Why cant mass be used as a property to identify a sample of matter?

Answer 1

A large bag of air has more mass than a small lump of steel.

A kilogram of steam is much larger than a kilogram of rock.

Given the volume alone, or the mass alone, you can't differentiate between air or steel, or between steam or rock.

Given the density, which involves the ratio of both properties, you can tell the difference between two substances.

Answer 2

You need a lot more information. Objects can have the same mass (but different volumes) or same volume (but different masses) or same densities (but different compositions). Only mass or volume cannot tell you if the object is solid or hollow, for example.

Answer 3

Their is absolutely no way of telling what the object could possibly be knowing only its mass. You could have a pool of water or a solid block of metal of equal mass and if you were told two bodies had equal mass, you couldn't distinguish between the two without knowing the volume they occupied, their specific heat, ect.

Answer 4

100 g of steel, sugar, concrete, fruits, etc. is the same mass but the objects, materials or compounds are different.

An important characteristic of all materials is the density, the ratio between the mass and the volume: d = M/v.

Answer 5

mass is how much matter something has in it. but two things can have the same mass so you wouldn't know what its was

Answer 6

Mass is an extensive property, which depends only on the amount of matter in the sample, not on the composition of the sample.

Answer 7

You have to know also its density or its specific gravity.