A researcher carries an inertial balance and a spring balance to a mountain laboratory where the local acceleration due to gravity is 9.76ms−2. A metal cylinder is examined by both instruments.
(a) Using the inertial balance the cylinder is found to have mass 0.500kg. What reading (in newton) should the spring balance give at the mountain station?
(b) The researcher now returns to sea level, where g=9.81ms−2, and incorrectly decides to determine the mass of the same cylinder by dividing the mountain spring‐balance reading obtained in part (a) by 9.81ms−2. Calculate the mass that would be obtained in this way.
(c) Determine the percentage error introduced by this procedure and comment briefly on what the result tells you about the reliability of inertial and gravitational methods of mass measurement at locations where g differs from its standard value.