Gravitation
Gravitation
EARLY ASSUMPTIONS
The Earth was the center of the Universe according to Claudius Ptolemy, whose
view of the cosmos persisted for 1400 years until it was overturned — with
controversy — by findings from Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton.
Claudius Ptolemy (about 85–165 CE) lived in Alexandria, Egypt, a city established
by Alexander the Great some 400 years before Ptolemy’s birth. Ptolemy was the
only great astronomer of Roman Alexandria.
A Heliocentric Theory
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Copernicus’s Theory Can Be Summarized Like This:
01 - The center of the Earth is not the center of the Universe, only of Earth’s gravity
and of the lunar sphere.
02 - The Sun is fixed and all other spheres revolve around the Sun. (Copernicus
retained the idea of spheres and of perfectly circular orbits. In fact, the orbits are
elliptical, which the German astronomer Johannes Kepler demonstrated in 1609.)
03 - Earth has more than one motion, turning on its axis and moving in a spherical
orbit around the sun.
04 - The stars are fixed but appear to move because of the Earth’s motion.
KEPLER'S LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION
Johannes Kepler was a 16th century astronomer who established three laws which
govern the motion of planets (around the sun). These are known as Kepler's laws of
planetary motion. The same laws also describe the motion of satellites (like the
moon) around the planets (like the earth). The Kepler’s laws of planetary motion are
given below.
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3. Kepler's third law (LAW OF PERIODS): The cube of the mean distance of a
planet from the sun is directly proportional to the square of time it takes to
move around the sun.
r3 ∝ T2
or r3 = constant × T2
Through Kepler gave the laws of planetary motion but he could not give a theory to
explain the motion of planets. It was Newton who showed that the cause of the
motion of planets is the gravitational force which the sun exerts on them. In fact,
Newton used the Kepler's third law of planetary motion to develop the law of
universal gravitation.
Every object in the universe attracts other object by a force of attraction, called
gravitation, which is directly proportional to the product of masses of the objects and
inversely proportional to the square of distance between them. This is called Law of
Gravitation or Universal Law of Gravitation.
Let masses (M) and (m) of two objects are distance (d) apart. Let F be the
attractional force between two masses.
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Importance of the Universal Law of Gravitation
Free Fall
From the second law of motion, force is the product of mass and acceleration.
F = ma
For free fall, acceleration is replaced by acceleration due to gravity.
F = mg … (i)
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But from Universal Law of Gravitation,
As the radius of the earth increases from the poles to the equator, the value
of g becomes greater at the poles than at the equator.
As we go at large heights, value of g decreases.
Thus, the value of acceleration due to gravity of the earth, g = 9.8 m/s 2.
Difference between Gravitation Constant (G) and Gravitational Acceleration (g)
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Motion of objects under the influence of Gravitational Force of the Earth
Let an object is falling towards earth with initial velocity u. Let its velocity, under
the effect of gravitational acceleration g, changes to v after covering the height h in
time t.
Then the three equations of motion can be represented as :
The value of g is taken as positive in case of the object is moving towards earth and
taken as negative in case of the object is thrown in opposite direction of the earth.
Mass (m)
Weight (W)
The force with which an object is attracted towards the centre of the earth, is called
the weight of the object.
Now, Force = m × a
∴F=m×g
But the force of attraction of earth on an object is called its weight (W).
∴ W = mg
As weight always acts vertically downwards, therefore, weight has both magnitude
and direction and thus it is a vector quantity.
The weight of a body changes from place to place, depending on mass of object.
The SI unit of weight is Newton.
Weight of the object becomes zero if g is zero.
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Weight of an Object on the Surface of Moon
Hence, weight of the object on the moon = (1/6) × its weight on the earth.
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Derivation of Newton’s Inverse Square Law from Kepler’s Law
Consider a planet of mass ‘m’ revolving around the sun of mass M in a circular path
of radius r.Let us take v as orbital velocity of planet and T as its time period to
complete one revolution around the sun . The distance travelled by the planet in one
complete revolution is=
V= (i)
or ∝ (2 is constant) (ii)
∝ (iii)
∝ (iv)
We know that the centripetal force , F required to keep the planet in a circular orbit
is
or ∝
Prove that if a body is thrown vertically upward the time of ascent is equal to
the time of descent
Let a body is thrown vertically upwards with u be the initial velocity of the body.
Let the body attains maximum height in time . At the highest point the body
comes to rest. Therefore final velocity of the body is zero i.e v=0.
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For downward motion of the body. Initial velocity u = 0.Let is takes time t2 to reach
the ground with velocity v.
+gt2
Therefore
Hence
The time taken by the body thrown up to reach its maximum height is known
as time of ascent.
The time taken by the freely falling body to touch the ground is called time of
descent.
EXTRA QUESTIONS
1 .A stone is allowed to fall from the top of a tower 100 m high and at the same
time another stone is projected vertically upwards from the ground with a
velocity of 25 m/s. Calculate when and where the two stones will meet.
Ans. h = 100 m
Time t = ? g = 10 m/s2
Height covered by the falling stone = s1
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The distance covered by the stone thrown upward = s2
g = –10 m/s
u = 25 m/s
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(c) Position after 4 s
t = 4s
3. How does the force of gravitation between two objects change when the
distance between them is reduced to half?
Solution:
Consider the Universal law of gravitation,
According to that law, the force of attraction between two bodies is
Where,
m1 and m2 are the masses of the two bodies.
G is the gravitational constant.
r is the distance between the two bodies.
Given that the distance is reduced to half then,
r = 1/2 r
Therefore,
F = 4F
Therefore once the space between the objects is reduced to half, then the force of
gravitation will increase by fourfold the first force.
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4. What is the magnitude of the gravitational force between the earth and a 1
kg object on its surface? (Mass of the earth is 6 × 1024 kg and radius of the earth
is 6.4 × 106m.)
Solution:
From Newton’s law of gravitation, we know that the force of attraction between the
bodies is given by
5. If the moon attracts the earth, why does the earth not move towards the
moon?
Solution:
According to universal law of gravitation and Newton third law, we all know that
the force of attraction between 2 objects is same however in wrong way. So the
planet attracts the moon with the identical force because the moon exerts on earth
however in opposite directions. Since earth is far larger in size than moon, that the
acceleration cannot be detected on earth surface.
6. What happens to the force between two objects, if
(i) The mass of one object is doubled?
(ii) The distance between the objects is doubled and tripled?
(iii) The masses of both objects are doubled?
Solution: (i)
According to universal law of gravitation, the force between 2 objects (m1 and m2) is
proportional to their plenty and reciprocally proportional to the sq. of the distance(R)
between them.
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If the mass is doubled for one object.
F = 2F, so force is also doubled.
(ii) If the distance between the objects is doubled and tripled
If it’s doubled
Hence,
F = 4F, Force will therefore be four times greater than its actual value.
The units of "G" depend upon the units of force, mass and distance. On S.I
system where the units of force, mass and distance in Newton, kilogram and metre
respectively, the units of "G" can be calculated as under: -
Gm1m2
Since F =
r2
Fr 2
G =
m1m2
N m2
G =
kg kg
Nm 2
G =
Kg 2
Nm 2
From the above, it is clear that the units of universal gravitational constant "G" is
Kg 2
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Newton's Third law of motion and gravitation: -
Newton's third law of motion states that "If a body exerts a force on another
body, then the second body intern exerts an equal force and opposite force on the
first body". This law holds good for gravitation also. Thus, when earth exerts a
gravitational force of attraction on an opposite object, the object intern exerts an
equal and opposite force on the earth. But it is the object only which, is pulled by the
earth towards itself and no movement is observed in the earth. This can be explained
as under: -
From Newton's second law of motion we have.
F = m×a
Or a = F/m
From the above equation, it is clear that the acceleration produced in a body is
inversely proportional to the mass of the body. Since the mass of the object is very
small as compared to the large mass of the earth the acceleration produced will be
greater in the object and least in the earth, which is not even observed and hence the
object moves towards the earth.
W = mxg
= 9.8 m/sec2
Projectiles: -
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Characteristics of a projectile: -
A projectile shows the following characteristics: -
1. It possesses a horizontal motion with a constant velocity.
2. It possesses vertical motion with a constant acceleration due to the force of
gravity.
3. Its vertical acceleration is independent of horizontal motion and the vertical
distance is H = 1/2gt2.
4. The horizontal distance is travelled is dependent on the initial horizontal
speed.
Escape velocity: -
The escape velocity of a body is defined as the minimum velocity with which,
it must be projected so that it may escape away from the earth's gravitational pull
into the outer space. It is mathematically expressed as under: -
Ve = 2gr
From the above expression, it is clear that the escape velocity does not depend on the
mass of the object. For earth, its value is about 11.2km/sec. for mercury, it is
4.2km/sec and for Jupiter, the escape velocity is 61km/sec.
End........!
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