THE WEIGHT OF A BAG OF SUGAR IS ONE KILOGRAM
The weight of a bag of sugar is 1 kg, a baby's weight as measured in a hospital may be 3.2 kg
there is a very important and often misunderstood difference between MASS and WEIGHT:
MASS is basically the amount of STUFF present in the object...ie it is to do with how many molecules and what sort of molecules.
WEIGHT is the FORCE with which the object is attracted to the Earth by gravity (or to whatever planet you are on!)
On Earth a mass of 1 kilogram has a force of 9.81 Newtons (N) on it(though we usually take this as 10 N for pupils up to the age of 16), so........
1 kilogram WEIGHS 10 N.
no matter whether you go to another planet, stay on Earth or go into deep space your MASS stays the same (unless you laugh your head off..whoops sorry). BUT your weight will vary. On the Moon your weight would only be one sixth that of Earth because Moon's gravity is 1/6 Earth's. If you were in deep remote space not near any planets, then you would be weightless but your mass would be the same as before. (NB you are not weighless in orbit...see "An astronaut in an orbiting spacecraft is weightless").
...got it? Mass is in kilograms and weight is in Newtons, but good luck to you if you go to the butcher's and ask for 10 Newtons of sausages!
This idea was prompted by Tim Watson - thanks Tim
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