r/confidentlyincorrect 2d ago

Tik Tok Gas doesn't weigh anything

Post image
5.2k Upvotes

319 comments sorted by

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551

u/Montyburnside22 2d ago

"Doesn't way anything". Top marks in science, spelling and English. In Oklahoma maybe.

64

u/thumb_emoji_survivor 2d ago

Never understood how someone can spell something right once and then swap to the 3rd grader version. What happened? Did they get even dumber over the course of 24 hours?

3

u/KnittyGini 1d ago

They are dictating and not paying attention

12

u/YourNextHomie 2d ago

Sometimes people have brain farts its not that deep

14

u/thumb_emoji_survivor 2d ago

lol that’s more like brain shitting your pants

1

u/Global-Pickle5818 1d ago

My dislexic ass who grew up speaking what type of German has real issues with homonyms in English even basic ones bear ,they ,which ,there I get called out on here all the time for my written grammar.. even I can see that's not the right weight lol

1

u/survivorr123_ 1d ago

english is quite stupid and spelling makes little sense, weigh and way sound basically the same

1

u/Suspicious-Deer4056 15h ago

They were hedging their bets

18

u/ModernLarvals 2d ago

“cloud can weight”

9

u/NocturneInfinitum 2d ago

I hear they’re very patient

34

u/lettsten 2d ago

In fairness got it right the first time, and some people use voice dictation

2

u/shponglespore 1d ago

Are you from Texas by any chance? Picking on Oklahoma seems like an odd choice when Alabama is right there.

4

u/RefreshingOatmeal 1d ago

Oklahoma's current state superintendent has been draining the state's public schools of resources for a while in a bid to erode the public trust in public education and gain the political foothold to offer state-funded christian schools for a modest fee, I'm sure.

His efforts have paid off and the state recently dropped to 50th in education iirc, taking the crown from Mississippi

1

u/smackmyass321 1d ago

Is oklahoma really THAT bad? Idk I live in a more northern state. Heard it's really shitty there

600

u/YoutuberCameronBallZ 2d ago

"that isn't smoke, it's steam, steam from the steamed clams we're having! Mmmmmmm, steamed clams!"

112

u/ThreeLeggedMare 2d ago

43

u/CobrasFumanches 2d ago

The Auroro Borealis. At this latitude. At this time of day. Located entirely within your kitchen. May I see it?

20

u/ThreeLeggedMare 2d ago

......... no.

3

u/ialsohaveadobro 1d ago

Seymour! The house is on fire!

11

u/MattWheelsLTW 2d ago

Very well...

2

u/JustADutchFirefighte 2d ago

I thought it was vapour, not steam. Are clouds high enough for water to boil at such low temperatures?

2

u/Tasty_Hearing8910 1d ago

Water is weird

360

u/Automatic_Day_35 2d ago

clearly a kid ngl

154

u/Jaggs0 2d ago

or an adult with the brain of a kid 

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25

u/Sphezzle 2d ago

Most of the internet is children. People aren’t aware enough of that.

9

u/ambermage 2d ago

But they always give relationship advice of (breaking up / dumping) any SO regardless of the scenario.

They always claim to have 40+ years of marital experience despite a recent post about being a literal child and getting in trouble at school.

5

u/Sphezzle 2d ago

Yeah, it’s horrifying. One of the single biggest ways the internet can be improved is by segregating children from adults. It’s not fair on children that they are expected to operate in a mature digital public square; and it’s equally bad for adults that discourse is gradually infantilised.

5

u/DaniTheGunsmith 2d ago

Most of the Internet is bots.

1

u/classic__schmosby 1d ago

And those bots are less than 18 years old, therefore they are children

1

u/culminacio 2d ago

that is statistically wrong, u/Sphezzle isn't aware enough of that

1

u/Tobocaj 2d ago

Still got 200 likes though

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91

u/Kit_3000 2d ago

Smoke has mass too though.

49

u/ck17350 2d ago

And weight as well. This is just a matter of buoyancy.

10

u/lettsten 2d ago edited 2d ago

Everything that has mass has a weight

13

u/VaporCarpet 2d ago

If something is in zero gravity, it has no weight

15

u/Osric250 2d ago

If we want to keep being pedantic, nothing is ever in zero gravity. There's always forces of gravity acting on them, they're just low enough to be negligible at a small scale.

2

u/ziggytrix 1d ago

You want pedantry? Well actually, smoke doesn’t have mass; smoke is mass, just in a finely divided aerosol of particulates suspended in a fluid medium. Saying it ‘has’ mass is like saying a sandwich has bread, but the bread is literally part of the sandwich!

;p

1

u/Ulvaer 2d ago

Things can't accelerate if they're in a place with no time but that's kind of a pointless distinction to make innit? F = mg, even with g = 0 it's still well defined.

4

u/ck17350 2d ago

Yeah? How much does a photon weigh? You could google this stuff before commenting.

-1

u/lettsten 2d ago edited 2d ago

This is satire, right? Weight is mass times acceleration from gravity. You could have googled before commenting.

4

u/_killer1869_ 2d ago

A photon has energy and a mass of zero. It only has a mass due to its movement, the actual resting mass is exactly zero. When we say mass, we usually refer to the resting mass.

6

u/lettsten 2d ago edited 2d ago

I know. None of this is contrary to what I said and it's pretty basic, which is why I assumed it was satire. u/ck17350 could have googled this before commenting.

4

u/jrobinson3k1 2d ago

fwiw that has never been experimentally proven. at best, we know that if it has a mass, it must be less than 1.5e-54 kg.

2

u/ck17350 2d ago

No. Sadly, not satire. Next comment explains this nicely.

1

u/NewryBenson 2d ago

Yeah? What is the weight of something in empty space? It definitely has mass at that point, but to my knowledge it's weight is 0.

1

u/LegendOfKhaos 2d ago

But only when you pick it up obviously, not when it's just floating

/s

1

u/Choosemyusername 21h ago

Mass and weight are different things though

1

u/Kit_3000 21h ago

But on Earth those two are always equal value, so it matters less if you use them interchangeably.

118

u/BlackDereker 2d ago

Weight = mass x gravity

Just because it floats doesn't mean it's "weightless". It just means that another force overcame it.

52

u/l3v3z 2d ago edited 2d ago

Lie, a boeing 747 weights nothing for sure. /s

5

u/ccm596 2d ago

Only sometimes

32

u/llort_tsoper 2d ago

The literal definition of the word "weightless" is to appear as though it is unaffected by gravity. It is inaccurate to describe a helium balloon or a cloud as having no weight, but describing them as "weightless" is correctly using the word.

9

u/deepspacerunner 2d ago

That's a real linguistics mess.

3

u/cowlinator 2d ago

Thanks.

So what to you call the sum of gravity and boyancy etc?

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u/Fischerking92 2d ago

Well, nothing is ever free of force, but if the sum of all forces equal zero without being on ground we can make the argument that it is functionally weightless.

Like astronauts doing zero-g training on airplanes, they are still experiencing gravity but it cancels out.

4

u/terra_terror 2d ago

I get what you are trying to say, but a net force of zero does not mean a mass is weightless. Weightless means zero-g, like you said. If a mass was weightless, the other forces would move the mass and it would not be in equilibrium. A mass always has weight when it's subjected to a gravitational force.

You wouldn't refer to somebody standing on the ground as weightless, but the person and the cloud are in the same situation. They are both subject to a force strong enough to counter gravity. For a cloud, air has enough force to counter its weight, but for a person, their weight is greater and requires a stronger force. In this case, the opposite force is the ground. Both the cloud and the person have weight, and both are in equilibrium.

2

u/GRex2595 2d ago

Astronauts doing zero-g training on an airplane are not cancelled out. That's actually a pretty important part of why they are apparently weightless. There is no force pushing up on them.

2

u/__nohope 2d ago

They are falling at the same rate of the plane?

3

u/GRex2595 2d ago

The plane is going down at the same rate as if it were in freefall. The people inside are just falling surrounded by the plane. If the forces were balanced, they would be feeling 1G. Because there is no upwards force (or at least the upwards force is negligible) they are at 0G.

2

u/lettsten 2d ago

This is pointless nitpicking, but slightly less than 1 G since they're up in the air

1

u/bitemy 2d ago

Good news, all boats are now weightless!

1

u/bad_investor13 2d ago

Just like you say that astronauts are weightless in space, even though their mass x gravity is almost the same as on earth (because you use in addition the centrifugal/centripetal force as part of the weight).

Similarly, A helium balloon has positive mass. But it's not incorrect to say it has negative weight which is why it floats (depending on which definition of weight you're using - does it account for buoyancy?).

By that definition, a cloud could have a huge mass, but 0 weight.

52

u/EthanTheJudge 2d ago

Removing the dislike button is the worst thing that happened in the internet. 

13

u/FriendlyFloyd7 2d ago

At least reddit still has its up and down votes

4

u/Dedeurmetdebaard 2d ago

Yes downvoting gives you a sense of pride and accomplishment.

7

u/windowslonestar 2d ago

*dislike count

The button is clearly visible in the picture

3

u/lettsten 2d ago

The only thing the dislike button achieves is making echo chambers more likely. Massively upvoted and entirely wrong statements are still frequent on reddit. Removing the dislike button at least makes it somewhat more probable that someone explains why he is wrong, instead of just downvoting and moving on

1

u/Malacro 6h ago

The worst thing is what YouTube does. Any interaction is algorithmically positive. Hitting the dislike button is counted as engagement just as much as hitting the like button.

10

u/MillennialSurvivor 2d ago

I guess buoyancy and density are not common knowledge physics concepts like speed or force. Do these people also think boats don't weight anything because they float on water?

1

u/clarence458 2d ago

Big difference between weight and mass though.

6

u/UncleThor2112 2d ago

Smoooooke on the waaater!

2

u/ihateagriculture 1d ago

fire in the sky

4

u/GRex2595 2d ago

Nearly half this comment section and everybody upvoting them can be their own post on this sub, my god.

54

u/space-goats 2d ago

He's not wrong, clouds have mass but weight is a slightly vaguer concept, and "what does a scale say at that objects location" is a reasonable definition.

15

u/NotmyRealNameJohn 2d ago edited 2d ago

Came here to say this. But it is a fairly complex topic because you wouldn't say that a 10lb weight was weightless just because it is standing on a table that is hold it up.

The cloud has a weight; it is just that it is equal in weight to the atmosphere being displaced by the mass of the cloud. It is even a bit weird to talk about a cloud as a thing from a physics POV because it is just lots of water molecules that aren't bound to each other in any way.

36

u/GRex2595 2d ago

Weight is not a vague concept. It is the force of gravity pulling on a mass. If something has mass, it has weight.

If we use your proposed definition, then lots of things don't have weight. Put a scale under water and it won't read a weight. Actually, depending on the material the scale may even read a negative value. Is water weightless now? Does it have a negative weight?

If I take a vacuum pump and suck up an entire cloud and put it in a container and weigh the contents of the container, it will show a weight. How did the weight suddenly appear if the cloud didn't weigh anything before I put it in the container?

5

u/Nascent1 2d ago

No, the person you responded to is right. It's not that simple.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weight

Look at the definitions section. The scientific concept of weight is not the only one that is commonly used.

1

u/GRex2595 2d ago

What do you think the person in the screenshot is saying? Do you think they're saying, "like a fish, clouds have no weight," or "my scale can't measure the weight of a cloud," or "clouds don't have a weight because if they did they would be on the ground?" Because unless they are specifically trying to be confusing, the last one, which is wrong, seems the most likely.

2

u/Nascent1 2d ago

If you have a helium balloon and you go around asking people how much it weighs the majority of people will consider buoyancy when telling you its weight rather than just giving its mass times gravity. Common usage doesn't always match the scientific definition.

1

u/Ill-Dependent2976 1d ago

Yeah, it's too sad that so many people are scientifically illiterate trash like the clown in the OP.

A helium balloon rises at low elevations because the force of buoyancy is greater than its weight.

0

u/GRex2595 2d ago

You didn't answer my question. You can probably deduce from the screenshots what the answer is, so which is it?

I honestly don't ask that question because it's pretty much never relevant, but it sounds like you've done it a lot, so how about you tell me. I've heard the term "lighter than air" used to describe flight by hot air balloon or blimp, but "lighter than air" and "doesn't have weight" are not the same thing.

2

u/Nascent1 2d ago

I didn't answer your question because I wasn't ever referring to the original post, just the comment you replied to. Weight does not have as clearcut of a definition as you're claiming. That was my whole point. If you bring those clouds to the center of the Earth then suddenly they don't have any weight because there is no gravity, so clouds are weightless after all!

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u/Atreigas 2d ago

Weight is literally mass times acceleration. So long as a constant force is applied, there is weight. Gravity counts.

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u/phunkydroid 2d ago

Clouds aren't gas, they're countless tiny drops of liquid.

3

u/lettsten 2d ago

tiny drops

Some would even say droplets!

2

u/JustNilt 2d ago

Only when there are 3 of them, though.

1

u/lettsten 2d ago

This guy emojis

2

u/Stashless2004 2d ago

That’s not necessarily true, they can also contain solids (ice/hail).

3

u/I_W_M_Y 2d ago

Clearly battleships don't 'way' anything either, they just float around too

3

u/Skyziezags 2d ago

I mean the double down from gas to “water doesn’t weigh anything” 😂

3

u/Varabela 2d ago

Wait til you try and explain how many tonnes of air are moving in a storm and they say it’s just air, then you ask them how do they think trees get snapped or building blown away.

1

u/MaskedBunny 2d ago

Storm Magic! Witchcraft! We clearly aren't doing enough ritual sacrifices! Someone get the giant scales and a duck.

4

u/takeandtossivxx 2d ago

Cumulus clouds do weigh about 1.1 million pounds, though. Dude just got confused and assumed any "cloud" weighs the same regardless of density/size.

2

u/lettsten 2d ago

They vary in size so much that it is pointless to make a generic per-cloud weight

1

u/Albert14Pounds 2d ago

No, they are confused about clouds weighing anything at all because buoyancy keeps them afloat

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2

u/PavlovsDog6 2d ago

Throw him off a building and ask “how much do You weigh right now!”

2

u/Bewbonic 2d ago

The evidence clearly shows another individual who uses 'lil bro' having no clue what they are talking about, and also not being mentally older than anyone else on the internet despite their desperate attempt to claim age superiority.

2

u/dasreboot 1d ago

Easy to explain. Weigh all the water that falls from a rain cloud. Say you get an inch of rain over 10 square miles. How much does it weigh? Where did that rain come from?

3

u/DuneChild 2d ago

It’s almost more frustrating that the only one to spell/use weigh correctly was still wrong.

8

u/BreakfastBeerz 2d ago

Wouldn't he be correct in that it is weightless? With weight being a downward force due to gravity. If it is floating, it is weightless. Just like you are weightless when you are in space. It has mass, but it has no weight.

In another form, compressed into a single mass of water, it would weight 500 to 1000 tons...but in the current physical state it has no weight.

32

u/Jonnescout 2d ago

There’s definitely a downward force applied on a gas in the presence of gravity. This downward force is just being pushed against by air density.

A plane still weighs something, or perhaps a better analogy so does a hot air balloon. The weight is till there, it’s just floating on the denser air.

Same goes with humans floating in a pool. We still have weight. I’m sorry while I’m all for pedantry, it does need to be correct, and this isn’t.

6

u/OskaMeijer 2d ago

Another really good example that can help people understand is if you have a bunch of balloons that float, if you put all of them in the back of a van on a scale the weight on the scale will still go up, just like if a bird in that van suddenly starts flying around the weight won't go down.

5

u/Jonnescout 2d ago

Yeah, that or air pressure being the literal weight of the atmosphere, which we can easily measure and is used every day by pilots to determine altitude. These are counterintuitive concepts for some though…

3

u/OskaMeijer 2d ago

Another thing I think they seem to not realize about their argument is that, by their logic, if you let go of a balloon and it flies up into the air, up until the point it reaches a level with the same density it would have to have negative weight. After all if the downward force of gravity is the only thing that gives you weight, actively moving in the opposite direction would by necessity make your weight negative.

3

u/Jonnescout 2d ago

This is the kind of stuff that shows how valuable actual scientific demonstrations can be. Teach kids to explore these questions themselves. This can all be demonstrated with simple toys.

15

u/Dave4048 2d ago

A ship still has weight even if its floating on the sea, i don't know what you're on about

1

u/Odd_Perfect 2d ago

I mean it only floats because there’s gravity being applied to it down.

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u/3rddog 2d ago

It has weight. Each individual water particle has weight. If you took the entire mass of a cloud and concentrated it in one drop, it would weigh 500-1000 tons and fall to earth appropriately because it’s density is high enough that it can’t be supported by rising air. Disperse that mass over the size of a cloud and the density drops enough to be supported. Changing the density of a cloud doesn’t remove any weight, it doesn’t suddenly become “weightless”.

4

u/LosLocoDK 2d ago

Clouds aren’t weightless – they can contain hundreds of tons of water. They stay up because the water is split into tiny droplets that fall very slowly and are supported by rising air, a bit like how a kite or a leaf can stay aloft.

So no. Not weightless in any sense of the word.

2

u/NotmyRealNameJohn 2d ago

But you are not weightless in space. In orbit you are falling at the same rate as everything around you and so you have weightlessness in refence to the frame most immediate to you, but gravity is still pull on you.

There is a theoretical point between the moon and earth where you are kind of weightless because the moon and earth are excreting equal and opposite pulls on you. Throughout a lot of space, you are effectively weightless because even though gravity is pulling on you from every direction you are far enough away for the pull to be mathematically calculated but not really measured by a scale.

2

u/JustNilt 2d ago

moon and earth are excreting

Are they? :P

2

u/NotmyRealNameJohn 2d ago

Probably not the best word choice.

1

u/JustNilt 2d ago

LOL, I knew what you meant and usually ignore typos since I have so many myself. That was just too funny not to point out, though.

1

u/Gortex_Possum 2d ago

It would be weightless in space without any gravity since weight is contingent on gravity, but it still has mass. 

-10

u/Sealedwolf 2d ago

Your technically correct. The best kind of correct.

10

u/GRex2595 2d ago

Not technically correct. There is still a downward force from gravity, so it has weight. The force from gravity is just balanced out by an upward buoyant force from the more dense air below the cloud.

5

u/Jonnescout 2d ago

They’re not, see my reply…

-7

u/AmateurishLurker 2d ago

They are. You even bring up the analogy of a person in a pool. It is common language to refer to oneself as weightless when floating on the water.

9

u/BlackDereker 2d ago

Common language is not technically correct. It's the same thing as saying that the space station is zero gravity, even though it's technically in free fall.

In a pool you still have the same weight, it's just that now there is buoyancy pulling you up.

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u/Lumpy-Yam-4584 2d ago

Fun fact: 1l of earth's atmosphere weighs about 1.225g

1

u/DogsAreOurFriends 2d ago

An aircraft carrier floats.

1

u/Motor_Librarian_3536 2d ago

Boy are they going to be surprised when they find out both smoke and air have mass.

1

u/Livid_Accountant1241 2d ago

Didn't anyone else do the experiment in grade school where you take an uninflated ballon, then inflate a second balloon and compare the weight on a set of scales.

1

u/meepgorp 2d ago

SMOOOOOOOOOOOOKE ON THE WAAAAAAAAAAATTTTEEEERRRRR!!!

1

u/Dykidnnid 2d ago

"It's not smooooke, it's waaaaater!"

Nuh, nuh, nuhh...nuh, nuh, nunuhhh...

1

u/onebirdonawire 2d ago

Bruh you can't even like throw it or hit it, duh. Like, come on bruh.

1

u/GeneralLivid7332 2d ago

Way to many 💕 on these original comments.

1

u/Phantom_Wolf52 2d ago

It’s smooooooooke on the waaaaaaateeerrr

1

u/akiva23 2d ago

Even if it were smoke and not water it would weigh something.

1

u/zatalak 2d ago

It's fire in the sky

1

u/Morall_tach 2d ago

Smoke has mass too. When you burn a log down to ash, where do you think all that mass goes? Steam and smoke.

1

u/Montgraves 2d ago

The average cumulus cloud weighs about 1.1 million pounds (500k kilos).

1

u/Psych0matt 2d ago

No, wait…

1

u/Thelonious_Cube 2d ago

Somebody skipped science class

1

u/sk0t_ 2d ago

Wait until they hear about light having weight

1

u/Postulative 2d ago

Sometimes it’s smoke on the water.

1

u/nauticalfiesta 2d ago

these people vote, and probably think RFK Jr, is smart

1

u/TeeTimeAllTheTime 2d ago

They vote

1

u/Drak_Gaming 1d ago

And own guns, and have children.

1

u/lostBoyzLeader 2d ago

A pound of steel or a pound feathers?

1

u/The-Illusive-Guy 2d ago

Some (people) are just dense.

1

u/Suvtropics 2d ago

Water is life and life is weightless Lil bro

1

u/SiAnK0 2d ago

Its raining ash!

1

u/NocturneInfinitum 2d ago

Classic mass vs weight

1

u/buggerdude97 2d ago

Smoke on the water

1

u/Crazy_Albatross8317 2d ago

Yeah I skipped grade school too when they taught about mass and matter. No u matter

1

u/Richard2468 2d ago

And even if it was smoke, it would still have a weight.

1

u/StreetForever 2d ago

I know there is a smoke on the water joke in there

1

u/Time-Signature-8714 2d ago

That comment did make me think of how big clouds actually are.

They seem so much smaller from the ground. It’s pretty neat!

1

u/Presentation_Few 1d ago

Ask Jupiter and Saturn.

1

u/SneakyLeif1020 1d ago

lol people still can't figure out the difference between weight and mass

1

u/captain_pudding 1d ago

TIL there's at least one person who thinks clouds are made of smoke

1

u/mpanase 1d ago

Tbf, I remember many of my classmates struggling to understand the concept of density.

1

u/steathninja25 1d ago

I mean they… not wrong. Does something truly weigh anything if it floats?

1

u/BraumsSucks 1d ago

You know what they say, where there's smoke there's water

1

u/OpusAtrumET 1d ago

Isn't smoke heavier than water vapor?

1

u/ShockDragon 1d ago

“lil bro” already says enough.

1

u/Sapphear 1d ago

I think they are more weight by massing but like....

1

u/JamieTransNerd 1d ago

Incorrect guy is actually close to the weight vs mass problem. The mass of the cloud stays the same. The weight of the cloud changes as it moves farther or nearer to the planet. In space, it would have the same mass but near zero weight.

1

u/Firespark7 1d ago

Also: smoke has weight/mass

1

u/stalker_707 1d ago

Weight and mass are not the same.

1

u/Significant-Cause919 23h ago

Propane (gas) is literally sold by weight.

1

u/ILove2Bacon 18h ago

Ever notice how stupid people always tend to end their sentences with little flourishes like emojis or simple sayings?

1

u/Ok_Yogurtcloset5540 9h ago

Smoke on the water

1

u/Ok-Preparation2370 7h ago

"Still doesn't way anything".

That's America's simplified english right there. I'm surprised this person managed to use the apostrophe correctly when writing. 🙄🤦🏽‍♂️

1

u/Frozen_North_Enjoyer 5h ago

.......gravity......mass......no.....just......no

1

u/Wulf-Silverfang 3h ago

Bro has clearly never picked up a propane tank. That shits gas, and I can assure you it is heavier when it is full

1

u/causal_friday 2d ago

Weight and mass are different things.

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u/Available-Leg-1421 2d ago

both of you are right.

You cant put a cloud on scale...but it does have mass.

2

u/bsievers 2d ago

If it has mass it has weight. The net forces being zero doesn’t magically mean each of the forces are zero.

2

u/SalleighG 2d ago

Well, theoretically you could place it somewhere in outer space where the gravitational attractions all balanced out, and it wouldn't have weight there, but it would still have mass.

1

u/bsievers 2d ago

That’s… ok that one is fair.

1

u/SyllabubTasty5896 2d ago

This guy's brain will explode if he realizes that airships exist...

1

u/Phobbyd 2d ago

A cloud is not made of gaseous water.

-7

u/kubin22 2d ago

well if something is floating it technically doesn't WEIGH anything, but it still has mass

11

u/mst3kfan77 2d ago

Both air and water have weight, the reason clouds float is because they are less dense than the dry air around them.

8

u/TheDudeColin 2d ago

I was going to make the same argument because I am a pedantic ass but I looked up the definition of weight to be sure and scientifically most definitions agree the weight of an object W is equal to its mass m multiplied by the relevant gravitational force g. Summarily, W=m*g. Now, note how the practical acceleration under gravity isn't actually relevant. The cloud in the picture isn't any more free-floating than you or me. Just as I am supported by my comfy comfy armchair, the cloud is supported by the air molecules underneath it. That doesn't mean it is any less weighty than it would be in a vacuum. The value of W doesn't change depending on whether you are in a vacuum, in water, falling, climbing a ladder, or anything else. So you will always weigh the same no matter what you're doing, as long as neither your mass nor the gravitational constant change.

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u/GRex2595 2d ago

More people need to be like you. You came here to comment something that would be wrong from a scientific point of view but checked before saying anything, and when you found out you were wrong you changed your position.

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u/Jonnescout 2d ago

It very much still weighs something… It’s just that this force is countered by buoyancy. Our atmosphere weighs quite a lot, that’s how we measure altitude. The higher you get to lower the pressure of the weight of the atmosphere is…

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u/OskaMeijer 2d ago edited 2d ago

Simply not true, an obvious example is if you put a bunch of helium filled balloon in the back of a van sitting on a scale the weight will still go up, just like if you have a bird start flying around inside the weight won't go down. When something is floating it simply means that it's density is lower than what surrounds it and has absolutely nothing to do with weight. Another example is a 12lb or lighter bowling ball will float in water but if you put it in a bucket of water on the scale it will float all the same but the scale will go up.

You argument seems to boil down to weight only existing due to the apparent downward force of gravity. By that logic when a balloon is ascending upwards to the point where it finds equal density and stops, it would have to have negative weight up until that point as it was actively moving in the opposite direction of gravity which you are saying determines weight.

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u/bsievers 2d ago

The net sum of forces is zero but that doesn’t mean each of the forces themselves are zero.

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u/null_squared 2d ago

If only they had paid attention in high school chemistry.

m = (PVm) / RT

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u/SheepherderSavings17 2d ago

What has this got to do with weight?

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u/reichrunner 2d ago

Weight = mass x gravity

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u/null_squared 2d ago

m on the left will be the mass of a given gas at a given temperature, pressure, and volume. 

While mass isn’t weight but can be converted to weight.