At school, we were taught that mass is the amount of matter in a body.
The inertial mass of a body (Newton and Euler), is the ratio of force on a body to it’s acceleration = F/a.
Its active gravitational mass is the extent to which it produces a gravitational field.
Its passive gravitational mass is the extent to which a body is pulled on gravitationally by other bodies and hence a quantity proportional to the body’s weight.
The mass that appears in E=mc^2 is inertial mass.
#1 by adrianamexico on December 6, 2012 - 1:03 am
Dear Satya, With this new format I don’t know if I am getting the complete entry. For some reason these last posts seem to continue somewhere but I don’t see how to continue reading. There are some arrows pointing in either direction, but they also go to “incomplete” entries. Best, Adriana
#2 by ceedaar on December 5, 2012 - 1:19 pm
thank you very much for opening the site for us.