I was assuming that the image was confusing the term “weight” with “mass” (a completely forgivable and understandable mistake for a layman, given that both are equal on earth — give or take the variance in Earth’s gravitational field [2.2])). If weight was intended to be a separate term, then it’s just incorrect. Weight is the term given to the force that objects in a gravitational field impart on others when they are not accelerating (by “not accelerating” I mean, for example if one looks at the Earth, the object is still with reference to the surface of the Earth) [1.1], whereas mass is the term for the measure of an objects inertia [2.3][3]. Relativity shows that mass is equivalent to energy [4]. In SI, weight is measured in Newton’s [1.2] and mass is measured in kilograms [2.1].
References
- “Weight”. Wikipedia. Accessed: 2024-08-13T03:05Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight.
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the weight of an object, is the force acting on the object due to acceleration of gravity.
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The unit of measurement for weight is that of force, which in the International System of Units (SI) is the newton.
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- “Mass”. Wikipedia. Accessed: 2024-08-13T03:08Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass.
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The SI base unit of mass is the kilogram
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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
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Inertial mass is a measure of an object’s resistance to acceleration when a force is applied.
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- “Inertia”. Wikipedia. Accessed: 2024-08-13T03:14Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertia.
Inertia is the tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion and objects at rest to stay at rest
- “Mass-energy equivalence”. Wikipedia. Accessed: 2024-08-13T03:17Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass–energy_equivalence
I don’t actually know what the higgs field is.
I wouldn’t be comfortable getting into the details of the actual “Higgs field” is, nor the Higgs boson, as I am not confident in my understanding, but, for the sake of the meme, the following excerpt from Wikipedia should suffice:
via the Higgs mechanism, [the Higgs boson] gives a rest mass to all massive elementary particles of the Standard Model, including the Higgs boson itself. [source]
I assumed it was gravity.
Gravity can be understood as the attractive force that two massive objects impart on eachother [1.1] — the strength of the gravitational force imparted by one object onto another is proportional to the mass of the former object [1.2]. Do note that this is a simplification. Gravity, as far as it is currently understood, is quite a bit more complicated than this (I am primarily referring to General Relativity) [1].
References
- “Gravity”. Wikipedia. Accessed: 2024-08-13T03:35Z. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity.
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gravity is a fundamental interaction primarily observed as mutual attraction between all things that have mass.
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$$F = \frac{Gm_1m_2}{r^2}$$ where $F$ is the force, $m_1$ and $m_2$ are the masses of the objects interacting, $r$ is the distance between the centers of the masses and $G$ is the gravitational constant
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