Mass and Gravity

The book starts with a survey on the development of the concept ‘mass’ and of theories of gravity, beginning with Greek’s ideas on mass, Galileo’s experiments, Newton’s laws and their extension by Einstein’s theory of relativity. Data from measurements of the gravitational force on Sun, planets and the Moon are presented. Kepler’s laws on moving masses in the gravitational field are discussed as well as new discoveries on the expansion of the universe. Fundamental interactions of particles and particle/wave duality are described. The Theory of Everything is mentioned. The definition of the international unit of mass is reported as well as alternatives like watt or voltage balance, counting of atoms using Avogadro’s number. Alternatives like natural Planck units are mentioned. Mass units, atomic mass units and examples of masses in nature as well as conversion factors are given in tables.