Weight
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force on the object due to gravity. Its magnitude (a scalar quantity), often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the mass m of the object and the magnitude of the local gravitational acceleration g; thus: W = mg. When considered a vector, weight is often denoted by a bold letter W. The unit of measurement for weight is that of force, which in the International System of Units (SI) is the newton. For example, an object with a mass of one kilogram has a weight of about 9.8 newtons on the surface of the Earth, about one-sixth as much on the Moon, and zero when in deep space far away from all bodies imparting gravitational influence.
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Famous quotes containing the word weight:
“Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“In a town-meeting, the great secret of political science was uncovered, and the problem solved, how to give every individual his fair weight in the government, without any disorder from numbers. In a town-meeting, the roots of society were reached. Here the rich gave counsel, but the poor also; and moreover, the just and the unjust.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Egoism is the law of perspective as it applies to feelings, according to which what is closest to us appears to be large and weighty, while size and weight decrease with our distance from things.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)