If I disregard the distinction between passive and active gravitational mass, then we generally associate two types of masses with an object, namely, inertial mass (mI) that appears in F=mIa and gravitational mass (mG) that appears in F=GmGM/r2 for the same object. While this is the theoretical explanation, these equations are meaningless writing unless we provide physical interpretations to those through experiments. Then comes the question that how we measure mI and mG of the same object whose motion is getting studied so as to verify the above equations. Therefore, the question arises whether the unit, in terms of which mI and mG will be expressed, itself is an inertial mass unit or a gravitational mass unit.

I shall be glad if anyone can explain this.

More Abhishek Majhi's questions See All
Similar questions and discussions