physicist who lived from 1642-1727 The legend is that Newton discovered gravity when he saw a falling apple while thinking about the forces of nature. WHAT REALLY HAPPENED WITH THE APPLE?
• Probably the more correct version of the
story is that Newton, upon observing an apple fall from a tree, began to think along the following lines: The apple is accelerated, since its velocity changes from zero as it is hanging on the tree and moves toward the ground. • Thus, by Newton there must be a force that acts on the apple to cause this acceleration. Let's call this force "gravity", and the associated acceleration the . Then imagine the apple tree is twice as high. Again, we expect the apple to be accelerated toward the ground, so this suggests that this force that we call gravity reaches to the top of the tallest apple tree. SIR ISAAC'S MOST EXCELLENT IDEA
• Newton knew that the force which caused the
apple's acceleration (gravity) must be dependent upon the mass of the apple. And since the force acting to cause the apple's downward acceleration also causes the earth's upward acceleration , that force must also depend upon the mass of the earth. • So for Newton, the force of gravity acting between the earth and any other object is directly proportional to the mass of the earth, directly proportional to the mass of the object, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance which separates the centers of the earth and the object. GRAVITY • A force:The natural pull of objects toward each other G= UNIVERSAL GRAVITATIONAL CONSTANT F- force of gravity G- gravitational constant m1- mass of one object m2- mass of other object d- distance between the two objects