Gravity lab simulation series#

Check out their youtube channel for more videos like these! (a wonderful resource for curious people). The other videos look at the strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, and electromagnetic force. Notice that even the biggest gravitational force below is still quite small compared to how much a person weighs (about 500-1000 N). To get a physical intuition about how the law of gravity works, please explore the simulation below. Using the Gravity Force Lab simulation at, you will determine the gravitational constant according to Newtons law of universal gravitation. The University of Colorado has graciously allowed us to use the following PhET simulation.

Gravity lab simulation series#

Differences in gravitational forces from the moon acting on one side of the Earth, the center, and the other side of the Earth lead to tidal forces.Īt cosmological distances (much greater than the size of a galaxy) there is interesting current research on dark energy that shows that a previously unexpected repulsion happens with gravity at long distances, see here).įor more information on gravity please see here.īelow the PhET, there's a video from Scishow's series on fundamental forces, this one is on gravity. This means that if the distance is doubled the gravitational attraction is four times less. The gravitational force is an example of an inverse square law, meaning that the force drops with the square of the distance. The PhET simulation below shows how small gravitational forces are between human sized objects. Unless someone is taking very precise measurements in a lab (see for example Cavendish's famous experiment which determined the gravitational constant, G), the force of gravity must include only really big objects (like the sun, the moon or a planet) to be noticeable. Hydropower and tidal power are primary energy sources that take advantage of the gravitational force to generate useful work. When objects have the ability to fall, that's called gravitational potential energy. The force of gravity pulls us towards Earth, causing objects to fall. This force always attracts objects together, and although it is the weakest of the four fundamental forces, gravity has an infinite range. The gravitational force acts between all objects that have mass.

r is the distance between the masses (in meters).

m 1 and m 2 are the masses of the two objects (in kilograms).

Gravitation Estimated Duration: 19 minutes In this simulation.

G is the gravitational constant and is 6.67 x 10 -11 N m 2/ kg 2 Gravity Force Lab Estimated Duration: 10 minutes Visualize the gravitational force that.All masses attract other masses according to Newton's law of universal gravitation:

The gravitational force (also referred to simply as gravity) is the force that pulls all the masses in the universe together.