You stand on a bathroom scale that rests on the floor of an elevator. Standing on the scale compresses internal springs and activates a dial that indicates your weight in newtons. When the elevator is at rest, the scale reads 600 N. Then the elevator begins to move upward with a constant acceleration of 2.00 m/s/s.

Determine your true mass.
Determine the scale reading while the elevator is accelerating.
If you read the scale without realizing that it is accelerating upward what might you think your mass is?

What would your answers be if the elevator is accelerating downward?

mg = 600 N,

m =600/g =600/9.8 = 61.2 kg.
W = ma+mg =61.2(2+9.8) = 722 N,
scale will give 722/9.8 = 73.7 kg.

what do you think?

I would say the true mass is 60 kg and that's as far as i got

To determine your true mass, we need to use Newton's Second Law which states that the net force on an object is equal to the product of its mass and acceleration (F = ma). In this case, the net force is your weight.

1. Determine your true mass:
Since the scale reads 600 N when the elevator is at rest, that corresponds to your weight. Weight is equal to the force due to gravity acting on an object, which is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity (F = mg). We can rearrange the equation to solve for mass: m = F/g.
By substituting the values into the equation, m = 600 N / 9.8 m/s² ≈ 61.22 kg.

2. Determine the scale reading while the elevator is accelerating:
To determine the scale reading while the elevator is accelerating, we need to consider the forces acting on you. When the elevator is moving upward with a constant acceleration of 2.00 m/s², there are two forces acting on you - your weight (600 N) and the normal force from the scale.

The net force acting on you is the difference between these two forces. The net force is equal to the mass multiplied by the acceleration of the elevator, since the normal force cancels out your weight.

Net force = (mass) × (acceleration)
600 N - (mass) × (9.8 m/s²) = (mass) × (2 m/s²)

Simplifying the equation,
600 N = (mass) × (11.8 m/s²)

Solving this equation will give us the value for the scale reading while the elevator is accelerating.

3. If you read the scale without realizing that it is accelerating upward, your brain would assume that the reading on the scale indicates your weight. Therefore, you would think that your weight is 600 N. However, in reality, your weight is still the same, but the scale reading will be different due to the acceleration of the elevator.

If the elevator is accelerating downward, the concepts remain the same, but the direction of the forces changes. The net force acting on you is now the sum of your weight and the normal force from the scale, since the forces are in the same direction. The value obtained for the scale reading while the elevator is accelerating will be different due to this change in forces.