Mass
Mass is both a property of a physical body and a measure of its resistance to acceleration when a net force is applied. The object's mass determines the strength of its gravitational attraction to other bodies; the basic SI unit of mass is the kilogram. In physics, mass is not the same as weight though mass is determined by measuring the object's weight using a spring scale, rather than balance scale comparing it directly with known masses. An object on the Moon would weigh less than it does on Earth because of the lower gravity, but it would still have the same mass; this is because weight is a force, while mass is the property that determines the strength of this force. There are several distinct phenomena. Although some theorists have speculated that some of these phenomena could be independent of each other, current experiments have found no difference in results regardless of how it is measured: Inertial mass measures an object's resistance to being accelerated by a force. Active gravitational mass measures the gravitational force exerted by an object.
Passive gravitational mass measures the gravitational force exerted on an object in a known gravitational field. The mass of an object determines its acceleration in the presence of an applied force; the inertia and the inertial mass describe the same properties of physical bodies at the qualitative and quantitative level by other words, the mass quantitatively describes the inertia. According to Newton's second law of motion, if a body of fixed mass m is subjected to a single force F, its acceleration a is given by F/m. A body's mass determines the degree to which it generates or is affected by a gravitational field. If a first body of mass mA is placed at a distance r from a second body of mass mB, each body is subject to an attractive force Fg = GmAmB/r2, where G = 6.67×10−11 N kg−2 m2 is the "universal gravitational constant". This is sometimes referred to as gravitational mass. Repeated experiments since the 17th century have demonstrated that inertial and gravitational mass are identical.
The standard International System of Units unit of mass is the kilogram. The kilogram is 1000 grams, first defined in 1795 as one cubic decimeter of water at the melting point of ice. However, because precise measurement of a decimeter of water at the proper temperature and pressure was difficult, in 1889 the kilogram was redefined as the mass of the international prototype kilogram of cast iron, thus became independent of the meter and the properties of water. However, the mass of the international prototype and its identical national copies have been found to be drifting over time, it is expected that the re-definition of the kilogram and several other units will occur on May 20, 2019, following a final vote by the CGPM in November 2018. The new definition will use only invariant quantities of nature: the speed of light, the caesium hyperfine frequency, the Planck constant. Other units are accepted for use in SI: the tonne is equal to 1000 kg. the electronvolt is a unit of energy, but because of the mass–energy equivalence it can be converted to a unit of mass, is used like one.
In this context, the mass has units of eV/c2. The electronvolt and its multiples, such as the MeV, are used in particle physics; the atomic mass unit is 1/12 of the mass of a carbon-12 atom 1.66×10−27 kg. The atomic mass unit is convenient for expressing the masses of molecules. Outside the SI system, other units of mass include: the slug is an Imperial unit of mass; the pound is a unit of both mass and force, used in the United States. In scientific contexts where pound and pound need to be distinguished, SI units are used instead; the Planck mass is the maximum mass of point particles. It is used in particle physics; the solar mass is defined as the mass of the Sun. It is used in astronomy to compare large masses such as stars or galaxies; the mass of a small particle may be identified by its inverse Compton wavelength. The mass of a large star or black hole may be identified with its Schwarzschild radius. In physical science, one may distinguish conceptually between at least seven different aspects of mass, or seven physical notions that involve the concept of mass.
Every experiment to date has shown these seven values to be proportional, in some cases equal, this proportionality gives rise to the abstract concept of mass. There are a number of ways mass can be measured or operationally defined: Inertial mass is a measure of an object's resistance to acceleration when a force is applied, it is determined by applying a force to an object and measuring the acceleration that results from that force. An object with small inertial mass will accelerate more than an object with large inertial mass when acted upon by the same force. One says. Active gravitational mass is a measure of the strength of an object's gravitational flux. Gravitational field can be measured by allowing a small "test object" to fall and measuring its free-fall acceleration. For example, an object in free fall near the Moon is subject to a smaller gravitational field, hence
Volume
Volume is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by a closed surface, for example, the space that a substance or shape occupies or contains. Volume is quantified numerically using the SI derived unit, the cubic metre; the volume of a container is understood to be the capacity of the container. Three dimensional mathematical shapes are assigned volumes. Volumes of some simple shapes, such as regular, straight-edged, circular shapes can be calculated using arithmetic formulas. Volumes of complicated shapes can be calculated with integral calculus if a formula exists for the shape's boundary. One-dimensional figures and two-dimensional shapes are assigned zero volume in the three-dimensional space; the volume of a solid can be determined by fluid displacement. Displacement of liquid can be used to determine the volume of a gas; the combined volume of two substances is greater than the volume of just one of the substances. However, sometimes one substance dissolves in the other and in such cases the combined volume is not additive.
In differential geometry, volume is expressed by means of the volume form, is an important global Riemannian invariant. In thermodynamics, volume is a fundamental parameter, is a conjugate variable to pressure. Any unit of length gives a corresponding unit of volume: the volume of a cube whose sides have the given length. For example, a cubic centimetre is the volume of a cube. In the International System of Units, the standard unit of volume is the cubic metre; the metric system includes the litre as a unit of volume, where one litre is the volume of a 10-centimetre cube. Thus 1 litre = 3 = 1000 cubic centimetres = 0.001 cubic metres. Small amounts of liquid are measured in millilitres, where 1 millilitre = 0.001 litres = 1 cubic centimetre. In the same way, large amounts can be measured in megalitres, where 1 million litres = 1000 cubic metres = 1 megalitre. Various other traditional units of volume are in use, including the cubic inch, the cubic foot, the cubic yard, the cubic mile, the teaspoon, the tablespoon, the fluid ounce, the fluid dram, the gill, the pint, the quart, the gallon, the minim, the barrel, the cord, the peck, the bushel, the hogshead, the acre-foot and the board foot.
Capacity is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "the measure applied to the content of a vessel, to liquids, grain, or the like, which take the shape of that which holds them". Capacity is not identical in meaning to volume, though related. Units of capacity are the SI litre and its derived units, Imperial units such as gill, pint and others. Units of volume are the cubes of units of length. In SI the units of volume and capacity are related: one litre is 1 cubic decimetre, the capacity of a cube with a 10 cm side. In other systems the conversion is not trivial; the density of an object is defined as the ratio of the mass to the volume. The inverse of density is specific volume, defined as volume divided by mass. Specific volume is a concept important in thermodynamics where the volume of a working fluid is an important parameter of a system being studied; the volumetric flow rate in fluid dynamics is the volume of fluid which passes through a given surface per unit time. In calculus, a branch of mathematics, the volume of a region D in R3 is given by a triple integral of the constant function f = 1 and is written as: ∭ D 1 d x d y d z.
The volume integral in cylindrical coordinates is ∭ D r d r d θ d z, the volume integral in spherical coordinates has the form ∭ D ρ 2 sin ϕ d ρ d θ d ϕ. The above formulas can be used to show that the volumes of a cone and cylinder of the same radius and height are in the ratio 1: 2: 3, as follows. Let the radius be r and the height be h the volume of cone is 1 3 π r 2 h = 1 3 π r 2 = × 1, the volume of the sphere
Kilometre
The kilometre, or kilometer is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres. It is now the measurement unit used for expressing distances between geographical places on land in most of the world. K is used in some English-speaking countries as an alternative for the word kilometre in colloquial writing and speech. A slang term for the kilometre in the US and UK military is klick. There are two common pronunciations for the word; the former follows a pattern in English whereby metric units are pronounced with the stress on the first syllable and the pronunciation of the actual base unit does not change irrespective of the prefix. It is preferred by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Many scientists and other users in countries where the metric system is not used, use the pronunciation with stress on the second syllable; the latter pronunciation follows the stress pattern used for the names of measuring instruments. The problem with this reasoning, however, is that the word meter in those usages refers to a measuring device, not a unit of length.
The contrast is more obvious in countries using the British rather than American spelling of the word metre. When Australia introduced the metric system in 1975, the first pronunciation was declared official by the government's Metric Conversion Board. However, the Australian prime minister at the time, Gough Whitlam, insisted that the second pronunciation was the correct one because of the Greek origins of the two parts of the word. By the 8 May 1790 decree, the Constituent assembly ordered the French Academy of Sciences to develop a new measurement system. In August 1793, the French National Convention decreed the metre as the sole length measurement system in the French Republic; the first name of the kilometre was "Millaire". Although the metre was formally defined in 1799, the myriametre was preferred to the "kilometre" for everyday use; the term "myriamètre" appeared a number of times in the text of Develey's book Physique d'Emile: ou, Principes de la science de la nature, while the term kilometre only appeared in an appendix.
French maps published in 1835 had scales showing myriametres and "lieues de Poste". The Dutch gave it the local name of the mijl, it was only in 1867 that the term "kilometer" became the only official unit of measure in the Netherlands to represent 1000 metres. Two German textbooks dated 1842 and 1848 give a snapshot of the use of the kilometre across Europe - the kilometre was in use in the Netherlands and in Italy and the myriametre was in use in France. In 1935, the International Committee for Weights and Measures abolished the prefix "myria-" and with it the "myriametre", leaving the kilometre as the recognised unit of length for measurements of that magnitude. In the United Kingdom, road signs show distances in miles and location marker posts that are used for reference purposes by road engineers and emergency services show distance references in unspecified units which are kilometre-based; the advent of the mobile phone has been instrumental in the British Department for Transport authorising the use of driver location signs to convey the distance reference information of location marker posts to road users should they need to contact the emergency services.
In the US, the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 prohibits the use of federal-aid highway funds to convert existing signs or purchase new signs with metric units. The Executive Director of the US Federal Highway Administration, Jeffrey Paniati, wrote in a 2008 memo: "Section 205 of the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 prohibited us from requiring any State DOT to use the metric system during project development activities. Although the State DOT's had the option of using metric measurements or dual units, all of them abandoned metric measurements and reverted to sole use of inch-pound values." The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices since 2000 is published in both metric and American Customary Units. Some sporting disciplines feature 1000 m races in major events, but in other disciplines though world records are catalogued, the one kilometre event remains a minority event; the world records for various sporting disciplines are: Conversion of units, for comparison with other units of length Cubic metre Metric prefix Mileage Odometer Orders of magnitude Square kilometre Media related to Distance indicators at Wikimedia Commons
Kilogram
The kilogram or kilogramme is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units. Until 20 May 2019, it remains defined by a platinum alloy cylinder, the International Prototype Kilogram, manufactured in 1889, stored in Saint-Cloud, a suburb of Paris. After 20 May, it will be defined in terms of fundamental physical constants; the kilogram was defined as the mass of a litre of water. That was an inconvenient quantity to replicate, so in 1799 a platinum artefact was fashioned to define the kilogram; that artefact, the IPK, have been the standard of the unit of mass for the metric system since. In spite of best efforts to maintain it, the IPK has diverged from its replicas by 50 micrograms since their manufacture late in the 19th century; this led to efforts to develop measurement technology precise enough to allow replacing the kilogram artifact with a definition based directly on physical phenomena, now scheduled to take place in 2019. The new definition is based on invariant constants of nature, in particular the Planck constant, which will change to being defined rather than measured, thereby fixing the value of the kilogram in terms of the second and the metre, eliminating the need for the IPK.
The new definition was approved by the General Conference on Weights and Measures on 16 November 2018. The Planck constant relates a light particle's energy, hence mass, to its frequency; the new definition only became possible when instruments were devised to measure the Planck constant with sufficient accuracy based on the IPK definition of the kilogram. The gram, 1/1000 of a kilogram, was provisionally defined in 1795 as the mass of one cubic centimetre of water at the melting point of ice; the final kilogram, manufactured as a prototype in 1799 and from which the International Prototype Kilogram was derived in 1875, had a mass equal to the mass of 1 dm3 of water under atmospheric pressure and at the temperature of its maximum density, 4 °C. The kilogram is the only named SI unit with an SI prefix as part of its name; until the 2019 redefinition of SI base units, it was the last SI unit, still directly defined by an artefact rather than a fundamental physical property that could be independently reproduced in different laboratories.
Three other base units and 17 derived units in the SI system are defined in relation to the kilogram, thus its stability is important. The definitions of only eight other named SI units do not depend on the kilogram: those of temperature and frequency, angle; the IPK is used or handled. Copies of the IPK kept by national metrology laboratories around the world were compared with the IPK in 1889, 1948, 1989 to provide traceability of measurements of mass anywhere in the world back to the IPK; the International Prototype Kilogram was commissioned by the General Conference on Weights and Measures under the authority of the Metre Convention, in the custody of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures who hold it on behalf of the CGPM. After the International Prototype Kilogram had been found to vary in mass over time relative to its reproductions, the International Committee for Weights and Measures recommended in 2005 that the kilogram be redefined in terms of a fundamental constant of nature.
At its 2011 meeting, the CGPM agreed in principle that the kilogram should be redefined in terms of the Planck constant, h. The decision was deferred until 2014. CIPM has proposed revised definitions of the SI base units, for consideration at the 26th CGPM; the formal vote, which took place on 16 November 2018, approved the change, with the new definitions coming into force on 20 May 2019. The accepted redefinition defines the Planck constant as 6.62607015×10−34 kg⋅m2⋅s−1, thereby defining the kilogram in terms of the second and the metre. Since the second and metre are defined in terms of physical constants, the kilogram is defined in terms of physical constants only; the avoirdupois pound, used in both the imperial and US customary systems, is now defined in terms of the kilogram. Other traditional units of weight and mass around the world are now defined in terms of the kilogram, making the kilogram the primary standard for all units of mass on Earth; the word kilogramme or kilogram is derived from the French kilogramme, which itself was a learned coinage, prefixing the Greek stem of χίλιοι khilioi "a thousand" to gramma, a Late Latin term for "a small weight", itself from Greek γράμμα.
The word kilogramme was written into French law in 1795, in the Decree of 18 Germinal, which revised the older system of units introduced by the French National Convention in 1793, where the gravet had been defined as weight of a cubic centimetre of water, equal to 1/1000 of a grave. In the decree of 1795, the term gramme thus replaced gravet, kilogramme replaced grave; the French spelling was adopted in Great Britain when the word was used for the first time in English in 1795, with the spelling kilogram being adopted in the United States. In the United Kingdom both spellings are used, with "kilogram" having become by far the more common. UK law regulating the units to be used when trading by weight or measure does not prevent the use of either spelling. In the 19th century the French word kilo, a shortening of kilogramme, was imported into the English language where it has been used to mean both kilogram and kilometre. While kilo is acceptable in many generalist texts
Apsis
The term apsis refers to an extreme point in the orbit of an object. It denotes either the respective distance of the bodies; the word comes via Latin from Greek, there denoting a whole orbit, is cognate with apse. Except for the theoretical possibility of one common circular orbit for two bodies of equal mass at diametral positions, there are two apsides for any elliptic orbit, named with the prefixes peri- and ap-/apo-, added in reference to the body being orbited. All periodic orbits are, according to Newton's Laws of motion, ellipses: either the two individual ellipses of both bodies, with the center of mass of this two-body system at the one common focus of the ellipses, or the orbital ellipses, with one body taken as fixed at one focus, the other body orbiting this focus. All these ellipses share a straight line, the line of apsides, that contains their major axes, the foci, the vertices, thus the periapsis and the apoapsis; the major axis of the orbital ellipse is the distance of the apsides, when taken as points on the orbit, or their sum, when taken as distances.
The major axes of the individual ellipses around the barycenter the contributions to the major axis of the orbital ellipses are inverse proportional to the masses of the bodies, i.e. a bigger mass implies a smaller axis/contribution. Only when one mass is sufficiently larger than the other, the individual ellipse of the smaller body around the barycenter comprises the individual ellipse of the larger body as shown in the second figure. For remarkable asymmetry, the barycenter of the two bodies may lie well within the bigger body, e.g. the Earth–Moon barycenter is about 75% of the way from Earth's center to its surface. If the smaller mass is negligible compared to the larger the orbital parameters are independent of the smaller mass. For general orbits, the terms periapsis and apoapsis are used. Pericenter and apocenter are equivalent alternatives, referring explicitly to the respective points on the orbits, whereas periapsis and apoapsis may refer to the smallest and largest distances of the orbiter and its host.
For a body orbiting the Sun, the point of least distance is the perihelion, the point of greatest distance is the aphelion. The terms become apastron when discussing orbits around other stars. For any satellite of Earth, including the Moon, the point of least distance is the perigee and greatest distance the apogee, from Ancient Greek Γῆ, "land" or "earth". For objects in lunar orbit, the point of least distance is sometimes called the pericynthion and the greatest distance the apocynthion. Perilune and apolune are used. In orbital mechanics, the apsides technically refer to the distance measured between the barycenters of the central body and orbiting body. However, in the case of a spacecraft, the terms are used to refer to the orbital altitude of the spacecraft above the surface of the central body; these formulae characterize the pericenter and apocenter of an orbit: Pericenter Maximum speed, v per = μ a, at minimum distance, r per = a. Apocenter Minimum speed, v ap = μ a, at maximum distance, r ap = a.
While, in accordance with Kepler's laws of planetary motion and the conservation of energy, these two quantities are constant for a given orbit: Specific relative angular momentum h = μ a Specific orbital energy ε = − μ 2 a where: a is the semi-major axis: a = r per + r ap 2 μ is the standard gravitational parameter e is the eccentricity, defined as e = r ap − r per r ap + r per = 1 − 2 r ap r per + 1 Note t
Asteroid
Asteroids are minor planets of the inner Solar System. Larger asteroids have been called planetoids; these terms have been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not resemble a planet-like disc and was not observed to have characteristics of an active comet such as a tail. As minor planets in the outer Solar System were discovered they were found to have volatile-rich surfaces similar to comets; as a result, they were distinguished from objects found in the main asteroid belt. In this article, the term "asteroid" refers to the minor planets of the inner Solar System including those co-orbital with Jupiter. There exist millions of asteroids, many thought to be the shattered remnants of planetesimals, bodies within the young Sun's solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets; the vast majority of known asteroids orbit within the main asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, or are co-orbital with Jupiter. However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth objects.
Individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups: C-type, M-type, S-type. These were named after and are identified with carbon-rich and silicate compositions, respectively; the sizes of asteroids varies greatly. Asteroids are differentiated from meteoroids. In the case of comets, the difference is one of composition: while asteroids are composed of mineral and rock, comets are composed of dust and ice. Furthermore, asteroids formed closer to the sun; the difference between asteroids and meteoroids is one of size: meteoroids have a diameter of one meter or less, whereas asteroids have a diameter of greater than one meter. Meteoroids can be composed of either cometary or asteroidal materials. Only one asteroid, 4 Vesta, which has a reflective surface, is visible to the naked eye, this only in dark skies when it is favorably positioned. Small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the naked eye for a short time; as of October 2017, the Minor Planet Center had data on 745,000 objects in the inner and outer Solar System, of which 504,000 had enough information to be given numbered designations.
The United Nations declared 30 June as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, Russian Federation, on 30 June 1908. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It's 100 percent certain we'll be hit, but we're not 100 percent sure when." In 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, considered an asteroid collision to be the biggest threat to the planet. In June 2018, the US National Science and Technology Council warned that America is unprepared for an asteroid impact event, has developed and released the "National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy Action Plan" to better prepare. According to expert testimony in the United States Congress in 2013, NASA would require at least five years of preparation before a mission to intercept an asteroid could be launched; the first asteroid to be discovered, was considered to be a new planet.
This was followed by the discovery of other similar bodies, with the equipment of the time, appeared to be points of light, like stars, showing little or no planetary disc, though distinguishable from stars due to their apparent motions. This prompted the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term "asteroid", coined in Greek as ἀστεροειδής, or asteroeidēs, meaning'star-like, star-shaped', derived from the Ancient Greek ἀστήρ astēr'star, planet'. In the early second half of the nineteenth century, the terms "asteroid" and "planet" were still used interchangeably. Overview of discovery timeline: 10 by 1849 1 Ceres, 1801 2 Pallas – 1802 3 Juno – 1804 4 Vesta – 1807 5 Astraea – 1845 in 1846, planet Neptune was discovered 6 Hebe – July 1847 7 Iris – August 1847 8 Flora – October 1847 9 Metis – 25 April 1848 10 Hygiea – 12 April 1849 tenth asteroid discovered 100 asteroids by 1868 1,000 by 1921 10,000 by 1989 100,000 by 2005 ~700,000 by 2015 Asteroid discovery methods have improved over the past two centuries.
In the last years of the 18th century, Baron Franz Xaver von Zach organized a group of 24 astronomers to search the sky for the missing planet predicted at about 2.8 AU from the Sun by the Titius-Bode law because of the discovery, by Sir William Herschel in 1781, of the planet Uranus at the distance predicted by the law. This task required that hand-drawn sky charts be prepared for all stars in the zodiacal band down to an agreed-upon limit of faintness. On subsequent nights, the sky would be charted again and any moving object would be spotted; the expected motion of the missing planet was about 30 seconds of arc per hour discernible by observers. The first object, was not discovered by a member of the group, but rather by accident in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, director of the observatory of Palermo in Sicily, he discovered a new star-like object in Taurus and followed the displacement of this object during several nights. That year, Carl Friedrich Gauss used these observations to calculate the orbit of this unknown object, found to be between the planets Mars and Jupiter.
Piazzi named it after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. Three other asteroids (2 Pallas, 3 Juno, 4 Ves
Density
The density, or more the volumetric mass density, of a substance is its mass per unit volume. The symbol most used for density is ρ, although the Latin letter D can be used. Mathematically, density is defined as mass divided by volume: ρ = m V where ρ is the density, m is the mass, V is the volume. In some cases, density is loosely defined as its weight per unit volume, although this is scientifically inaccurate – this quantity is more called specific weight. For a pure substance the density has the same numerical value as its mass concentration. Different materials have different densities, density may be relevant to buoyancy and packaging. Osmium and iridium are the densest known elements at standard conditions for temperature and pressure but certain chemical compounds may be denser. To simplify comparisons of density across different systems of units, it is sometimes replaced by the dimensionless quantity "relative density" or "specific gravity", i.e. the ratio of the density of the material to that of a standard material water.
Thus a relative density less than one means. The density of a material varies with pressure; this variation is small for solids and liquids but much greater for gases. Increasing the pressure on an object decreases the volume of the object and thus increases its density. Increasing the temperature of a substance decreases its density by increasing its volume. In most materials, heating the bottom of a fluid results in convection of the heat from the bottom to the top, due to the decrease in the density of the heated fluid; this causes it to rise relative to more dense unheated material. The reciprocal of the density of a substance is called its specific volume, a term sometimes used in thermodynamics. Density is an intensive property in that increasing the amount of a substance does not increase its density. In a well-known but apocryphal tale, Archimedes was given the task of determining whether King Hiero's goldsmith was embezzling gold during the manufacture of a golden wreath dedicated to the gods and replacing it with another, cheaper alloy.
Archimedes knew that the irregularly shaped wreath could be crushed into a cube whose volume could be calculated and compared with the mass. Baffled, Archimedes is said to have taken an immersion bath and observed from the rise of the water upon entering that he could calculate the volume of the gold wreath through the displacement of the water. Upon this discovery, he leapt from his bath and ran naked through the streets shouting, "Eureka! Eureka!". As a result, the term "eureka" entered common parlance and is used today to indicate a moment of enlightenment; the story first appeared in written form in Vitruvius' books of architecture, two centuries after it took place. Some scholars have doubted the accuracy of this tale, saying among other things that the method would have required precise measurements that would have been difficult to make at the time. From the equation for density, mass density has units of mass divided by volume; as there are many units of mass and volume covering many different magnitudes there are a large number of units for mass density in use.
The SI unit of kilogram per cubic metre and the cgs unit of gram per cubic centimetre are the most used units for density. One g/cm3 is equal to one thousand kg/m3. One cubic centimetre is equal to one millilitre. In industry, other larger or smaller units of mass and or volume are more practical and US customary units may be used. See below for a list of some of the most common units of density. A number of techniques as well as standards exist for the measurement of density of materials; such techniques include the use of a hydrometer, Hydrostatic balance, immersed body method, air comparison pycnometer, oscillating densitometer, as well as pour and tap. However, each individual method or technique measures different types of density, therefore it is necessary to have an understanding of the type of density being measured as well as the type of material in question; the density at all points of a homogeneous object equals its total mass divided by its total volume. The mass is measured with a scale or balance.
To determine the density of a liquid or a gas, a hydrometer, a dasymeter or a Coriolis flow meter may be used, respectively. Hydrostatic weighing uses the displacement of water due to a submerged object to determine the density of the object. If the body is not homogeneous its density varies between different regions of the object. In that case the density around any given location is determined by calculating the density of a small volume around that location. In the limit of an infinitesimal volume the density of an inhomogeneous object at a point becomes: ρ = d m / d V, where d V is an elementary volume at position r; the mass of the body t
