"David CL Francis" wrote in message
...
I see now at last what you are talking about, but to call the force of
gravity 'weight' seems curious to me.

What else would you call it? And perhaps more interestingly, what is
"weight" if not the force of gravity? I'm curious: if "weight" is not the
force of gravity, what is it? How would you describe "weight" without
noting that it's a force resulting from gravity?

Weight cannot be detected except
when a body is not in free fall.

Of course it can. Simply note your acceleration, multiply by your mass, and
you get your weight. The acceleration itself is proof of the force called
"weight". Without a force, there is no acceleration. In free fall, the
*only* force acting on the object is weight.

So in orbit an object has no weight.

Again, yes it does.

Gravity enables 'weight' on objects that are on the surface of a body to
be measured. Astronauts cannot weigh things in orbit.

Of course they can. As I described above, all they need to do is note their
acceleration, multiply by their mass, and they get their weight.

Just because you do not have a handy fixed object against which to measure a
force, that does not mean that the force does not exist. It simply means
that you need something other than a spring attached to a fixed object to
measure the force.

By your definition, if I were to jump from the roof of a two-story building,
for the period of time before I struck the ground, I would be "weightless".
Yet, by any reasonable definition of "weight", a "weightless" object would
not fall to the ground at all.

Pete