Letter: Mass, not weight

Joy Bampton
Friday 26 September 1997 23:02 BST
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Sir: Both The Independent (Technoquest, Network+, 23 September) and John Senior (letters, 26 September) are incorrect; any object immersed in water will displace its mass in water, not its weight.

The weight of an object depends on the material from which it is made, as well as the gravitational force upon it. A cube of lead will displace the same volume (mass) of water, but the weight of the displaced water will not be the same as that of the lead cube.

Joy Bampton

Porlock, Somerset

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