What is Gravitational Force?

Gravity or gravitational forces are forces of

attraction. We're not talking about finding someone really
cute and adorable. It's like the Earth pulling on you and
keeping you on the ground. That pull is gravity at work.
Every object in the universe that has mass exerts a
gravitational pull, orforce, on every other mass. The size
of the pull depends on the masses of the objects. You
exert a gravitational force on the people around you, but
that force isn't very strong, since people aren't very
massive. When you look at really large masses, like the
Earth and Moon, the gravitational pull becomes very
impressive. The gravitational force between the Earth and
the molecules of gas in the atmosphere is strong enough
to hold the atmosphere close to our surface. Smaller
planets, that have less mass, may not be able to hold an
atmosphere.

Newton's Law of Gravitation

Idea: Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation states that any
two objects exert a gravitational force of attraction on each other.
The direction of the force is along the line joing the objects (See Fig.
(7.3)). The magnitude of the force is proportional to the product of
the gravitational masses of the objects, and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between them. For the two objects in
Figure 7.3:
Figure 7.3: Gravitational Force Between Two Masses

m1 exerts a force

on m2 .

m2 exerts a force

on m1 .

By Newton's third law:

=-

The magnitude of the gravitational force is:

(22)

F12 = G

G is Newton's constant:
G = 6.67

10- 11 N m

/kg 2.

(23)

Note:
The inertial mass of an object determines the amount of force
needed to produce a given acceleration of that object.
The gravitational massdetermines the force of gravitational
attraction between two bodies. In Newtonian mechanics, these
two masses have no obvious connection with each other.
Nonetheless, it was observed empirically that they are
numerically equal. This remarkable fact was known for
centuries, but remained unexplained until Einstein's General
Theory of relativity.
Newton's gravitational constant is extremely small when
expressed in terms of laboratory sized objects: the
gravitational force between two 1 kgobjects separated
by 1 m is only 6.67 x 10- 11 Newtons.
For an object of mass m near the Earth's surface:
(24)

Fgrav = - G

m = - mg

where ME = 5.98 x 1024 kg is the mass of the Earth and RE =

6.38 x 106 m is the radius of the earth and
(25)

= 9.8 m/s

in agreement with the expression in Chapter 3.

Definition: Gravitional Potential Energy
Due to the gravitational force of attraction, any two objects with
masses m1 and m2 located a distance r apart have the ability to do
work. Hence they have potential energy. The gravitational
potential energy of such objects is:

(26)

PE grav = - G

Note:
Recall that only differences in potential energy are physically
relevant. In the above, the zero of gravitational potential
energy has been arbitrarily chosen to be zero at r =
. i.e.
when the objects are infinitely far apart.
The negative sign is a consequence of the attractive nature of
the gravitational force. When the objects are far apart, the
gravitational force naturally moves them closer, decreasing
their potential energy (i.e. making it more negative).
Gravitational potential energy near Earth's surface: For
an object of mass m a distance h above the earth's surface:

PE grav = - G
If h < < RE we can approximate:

so that:
PEgrav
-G

=
=

-G
+m
constant + mgh.