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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 ...
In this way, general relativity explains the daily experience of gravity on the surface of the Earth not as the downwards pull of a gravitational force, but as the upwards push of external forces. These forces deflect all bodies resting on the Earth's surface from the geodesics they would otherwise follow. [18]
In physics, gravity (from Latin gravitas 'weight' [1]) is a fundamental interaction primarily observed as a 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.
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. The ...
In physics, a gravitational field or gravitational acceleration field is a vector field used to explain the influences that a body extends into the space around itself. [6] A gravitational field is used to explain gravitational phenomena, such as the gravitational force field exerted on another massive body.
Thus this is a version of the equivalence principle that applies to objects that exert a gravitational force on themselves, such as stars, planets, black holes or Cavendish experiments. It requires that the gravitational constant be the same everywhere in the universe [ 14 ] : 49 and is incompatible with a fifth force .
Vesta and Pallas are nonetheless sometimes considered small terrestrial planets anyway by sources preferring a geophysical definition, because they do share similarities to the rocky planets of the inner solar system. [56] The fourth-largest asteroid, Hygiea (radius 216.5 ± 4 km), is icy.
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.