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Which of these objects would have greater mass, object A that weighs 50N on earth or object B with a weight of 50N on the moon?

Answer 1

Object B (The object on the Moon)

We're asked to find which of two objects has a greater mass, given that they have the same weight on two different celestial bodies.

Recall Newton's second law, which states

#sumvecF = mveca#

We need to know the magnitude of the acceleration #g# for each body. We know earth's is #9.81# #"m/s"^2#, and the Moon's is #1.624# #"m/s"^2# (from Internet or any resource).

Earth:

We have

#sumF = 50# #"N"# (weight)

#a = 9.81# #"m/s"^2#

Thus,

#m = (sumF)/a = color(red)(5.10# #color(red)("g"#

Moon:

We have

#sumF = 50# #"N"# (weight)

#a = 1.624# #"m/s"^2#

#m = (sumF)/a = color(blue)(30.8# #color(blue)("g"#

Thus, object #sfcolor(blue)("B"# has the greater mass.

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Answer 2

Elena Albarran

Intuitively, since gravity on the moon is less than that on Earth, it takes more mass on the moon to produce the same force.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.