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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 turn, these experiments led to the modern understanding of the equivalence principle encoded in general relativity, which states that the gravitational and inertial masses are the same. It is sufficient for the inertial mass to be proportional to the gravitational mass.
Weak equivalence principle This page was last edited on 27 May 2024, at 02:43 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution ...
The basic premise behind these experiments is now known as the (weak) equivalence principle. Galileo's hypothesis that inertial mass (resistance to acceleration) equals gravitational mass (weight) was extended by Albert Einstein to include special relativity and that combination became a key concept leading to the development of the modern ...
Constraints on this, and on the existence of a composition-dependent fifth force or gravitational Yukawa interaction are very strong, and are discussed under fifth force and weak equivalence principle. A version of the equivalence principle, called the strong equivalence principle, asserts that self-gravitation falling bodies, such as stars ...
The weak equivalence principle plays a prominent role in relativity theory and the Eötvös experiment was cited by Albert Einstein in his 1916 paper The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity. Measurements of the gravitational gradient are important in applied geophysics, such as the location of petroleum deposits.
In Newton's theory of gravitation, Poisson's equation reads = where is the gravitational potential, is the gravitational constant and is the mass density. The weak equivalence principle motivates a geometric version of the equation of motion for a point particle in the potential
The particular equivalence often referred to as the "Galilean equivalence principle" or the "weak equivalence principle" has the most important consequence for freely falling objects. Suppose an object has inertial and gravitational masses m and M , respectively.