Newton's Laws Legacy Problem #1 Guided Solution

Every good problem solver has a solid understanding of relationships, not just of mathematical equations, but of the conceptual meaning of terms such as mass and weight. A good problem solver in this unit is going to see the word mass and kilograms and going to relate that to one another and clearly distinguish it from quantities like weight and newtons. Here we are told we have an African elephant and the typical mass is 6000 kilograms for a mature male and we are asked to calculate the weight of the elephant in newtons. So of course you do need an equation that relates the kilograms to the newtons, but you also need to make sure throughout the whole unit that you are distinguishing between mass in kilograms and weight in newtons and not confusing the two. So to find the weight, what we need to do is use an equation that relates it to mass and that equation is that the weight is equal to m times g, where g is the gravitational field constant or the gravitational acceleration. This value is 9.8 newtons per kilogram, sometimes expressed as 9.8 meters per second per second. So I need to take my mass of 6000 and multiply it by the value of g and that gives me an answer in newtons. The final part of this question is to convert the value of weight in newtons to the quantity in pounds. You see the converting information there that 1 newton is equivalent to 0.225 pounds. So if you multiply by the conversion factor 0.225 pounds over 1 newton you will be able to do your converting.