Variations In Gravitational Force

When an apple fell on Newton’s head, he would have never thought that the result would be the discovery of gravity. Many people have different perceptions and different definitions of gravity.

This term is as diverse as the total number of objects in the universe because everything possesses this ability in different proportions. It is also essential to know that gravity and gravitational force are easily understandable. Still, for that, a student should keep one essential thing in mind, which is that gravity is not limited to earth. It is a much broader concept than what most people think of it.

Once the student is satisfied with the approach that gravity is not just about the earth, it’s straightforward to define it. Gravity is the force exerted by an object to pull other objects towards itself. It’s effortless once the term objects are used. It is time to dig deeper into understanding gravitational force and build clear concepts regarding the same.

Gravitational Force

Every component of the universe attracts another component and gets attracted by another one. This phenomenon is gravity, and the force exerted to attract objects and get attracted by other objects is known as gravitational force. This force is continuous in nature and has different impacts depending on different objects.

The easiest way to understand this would be the plant that we live on. The gravitational force that earth possesses and exerts attracts all the objects and masses present here. The objects present on earth are not just affected by the earth’s gravitational force, but the force of the moon also has a particular impact on the planet, such as the phenomenon of high and low tides, which is caused by the gravitational force of the moon.

Although Newton gave his theory of gravitational force in 1679, the studies for the same date back to the ancient era when many prominent scientists figured out the presence of such force, which does not let anything roll or float and keeps it intact on the ground. One of the most famous Indian mathematicians, Aryabhatta, known as the inventor of zero, explained gravity years before Newton did. The same thing was done by Indian scientist Brahmagupta who named it as gurutvakarshan.

Not just Indians but various other mathematicians and scientists figured out gravity. Archimedes, a Greek philosopher, tried to explain gravity through the example of a triangle and a Roma engineer named Vitruvius gave the theory of gravitation being naturally occurring and has nothing to do with the weight of an object. All of these theories either were not popularised or lacked accuracy.

Many people continued their research, but most of them were unsuccessful in explaining gravity accurately. Still, one of the milestones in the same direction was achieved by Galileo, who explained one of the critical aspects of gravity. Earlier it was believed that heavier objects have more gravitational pull from the earth, leading to their early fall compared to lighter objects. Still, Galileo explained that it is not the gravitational force that is leading to earlier fall but air resistance which varies as per the weight of different objects.

Newton’s Theory of Gravitational Force

After centuries of research and experiments, the world got its first theory on the gravitational force in the year 1679 by famous physicist Sir Issac Newton. This happened when he and Robert Hooke collectively researched gravitational forces and deduced the inverse square law of gravitation. As per this law, the gravitational forces between different objects or those planets should be the inverse square of the distance that it has from the centre of its orbit. He took this theory to Hooke, who refused to publish the same, but Issac Newton Published it under the name ON the motion of bodies in orbit. The formula that he gave for gravitational force is given below.

Formula for Gravitational Force:    F = G * m₁m₂/ r ²

• F = Force
• m1 = Mass of one object
• m2 = Mass of other object
• r = Distance between the centre of masses
• G = Gravitational constant

This theory for gravitational force was a significant breakthrough in the field of science and resulted in the discovery of Neptune through the gravitational force of Uranus. But the theory had its own share of flaws and accuracy issues which were later solved with the arrival of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Acceleration due to gravity

Earth is not totally round, which leads to variations in gravitational forces. This acceleration is maximum at poles and minimum at the equator and the formula for variations are given below.

g = GM/R²

Conclusion

Gravitation is a natural phenomenon but varies as per the distance and mass of objects. The theory of gravitational force given by Sir Issac Newton is the first milestone towards the discovery of gravity in the universe. It is still relevant in most of the experiments because of its simplistic approach and accurate outputs. Even though Albert Einstein gave the theory of relativity, it is much more complicated and detailed than the one given by Newton. It is not accessible and understandable by laymen easily. It should be kept in mind that the first step is to understand gravity to understand the universe.