Question

Consider a person standing on a bathroom scale. Draw a free body diagram for the person and draw one for the scale. For each force you identified on the person name the other object with which the person is interacting.

Answer 1

Since the force that the scale exerts on you is equal in magnitude to the force that
you exert on the scale, this means that you are exerting more force on the scale than you would if you were at rest; you appear to be heavier than you are. In this situation,
we would say that your apparent weight is greater than your true weight. You feel
heavier because the floor (or scale) is pushing up on you with a greater force than
when it is at rest or moving at a constant velocity.





What if the elevator is accelerating downward? In this case the net force must be
downward, so the force that the scale is exerting upward must be less than the force
of gravity.
In this case, you are exerting a force on the scale that is less than your true weight.
You apparent weight is less than your actual weight because the floor is not pushing
up on you with as much force as when it is at rest.



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