@JohnRennie does this sentence "weight of Earth" has any meaning

@alam Hi :-)

Hi

As I'm sure you know, weight is mass times gravitational acceleration so it doesn't make sense to talk about the weight of the Earth unless you were putting the whole Earth in some gravitational field.

I would guess in that phrase the word weight should be mass.

I was studying mechanics kleppner and kolenkow and in 3rd chapter it said that Cavendish became famous for finding G and people started calling him man who "weighed the earth" @JohnRennie

Ya we are measure our weight wrt to earth so it is meaning less

Ah, yes, I have heard that before. I think it's just because there is no verb meaning to measure the mass like the verb weigh means to measure the weight.

Yes

What Cavendish did was measure Newton's gravitational constant.

Did you used Griffiths electrodynamics when you were in University!? Just curious because I was studying it

I can't remember now. I'm sure it was one of the books I used because it's such a standard.

Yes it's now a standard

It's an excellent book, but a bit dry.

Yeah that why I am using Purcell and morin with it

@alam The Physics chat room is an old room I used to help a specific student with their exams. The main physics chat room is The h Bar.

Oh ok thanks