Universal Law of Gravitation

From our previous blog, we know that everybody, possessing some mass, attracts each other. Newton derived a formula that can measure the strength of this attraction. He stated that, ‘every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force which is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between them.

F ∝ Mmd2

In the formula we can see that both mass and separation are proportionally related to the force. To turn proportionality into an equation we need a proportionality constant. The proportionality constant used in gravitation is known as Universal Gravitational Constant and its calculated value is 6.67 x 10-11 N m2Kg-2.

From the universal gravitation formula, we can easily calculate the strength of force of attraction between two bodies.

A most common question asked by newly introduced people to the concept of gravitation is, why two bodies placed at some distance don’t attract each other as gravitation suggests?

A simple answer to this question is the law of gravitation works for all the objects around any particular object. It means any particular object experiences numbers of forces from every direction. But only get attracted in the direction of net force. In the case of an object placed on earth, since the earth has relatively greater mass than all other objects on it, net force experienced is always in the direction to the center of the earth. Hence, we only feel gravitational attraction towards earth instead of some other object on it.

So, this is enough for today, in our next blog we will talk about acceleration due to gravity. It's a really interesting topic. So please don't miss that.

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