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where F is the gravitational force acting between two objects, m 1 and m 2 are the masses of the objects, r is the distance between the centers of their masses, and G is the gravitational constant. The first test of Newton's law of gravitation between masses in the laboratory was the Cavendish experiment conducted by the British scientist Henry ...
Earth's gravity according to the Preliminary Reference Earth Model (PREM). [13] Two models for a spherically symmetric Earth are included for comparison. The dark green straight line is for a constant density equal to the Earth's average density. The light green curved line is for a density that decreases linearly from center to surface.
The equivalence principle is the hypothesis that the observed equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass is a consequence of nature. The weak form, known for centuries, relates to masses of any composition in free fall taking the same trajectories and landing at identical times.
In classical mechanics, a gravitational field is a physical quantity. [5] A gravitational field can be defined using Newton's law of universal gravitation.Determined in this way, the gravitational field g around a single particle of mass M is a vector field consisting at every point of a vector pointing directly towards the particle.
By 1785 Charles-Augustin de Coulomb showed that two electric charges at rest experience a force inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them, a result now called Coulomb's law. The striking similarity to gravity strengthened the case for action at a distance, at least as a mathematical model. [12]
where and are any two masses, is the gravitational constant, and is the distance between the two point-like masses. Two bodies orbiting their center of mass (red cross) Using the integral form of Gauss's Law , this formula can be extended to any pair of objects of which one is far more massive than the other — like a planet relative to any ...
Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass. The lower the gravitational potential (the closer the clock is to the source of gravitation), the slower time passes, speeding up as the gravitational ...
Length contraction: Objects are measured to be shortened in the direction that they are moving with respect to the observer. Maximum speed is finite: No physical object, message or field line can travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum. The effect of gravity can only travel through space at the speed of light, not faster or instantaneously.