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Before Newton’s law of gravity, there were many theories explaining gravity. Philoshophers made observations about things falling down − and developed theories why they do – as early as Aristotle who thought that rocks fall to the ground because seeking the ground was an essential part of their nature. [6]
In physics, gravity (from Latin gravitas 'weight' [1]) is a fundamental interaction primarily observed as mutual attraction between all things that have mass.Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 10 38 times weaker than the strong interaction, 10 36 times weaker than the electromagnetic force and 10 29 times weaker than the weak interaction.
The most familiar non-contact force is gravity, which confers weight. [1] In contrast, a contact force is a force which acts on an object coming physically in contact with it. [1] All four known fundamental interactions are non-contact forces: [2] Gravity, the force of attraction that exists among all bodies that have mass. The force exerted on ...
The gravity g′ at depth d is given by g′ = g(1 − d/R) where g is acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Earth, d is depth and R is the radius of the Earth. If the density decreased linearly with increasing radius from a density ρ 0 at the center to ρ 1 at the surface, then ρ ( r ) = ρ 0 − ( ρ 0 − ρ 1 ) r / R , and the ...
The 12th-century scholar Al-Khazini suggested that the gravity an object contains varies depending on its distance from the centre of the universe (referring to the centre of the Earth). Al-Biruni and Al-Khazini studied the theory of the centre of gravity, and generalized and applied it to three-dimensional bodies.
For two pairwise interacting point particles, the gravitational potential energy is the work that an outside agent must do in order to quasi-statically bring the masses together (which is therefore, exactly opposite the work done by the gravitational field on the masses): = = where is the displacement vector of the mass, is gravitational force acting on it and denotes scalar product.
Not all forces are contact forces; for example, the weight of an object is the force between the object and the Earth, even though the two do not need to make contact. Gravitational forces, electrical forces and magnetic forces are body forces and can exist without contact occurring.
Examples of force. The following list shows different orders of magnitude of force. Since weight under gravity is a force, several of these examples refer to the weight of various objects. Unless otherwise stated, these are weights under average Earth gravity at sea level.