Everything pulls on everything else.

Gravity the Movie

• Why did the characters “float”?
• Did he have to let go to save the other character?
• Debris traveling at 20,000mph or 8900 m/s
• Momentum p = m x v
• Debris weigh 260kg Space shuttle weighs 2,000,000kg
• Velocity would be 1m/s
• Using fire extinguisher as propulsion
• Throwing fire extinguisher
• 100km or 100mi?

Gravity was not discovered by Isaac Newton. What Newton discovered, prompted by a falling apple, was that gravity is a universal force—that it is not unique to Earth, as others of his time assumed.

Newton reasoned that the moon is falling toward Earth for the same reason an apple falls from a tree—they are both pulled by Earth’s gravity.

The Falling Apple

Newton understood the concept of inertia developed earlier by Galileo.

• He knew that without an outside force, moving objects continue to move at constant speed in a straight line.

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• He knew that if an object undergoes a change in speed or direction, then a force is responsible.

The Falling Apple

According to legend, Newton discovered gravity while sitting under an apple tree.

The Falling Apple

Newton saw the apple fall, or maybe even felt it fall on his head. Perhaps he looked up through the apple tree branches and noticed the moon.

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• He may have been puzzled by the fact that the moon does not follow a straight-line path, but instead circles about Earth.

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• He knew that circular motion is accelerated motion, which requires a force (remember a change in direction is acceleration which requires a force)

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• Newton had the insight to see that the moon is falling toward Earth, just as the apple is.

The Falling Apple

What was Newton’s reasoning about the apple falling from the tree?

The Falling Apple

The moon is actually falling toward Earth but has great enough tangential velocity to avoid hitting Earth.

The Falling Moon

Newton realized that if the moon did not fall, it would move off in a straight line and leave its orbit.

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His idea was that the moon must be falling around Earth (WHAT?!)

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Thus the moon falls in the sense that it falls beneath the straight line it would follow if no force acted on it.

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He hypothesized that the moon was simply a projectile circling Earth under the attraction of gravity.

The Falling Moon

If the moon did not fall, it would follow a straight-line path.

The Falling Moon

Newton’s Hypothesis

Newton compared motion of the moon to a cannonball fired from the top of a high mountain.

• If a cannonball were fired with a small horizontal speed, it would follow a parabolic path and soon hit Earth below.
• Fired faster, its path would be less curved and it would hit Earth farther away.
• If the cannonball were fired fast enough, its path would become a circle and the cannonball would circle indefinitely.

The Falling Moon

This original drawing by Isaac Newton shows how a projectile fired fast enough would fall around Earth and become an Earth satellite.

The Falling Moon

Both the orbiting cannonball and the moon have a component of velocity parallel to Earth’s surface.

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This sideways or tangential velocity is sufficient to ensure nearly circular motion around Earth rather than into it.

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With no resistance to reduce its speed, the moon will continue “falling” around and around Earth indefinitely.

The Falling Moon

Tangential velocity is the “sideways” velocity—the component of velocity perpendicular to the pull of gravity.

The Falling Moon

Newton’s Apple-Moon Test

For Newton’s idea to advance from hypothesis to scientific theory, it would have to be tested.

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• He reasoned that the mass of the moon should not affect how it falls, just as mass has no effect on the acceleration of freely falling objects on Earth.

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• How far the moon, or an apple at Earth’s surface, falls should relate only to its respective distance from Earth’s center.

The Falling Moon

The moon was already known to be 60 times farther from the center of Earth than an apple at Earth’s surface.

• The apple will fall 5 m in its first second of fall.
• Newton reasoned that gravitational attraction to Earth must be “diluted” by distance.
• The influence of gravity should be diluted to 1/60 of 1/60.
• In one second the moon should fall 1/(60)² of 5 m, which is 1.4 millimeters.

The Falling Moon

An apple falls 5 m during its first second of fall when it is near Earth’s surface. Newton asked how far the moon would fall in the same time if it were 60 times farther from the center of Earth.

The Falling Moon

Newton’s Calculation

Newton calculated how far the circle of the moon’s orbit lies below the straight-line distance the moon would otherwise travel in one second.

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His value turned out to be about the 1.4-mm distance accepted today.

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He was unsure of the exact Earth-moon distance and whether the correct distance to use was the distance between their centers.

The Falling Moon

If the force that pulls apples off trees also pulls the moon into orbit, the circle of the moon’s orbit should fall 1.4 mm below a point along the straight line where the moon would otherwise be one second later.

The Falling Moon

It wasn’t until after Newton invented a new branch of mathematics, calculus, to prove his center-of-gravity hypothesis, that he published the law of universal gravitation.

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Newton generalized his moon finding to all objects, and stated that all objects in the universe attract each other.

The Falling Moon

Why doesn’t the moon hit Earth?

The Falling Moon

Newton’s theory of gravity confirmed the Copernican theory of the solar system.

The Falling Earth

No longer was Earth considered to be the center of the universe.

• It became clear that the planets orbit the sun in the same way that the moon orbits Earth.

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• The planets continually “fall” around the sun in closed paths.

The Falling Earth

The tangential velocity of Earth about the sun allows it to fall around the sun rather than directly into it.

The Falling Earth

What would happen if the tangential velocities of the planets were reduced to zero?

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Their motion would be straight toward the sun and they would indeed crash into it.

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Any objects in the solar system with insufficient tangential velocities have long ago crashed into the sun.

The Falling Earth

What theory of the solar system did Newton’s theory of gravity confirm?

The Falling Earth

Newton discovered that gravity is universal. Everything pulls on everything else in a way that involves only mass and distance.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that every object attracts every other object with a force that for any two objects is directly proportional to the mass of each object.

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Newton deduced that the force decreases as the square of the distance between the centers of mass of the objects increases.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

The force of gravity between objects depends on the distance between their centers of mass.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

Your weight is less at the top of a mountain because you are farther from the center of Earth.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

The Universal Gravitational Constant, G

The law of universal gravitation can be expressed as an exact equation when a proportionality constant is introduced.

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The universal gravitational constant, G, in the equation for universal gravitation describes the strength of gravity.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

The force of gravity between two objects is found by multiplying their masses, dividing by the square of the distance between their centers, and then multiplying this result by G.

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• The magnitude of G is given by the magnitude of the force between two masses of 1 kilogram each, 1 meter apart: 0.0000000000667 newton. (In scientific notation: G = 6.67 × 10⁻¹¹ N·m²/kg²)

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• The units of G are such as to make the force of gravity come out in newtons.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

Measuring G

G was first measured 150 years after Newton’s discovery of universal gravitation by an English physicist, Henry Cavendish.

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Cavendish accomplished this by measuring the tiny force between lead masses with an extremely sensitive torsion balance.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

A simpler method was developed by Philipp von Jolly.

• He attached a spherical flask of mercury to one arm of a sensitive balance.

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• A 6-ton lead sphere was rolled beneath the mercury flask.

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• The flask was pulled slightly downward.

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• The gravitational force F, between the lead mass and the mercury, was equal to the weight that had to be placed on the opposite end of the balance to restore equilibrium.

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F, m₁, m₂, and d were all known, so the ratio G was calculated:

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

Philipp von Jolly developed a method of measuring the attraction between two masses.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

The value of G tells us that gravity is a very weak force.

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It is the weakest of the presently known four fundamental forces.

We sense gravitation only when masses like that of Earth are involved.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

Cavendish’s first measure of G was called the “Weighing the Earth” experiment.

• Once the value of G was known, the mass of Earth was easily calculated.

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• The force that Earth exerts on a mass of 1 kilogram at its surface is 10 newtons.

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• The distance between the 1-kilogram mass and the center of mass of Earth is Earth’s radius, 6.4 × 10⁶ meters.

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from which the mass of Earth m₁ = 6 × 10²⁴ kilograms.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

When G was first measured in the 1700s, newspapers everywhere announced the discovery as one that measured the mass of Earth.

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

What did Newton discover about gravity?

Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation

Gravity decreases according to the �inverse-square law. The force of gravity weakens as the square of distance.

Gravity and Distance: The Inverse-Square Law

Consider an imaginary “butter gun” for buttering toast.

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• Melted butter is sprayed through a square opening exactly the size of one piece of square toast

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• The gun deposits a layer of butter 1 mm thick.

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• Twice as far from the butter gun, butter would cover twice as much toast vertically and twice as much toast horizontally.

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• Since the butter has been diluted to cover four times as much area, its thickness will be one quarter as much, or 0.25 mm.

Gravity and Distance: The Inverse-Square Law

Butter spray travels outward from the nozzle in straight lines. Like gravity, the “strength” of the spray obeys an inverse-square law.

Twice as far from the gun, the butter is only 1/4 as thick.

Three times as far, it will be 1/9 as thick.

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1/9 is the inverse square of 3.

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When a quantity varies as the inverse square of its distance from its source, it follows an inverse-square law.

This law applies to the weakening of gravity with distance.

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It also applies to all cases where the effect from a localized source spreads evenly throughout the surrounding space.

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Examples are light, radiation, and sound.

The greater the distance from Earth’s center, the less an object will weigh.

• An apple that weighs 1 N at Earth’s surface weighs only 0.25 N when located twice as far from Earth’s center.

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• When it is 3 times as far, it weighs only 1/9 as much.

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• But no matter how great the distance, Earth’s gravity does not drop to zero.

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• The gravitational influence of every object, however small or far, is exerted through all space.

Gravitational force is plotted versus distance from Earth’s center.

Gravity and Distance: The Inverse-Square Law

think!

Suppose that an apple at the top of a tree is pulled by Earth’s gravity with a force of 1 N. If the tree were twice as tall, would the force of gravity on the apple be only 1/4 as �strong? Explain your answer.

13.5 Gravity and Distance: The Inverse-Square Law

think!

Suppose that an apple at the top of a tree is pulled by Earth’s gravity with a force of 1 N. If the tree were twice as tall, would the �force of gravity on the apple be only 1/4 as strong? Explain your answer.��Answer:

No, the twice-as-tall apple tree is not twice as far from Earth’s center. The taller tree would have to have a height equal to the radius of Earth (6370 km) before the weight of the apple would reduce to 1/4 N.

Gravity and Distance: The Inverse-Square Law

How does the force of gravity change with distance?

Gravity and Distance: The Inverse-Square Law