Which would be more difficult to pull? Well, we really shouldn’t be treating these animals this way! Please do not pull elephants or mice! Click on image for full size (30K GIF) Windows Original

Would it be more difficult to pull an elephant or a mouse?
If you pulled each animal with the same amount of force, the elephant would respond less to pulling, even if he didn’t pull back at all. That’s because an elephant has more mass than a mouse.

Mass is the amount of material in an object and is usually measured in units called kilograms (kg).

Sometimes people confuse weight and mass. Weight is a measure of force and depends on both the amount of mass and the amount of gravity. This means that with Earth’s gravity, the elephant weighs more than the mouse because it has more mass than the mouse.

Because mass is the amount of material in an object, it stays the same no matter what force is acting on the object. This means that even though our elephant weighs less on the moon, its mass stays the same.

Which would be more difficult to pull? Well, we really shouldn’t be treating these animals this way! Please do not pull elephants or mice! Click on image for full size (30K GIF) Windows Original

Would it be more difficult to pull an elephant or a mouse?
If you pulled each animal with the same amount of force, the elephant would respond less to pulling, even if he didn’t pull back at all. That’s because an elephant has more mass than a mouse.

Mass is the amount of material in an object. Mass stays the same no matter what force is acting on the object. This makes mass different from weight, which depends on both the amount of mass and the amount of gravity. This means that even though our elephant weighs less on the moon, his mass stays the same.

Which would be more difficult to pull? Well, we really shouldn’t be treating these animals this way! Please do not pull elephants or mice! Click on image for full size (30K GIF) Windows Original

Would it be more difficult to pull an elephant or a mouse?
If you pulled each animal the same amount, the mouse would come towards you but the elephant would not move at all, even if he didn’t try to pull back. That’s because an elephant has more mass than a mouse.

Mass is the amount of stuff in an object. It is different from weight because weight depends on the amount of gravity. This means that even though our elephant weighs less on the moon, his mass stays the same.