Which weighs more?

[eburacum45]

A tonne of feathers, or a tonne of rocks?

I've only just realised that this old, old chestnut is quite a difficult question.

Any ideas?

[Ronald Brak]

Well, I got out my scales, I weighed a ton of rocks and then I weighed a ton of feathers. And you know what? They both weighed one ton. Imagine that!

[toejam]

Well, I got out my scales, I weighed a ton of rocks and then I weighed a ton of feathers. And you know what? They both weighed one ton. Imagine that!

Was that a ton? or a tonne? or a short ton?

[Frog march]

I remember an old thread with this in, and the complexity involves buoyancy, so the answer is the most dense weighs more, probably the rocks I guess.

[Ronald Brak]

Was that a ton? or a tonne? or a short ton?

It's quite simple really. We are discussing the weight of feathers. So what has feathers? The answer is simple, a duck. So if the rocks weigh as much as a duck, it's a ton.

Or you could just use the metric system. If you're lazy.

[chrissy]

not difficult they weigh the same a tonne.

[eburacum45]

I think one valid answer may, paradoxically, be the feathers.
Remember that the units for mass and weight are often the same.

[Frog march]

wouldn't the 1 tonne mass of feathers have more buoyancy(in air), than the 1 tonne mass of stones, therefore weighing less?

[sirius0]

What weighs more? A 10,000 size chicken (who once had feathers; apparently someone has been going around shaving birds to get a tonne of them for research or something) or a ton (metric) of bricks?

[mahesh]

A ton is one hundred runs in cricket and carries a lot more in the record books! so there! ducky!

[eburacum45]

A tonne (in mass) of rocks on Mars would weigh less.
There are no tonnes of feathers on Mars, or anywhere else in the Solar system. So on average a tonne of rocks would weigh less.
But I don't know what the average weight of rocks in the universe is (note the traditional question asks about weight and rocks, not mass and rock...