- 1). Measure the force acting on the object using either newtons or pounds. Keep your measurements consistent to avoid needless conversion. Newtons are metric and pounds are imperial measurements.
- 2). Clock the acceleration of the object. Remember to use the same measurement standard as your force number. Use meters per second (m/s) for metric and feet per second (f/s) for imperial.
- 3). Divide the force by the acceleration to find the inertial mass. The Newtonian equation is F=m*a, where F is force, m is mass and a is acceleration. For instance, if you got 10 newtons of force with an acceleration of 1 meter per second, the inertial mass would be 10 kilograms. In imperial units, mass is expressed in slugs.
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