Gravitation

The UPSC mains GS-3 paper syllabus has various subjects like Economics, Science and Technology. Science and technology in UPSC is mostly concerned with current Affairs. but it is necessary to understand the basics of science.

TOPICS

• Gravitation

GRAVITATION

What is Gravitational Force?

• Each body in this universe attracts other bodies towards itself with a force known as Gravitational Force, thus gravitation is a study of the interaction between two masses. Out of the two masses, the heavier one is called source mass and the lighter one is called test mass.
• Gravitational force is a central force which depends only on the position of test mass from the source mass and always acts along the line joining the centres of the two masses.

Newton’s Law of Gravitation

• According to Newton’s law of gravitation, every particle in the universe attracts every other particle with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Mathematically it can be represented as,

F = Gm1m2/r2

Where,

• F is the Gravitational force between two objects measured in Newton (N).
• G is the Universal Gravitational Constant with a value of 6.674 × 10-11 Nm2kg-2.
• m1 is the mass of one massive body measured in kg.
• m2 is the mass of another massive body measured in kg.
• r is the separation between them measured in kilometre (Km).
• In SI units: 6.67 × 10-11 Nm2 kg-2, In CGS units: 6.67×10-8 dyne cm2 g-2

Density and Specific Gravity