This brought back to mind my days of running cranes. The point in time in which a load is lifted that it begins movement “going up” no matter what it is it becomes heavier for a fraction of a second. Depending on the speed at which it’s being hoisted that force can actually overload a crane. I remember learning in my crane certification classes that this point in time of initial force is called the moment of load. Interesting that I I’ve never even considered it since then in the elevator of all places.
Thanks for the fantastic idea for my IB Physics Class!
I used to do this in my physics classes all the time!
1:19 I love the way that Nerd Clone always looks at the camera after saying something technically correct.
3:25 footage of astronauts performing important science on the ISS
Yep. We call it conservation of angular momentum.
@@adb012 its simpler to call it Torque.
I was worried that guy spinning would bump his head!
@@NamedSoni not the same thing....
Could picture Nick getting kicked out of a building for playing in the elevator with a scale. 🤣
The building's caretaker was not so Lucid about it either.
😂 I filmed it at a school I used to work at in a science department elevator. It wouldn't have looked as weird as you're imagining.
@@ScienceAsylum Hey, didn't you graduate... And then work here?
"...AND DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK HERE AGAIN!!!" (Kicks Nick off the elevator). Nick rises and falls on a curve. Nick raises his finger, looks at the camera, and says, "Hey, Crazies! What happens when you get kicked in the hiney?"
Don't worry, it's nust a clone!
3:02 "Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss" --Douglas Adams
I was literally reading about this yesterday but thanks anyways, for an altogether different video for which I actually landed on this page (The current not taking the path of least resistance).
Keep doing the good work.
I honestly thought that's what weight meant. All my life I said weight changes with forces, mass stays constant.
Ahh.. you listened in science class. Well done!
I listened in high school science class, and started my college experience as a science major (now a software engineer). So I listened also.. but SO many people haven't been exposed to these ideas. It is why this channel is so wonderful.
Mass does stay constant. Weight can definitely change. You're correct there. Weight just isn't going to change on different floors of a building or in an elevator. You have to get _miles_ above the surface before you'll notice a difference in weight. See the pinned comment for more details.
Imagine if we were to walk around on jupiter.. our mass is the same as it was on earth, but we would weigh more on jupiter..??? 🤯
@@ScienceAsylum This may be true if you use your definitions taken from dictionaries. But if you are a true scientist you know that dictionaries are a garbage place to look for scientific terms and concepts.
No. That's what Nick's clone would say!
[Nick: Now let's weigh in on this thing called 'relativistic' mass crazies!😁]
Thank you for explaining the difference between normal and perpendicular. I always wondered.
But he only described the special case of euclidian space. Does true perpendicular actually exist???
Normal in this context means the same thing as perpendicular. In the context of the normal force, the normal and lateral coordinates of a planar surface, and the normal line in optics, it means perpendicular.
In the context of linear algebra, think of the idea unit vectors. Normal means divided by magnitude, so that its magnitude equals 1. In linear algebra, they prefer the term orthogonal to mean perpendicular. You might even see the two terms put together, as orthonormal. The ortho part indicates perpendicularity, and the normal part indicates unit length.
Even a lot of engineering graduates don't understand these fundamentals. This video is gonna be a great help to high schoolers, I remember my own suffering trying to understand this two years ago XD
Seriously? I recognized this on my own like in high school.
Ei je Mukherjee dada, egineering college er jawa jonno amader ke JEE dite hoy, tai amader ke ei sob portei hoy, nahole college e admission ki kore pabo??!! 😂
@@brainboxanky1729
সবাই পরে কিন্তু কয়জন বোঝে😅
@@brainboxanky1729 😍 বাংলা কমেন্ট ।
আপনি কোন ক্লাস এ এখন?
কোন জেলা?
@@raj-m
এইতো JEE দিচ্ছি
2:50 falling sideways. falling and missing... Douglas Adams had this to say about it in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy...
"There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. ... Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, that presents the difficulties"
According to the Guide, the main thing that flying requires is the ability to throw yourself at the ground and miss. It says to throw yourself forward with all your weight and "the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt", however it will surely hurt if you fail to miss the ground. The difficulty is in missing the ground, and doing so accidentally, as "deliberately intending to miss the ground" does not work.
I am very happy folks noticed this!
I believe this is the reason airlines have been misplacing luggage since that book was published.
@@AlexandarHullRichter in times like that, all you can really do is smile, wave, and thank them for all the fish.
As a kid we liked to jump when the elevator started moving. You will either go up more or less than expected.
This channel is so good it literally explains physics in a fun and understandable way
IKR, this guy is great, he should add some near death experiences and occasional life threatening explosion. He will go down in history as one of the greats!
Stop! Just stop using 'literally' in that incorrect manner.
@@danipent3550 Not by me. The moment a word starts to also mean it's opposite it becomes a useless word, though of course if you have nothing to say to begin with it may not be bothering you.
@@psibarpsi I’m not English bruv
@@BlacksmithTWD I’m not English and I was using it as emphasis
Didn't encounter this question yet but thank you for making my concept more clear.❤️
3:03 HOLY F! The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was right about flying!
“There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adama
*Elevator barely has room*
Me: *pulls up with a bathroom scale FOR SCIENCE*
In my language we use this definition: Weight is the force with which the body pushes the support or pulls the suspension. (when we translate our word for weight) But then you call gravitational force weight and our "weight" apparent weight.
That sounds a lot like the _engineers_ definition for "weight."
@Thijs Janssen Weight and gravity are the same thing in physics.
@@ScienceAsylum
"Well, technically..."
Hmm, I also use the definition “weight” is a force caused by the product of mass and acceleration. With a scale using a spring, you measure a force by reading the compression or extraction distance of the spring. To really measure mass, a balance scale is needed where a known mass is balanced against the unknown mass. To work, the whole arrangement need to be under the same acceleration. As we are standing on the earth or moon or any concentrates lump of matter having mass…
@@ScienceAsylum ... You should see the technical documents related with airplane design and testing including the certification requirements. They talk all the time about the aerodynamic loads to be all the time in equilibrium with inertial loads (instead of F=ma), about weight on the wheels (instead of normal force), and about how a 1G flight is unaccelerated but 0G is accelerated. Yuck!!! (and I am an aeronautical engineer and a pilot).
cool! thx for helping me in my 3rd secondary year dynamics
keep it up man !
As I child I thought it would be funny to jump onto a scale. The result was that the meter jumped up and that I gained some intuitive understanding of this.
was much more interesting than I thought. Dude youre making great videos!
Thanks! 🤓
that little throw away few seconds finnaly allowed me to know what 'normal' is in forces. and we alllll forget about buoyancy... most times.
I was confused after seeing the title but then realised that the word in my language that translates to weight actually doesn't translate to weight at all, at least according to this video.
In Lithuanian, "weight" is translated as "svoris" and is used that way in linguistics, dictionaries, every day language, etc. That's the official translation. However, it seems that "weight" does not mean "svoris" according to this video. We use "svoris" to describe the force that an object affects another surface, say, the ground or the scale, which is what you called the "push". We use the word "sunkis" to describe the force that gravity pulls you downward with (or towards another mass). And "sunkis" translates to "heaviness" in English instead of "weight".
So the official translation of "weight" actually doesn't mean weight in Lithuanian. And the official translation of "heaviness" actually should be the translation of "weight". Interesting how linguistics and physics can differ so much, especially when different languages are concerned.
EDIT: After some digging, I found that it's English physicists that's to blame for the misconception of weight and the weird "mistranslation" between English and Lithuanian. The word "weight" comes from Old-Germanic "wegan" which comes from Proto-Indo-European "wegh". And it means to move, carry, lift. So English physicists incorrectly chose the word "weight" to represent the force of gravity when it should have represented the push force that objects affect surfaces such as the ground or the scales since it's exactly THAT force that ancient people felt when they came up with the word "wegh/wegan". Apparent weight should be THE weight and what is weight in physics should probably use another word. So maybe it's not the people who say scales measure weight who are wrong but rather physicists who chose the wrong word?
Etymology is so interesting!! 🤓
Mass!
I’ve had to explain this to my students so many times and they think I’m crazy because no one else explains it this way.
Huh, I didn't connect this in my mind till now, but Douglas Adams' thing that flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing has a basis in reality.
Yeah. I think he has to get credit for that line. He certainly had a unique skill for concocting scientific parodies. There's a passage in one of his HHGTTG books about the anthropic principle, too. He explains it from the perspective of a puddle on the street that suddenly becomes self aware and conscious of its predicament. His improbability drive and restaurant at the edge of the universe are a bit of a stretch, but they're also based on actual science. I think he just loved to make people think while they are being entertained. Like Nick.
My flight instructor always told me the goal in flying is to learn to stay in the middle of the air, and don't go close to the edges except when you desire to terminate the flight.
@@walterbrown8694 Good advice.
Hey! I have a bone to pick! I was relegated to watching a rerun because you haven't posted a video in three weeks even though you usually do one every month. (P.S. I still enjoyed it)
January's video goes up tomorrow 👍
Douglas Adams described flying as throwing yourself towards the ground and missing.
I read the title.
And immediately thought: "To prove Einstein right."
haven't seen the video yet.
"There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
All the science stuff and all was really cool, but then I saw the TMNT shirt and I had tu sub. Great content!
Your elevator demo is done with a spring-based scale. Now try it with a balance scale and see if it'll register those up-down blips.
Sir, you have cleared my confusion of mass and weight. Thanks Sir.
I would say only one thing after viewing this [great] video - 'This is the best Science channel on UA-cam for [crazy] people like me.'
“The channel where you learn about physics and have fun doing it!”
All of UA-cam should do this.
Wow. I thought I were doing an odd thing by placing the scale on a spring mattress and bouncing up and down, to see the different readings when going up and when going down. A digital scale doesn't work well, because their sampling rate is too low - one per second, or less.
One similarly interesting experiment, is to take a GPS speed meter on a motor boat, and comparing the reading to the speed indicator of the boat, which indicates the speed relative to the water - it uses a small turbine in the water. Or comparing it to the wind speed. Speed is so much more relative than weight...
Thanks for the video...
Yeah, it was really important that the scale was analog. A digital scale would have been a huge pain.
This is a very clever video right from the title! I salute you sir!
Thanks 🙇♂️
You have some interesting characters on your staff. 💫🙇🏻
Your videos are awesome.
Thank you very much. Now I’m going to put my scale in a swimming pool and see what happens next.
Boom! Kicking it up a notch...
Make sure it's an analog one! (Honestly, I had planned to do this for the buoyancy part of the video, but ran out of time.)
That's the science spirit right here !
Your videos are becoming more and more pieces of art.
Thanks 🙂
If you turn the scale upside down, you can measure the force of the Earth on you (unsurprisingly identical to your force on Earth)
you don't exert a force on the earth at all, because then they would cancel each other out - "gravity" that causes your weight is caused by your acceleration from the earth pushing you up to stop you from falling
@@incription Ever heard of Newton 3rd law ?
@@YvesDautremay newton's third law only holds in euclidean space, but because of gravity, it's doesn't, right?
wow u blew my mind i love the way you explain things
in wikipedia article "mass versus weight! we can find "The mass of an object is a measure of the object’s inertial property, or the amount of matter it contains. The weight of an object is a measure of the force exerted on the object by gravity, or the force needed to support it. " that are the correct definitions
🤔 Interesting. So wikipedia lists both the physics and the engineering definitions?
Good and illustrating video as always! What could be added regarding the old fashioned analogue scale, is the much higher weight measured once you step on it and before it stabilizes at static rest (I mean at the static floor now, not in the moving elevator). This is not a measuring error, it is in fact a true measure also due to sudden or moving load (not to be confused with impact loading) 🤓. Now, it's a shame the digital scales do not show the beauty of this as the added acceleration just when you step on the scale is not shown, at least not on my digital scale. The sudden or moving load is not equivalent to the static load measured at rest, even it's not an impact loading that is usually asociated with even shorter load duration.🤓keep up the good work, your videos are truly interesting and illustrates physics in a fascinating, educational and not to forget in a crazyfunny way!👍😊
Physforfun, digital scales often have higher internal resolution and do averaging to reduce noise at the expense of display update rate. They can also do some tricks in the background to null out drift. Fwiw the load cells can be sensitive to shock loads.
@@anullhandle ok, thanks- nice to know😊
wow i just found you through your other channel where you talked about autism, i was diagnosed later than usual as well and it was tough. Seeing what you have achieved here and your great communication skills it gives me some hope :)
Being as functional as I am today took a lifetime of work, practice, and self training.
Till this day I don't regret ever subscribing!
Surprisingly I have always explained how bathroom scales work the same way. Nice video.
Great presentation, brings back memories of my youth when I was really into technical things.
Actually (nerd clone here) the scale measures the normal force with which YOU push on the scale. Yes, it has equal in magnitude to the normal force with which the scale pushes on you because they are an action-and-reaction pair, but still. The scale can only measure a force acting on it, not a force acting on you. Which is another very good reason why a scale could never measure your weight (which also acts on you, not on the scale).
Brilliant video.
Exactly lol
What a waste of a comment. This is for regular people to learn what they haven't it's not a channel for 'experts'..
@@chuckdeuces911 What a waste of a comment. This is for people interested in science to learn cool factoids, not for idiots to be shaming people that add even more factoids
I would have been even happier if you had included the word "mass" at least once.
A lot of confusion between mass and weight going around as I recall.
1:14 but he never included word 'inertia'
@@Thrill98 Yeah, and again at 1:52.
I guess what I missed was a sentence clearly stating the difference or the relation between mass and weight.
This video wasn't about mass, so mentioning it would have been distracting I think.
@@ScienceAsylum Well, don't worry then, I will look it up in an older video.😁
I clarified the proper physics definitions in the pinned comment.
So Douglas Adams was right. Flying is just falling down and missing the ground.
That's orbit.
There seem to be at least three different definitions of the word "weight". 1) Mass m in kg (as understood by most people and intended to be measured by the bathroom scales) 2) Force of gravity, mg in Newtons, as defined by US/EU textbooks 3) Force applied to a support, m(g+p) in Newtons, as defined by some Eastern European textbooks.
My girlfriend has several definitions of "weight" also. I agree with all of them.
My God
I had always wondered but never got an answer. So thank you
I will agree, you can’t feel “weight” what you feel is the normal force for the required acceleration. As in an aircraft, in a pull-up, “pulling gs” what your are feeling is the normal force, being provided by the seat of the aircraft, to accelerate you. Hence, if you are sitting on a scale in the aircraft you will see the required force to accelerate you with the aircrafts changing flight path (velocity)
I have to disagree with you! If some fat ass (correction - "massive") person stands on my foot, I definitely feel his/her weight.
@@AFmedic what you are feeling is the floor not only accelerating your mass, but the mass of the “fat ass”. The force is transmitted from the floor, thru your foot, to the fat ass.
Actually you do feel weight, because technically "weight" is a force. What people colloquially refer to as "weight" is actually "mass".
@@antred11 It depends on how you define weight. Most people learn that weight is the pull of gravity, and in that case, you CANNOT feel your weight. You cannot feel the difference between accelerating through deep space at 9.8 m/s^2, and standing stationary in Earth's gravitational field of 9.8 N/kg. You feel the constraint force that keep you at rest in your immediate environment, and you instinctively assume the constraint force opposes your weight.
If instead, you define weight as your reaction to a constraint force, then indeed you do feel it. In any case, you ultimately feel constraint forces, and you cannot feel the force of gravity.
I could hear you talking with your wife
"I need to push a scale on your back."
"Why?" [Inquisitive eyebrow raised]
"Because SCIENCE! But in all actuality, I want to explain to the Crazies the difference of "weight" and push force."
"OK, just don't get my face, I haven't done my makeup yet."
That's pretty spot on actually 😂
yes i was just going to grab my bathroom scale to measure my elevators acceleration
You have an elevator?
For conceptualizing orbits, I like to think the object is not just falling straight down, but that is cooking along with enough horizontal component to its velocity that misses, and continues to fall. Go faster in the horizontal, miss by more, have a higher orbit. Go slower, don't miss, and that's where you need to start thinking about all kinds of interesting interactions.
2:50 They are not flying. They are just falling with style.
😂 Literally snorted after the sea shells comment…
I love to watch this guy arguing with himself!!
Dude you're so good at getting angry with your nerd clone, lmao. I bet a lot of work went into figuring out how to time that just right, with the i-i-i -it, and head shaking. Or maybe your just a brilliant genius who had an innate sense for how to deal with nerd clone.
it never even occurred to me to use a bathroom scale on an elevator and now I want to try it in a few different places: elevator, trampoline, bouncy house, see saw, waterbed, swimming pool. I'm not going to, though.
Great video! I have these talks with my two boys, all the time!👍😉
Old Timey Scientist "Look at my wonderful invention, it tells you how much things weigh"
The Science A (Pushing and pulling mannicly on spring watching dial)
Old TS (Takes back scale, locks in timeless vacuum chamber) "You're using it wrong!"
The SA "But...... It was telling me something"
I dunno why this episode made me laugh so hard, maybe I'm weigh too much of a nerd.
she: i only date bad boys
nick lucid: i use bathroom scales on elevators
she: OMG let's passionately hug ;)
I wish I could double like this video. I never knew that the orbit of the space station gave the appearance of weightlessness. It makes sense. They’re in an almost endless fall.
Douglas Adams defined flying as aiming for the ground and missing.
I'd say the snow vs slush thing is much more about density than bouyancy: A shovel full of snow is going to be less dense and contain less mass than a shovel full of slush.
Yep. A very weird, misleading example. The point about bouyancy effect would be that shovelling 1 kg of snow would be indetectibly (to human senses) easier than shovelling 1kg of slush, as the displaced air due to the larger volume of 1kg of snow vs 1 kg of slush would be provide some tiny bouyancy effect in the vertical direction. In reality the greater wind resistance of moving a 1kg mass of snow vs a 1kg mass of slush would probably exceed the bouyancy effect. I'd say "leave it to 'The Science Asylum' to calculate if the wind resistance effect would be > or < the bouyacy effect in practice, but I doubt they would get the calculations correct...
That goofy squirrel has taught me more about physics than school did.
Sorry about your school...
You are the prime exmaple of the person people refer to "You must be fun at parties".
And i love it!
I've had people say that to me before.
What a fantastic post!!!! thank you :)
I don't feel I need to for the simple fact that you did it for us. Thank you sir, great content
Another fantastic video ! I ❤️the science and I ❤️ the humor!
Its like two days I find your page and I have a lots of exams but I don't care and I just watch your videos 😁👌🏻so nice video ♥ you show the real since🤝🏻
Thanks! (but, also, my videos will be here when your exams are over 🙂.)
I was taught that "weight" is the force with which an object is pressing upon the surface on which it is standing, or the force with which it is pulling the object it is hanging from.
With that definition, weight isn't constant, and scales are measuring exactly that (normal force is just a reactive force of this definition of weight).
It's just the matter of definitions.
Edit: spelling
Exactly! And this guy thinks he is qualified to teach science? It was so painful to watch this video.
Defining weight that way certainly solves the problem, but that's not how weight is defined. See the pinned comment for the official scientific definition of weight. This is my hill.
@@ScienceAsylum I don't disgree. The definition I was thought was the one from middleschool or highschool (I don't remember), and it's honestly not really useful overall. I think the definition you used in the video is more useful, and since you say it's the actual widely accepted definition, I have no reason not to accept it.
I just wanted to share what I was taught, and how it's makes sense in given situation, I'm not too adamant about it.
:)
I really like your style of teaching. I have watched almost all of your videos. I really used to like the style of the one which you made a year back around or so would like to see more of it.
Whenever I travel in an elevator while standing on bathroom scales I'm always holding on to a bunch of six helium-filled balloons. It's a quirk of mine. Whatcha gotta say about that effect, mister? Huh, smarty-pants?
thats a good one. it would still be push force measured I guess, with the balloons affecting your weight and your mass staying the same (unless you added the mass to your body)
The symmetry of this new set up is something else. He's either in the middle right down the line between the walls of there's 2 of him one on each side.
I believe that you may be confusing the terms weight and mass.
Mass is the measure of how much matter makes up an object. Usually measured in grams. (g)
Weight is a measurement an object's mass multiplied by the gravity/acceleration (m/s2) acting upon that object. Usually measured in Newtons. (N) or (g*m/s2)
Since most Americans measure their weight in pounds, which have the same type of units as newtons, (mass x distance / time squared) and pounds use earths gravity as a constant of 1. It is very easy to confuse the two very different types of measurements. The average bathroom scale is doing this calculation for you and when you take the scale in the elevator you are changing your acceleration and thus changing the gravity constant that the scale needs to give you your appropriate weight.
still not weight
See the pinned comment.