What are the mass and the weight of a body?

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The mass and weight are two different magnitudes, and we should not confuse.

• Mass: is the amount of material that has a body.
  
• Weight: is the force that attracts the earth towards its center to a body.
  

As weight is a force, considering we get the following laws:

• Law of universal Newton´s gravitation.
  

A body has more weight at the poles than in the Ecuador, because it varies the distance from teh center of the Earth.

• Basic Law of the dynamics or Newton´s 2nd law.
  

We weight more on Earth´s surface than in the peak of a mountain, because “g” varies whit altitude an our mass is always the same.