E. Abers
Note: The relevant period is the sidereal period, its period relative to a fixed direction
in space, about 27.3 days, or T = 2, 360, 000 seconds. One month is the synodic period,
the period between two new moons.
where now r is the radius of a planet’s orbit, and T its period of revolution around the sun.
We could make a table of R and T for each planet, and compute a, but Kepler’s third
law saves us the trouble. R and T are not independent, but rather T 2 = kR3 for all the
planets, for some number k which is a constant. Therefore
4π2 R 4π2
a= =
kR3 kR2
The accelerations are indeed inversely proportional to the squares of the distances. Gravity is
not a constant, as we assumed earlier, studying motion near the earth’s surface; it diminishes
inversely as the square of the distance from the center.
This much was known in the early 1680’s to those few who followed “natural philosophy.”
Robert Hooke, whose discoveries you will learn more about later, posed the following ques-
tion: Suppose the acceleration of the planets towards the sun obeys a 1/r2 law, as Kepler’s
Third Law for circular orbits requires. But the orbits are not exactly circles. What is the
path in general of a planet obeying the inverse square law?
Hooke bet that he could solve the problem in a few months; The architect Sir Christopher
Wren and the astronomer Edmund Halley, took him on. Hooke managed a numerical or
graphical solution, but was never able to solve the problem in “closed form.”
It is clear today what Hooke’s difficulty was. The mathematics of his day was insufficient
to deal with continuously changing rates of change. For that, one needs the methods of the
calculus.
Realizing that the problem was more difficult that had been thought, Halley traveled to
Cambridge to discuss it with the reclusive Isaac Newton. Newton was already known for
his explanation of the nature of color, for the invention of the reflecting telescope, and as a
learned mathematician. Newton answered that he had solved, then mislaid, the solution to
the central scientific problem of his age!
Halley urged Newton to reconstruct his proof and publish it; the result was the Principia
Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, in which the correct general methods for solving all
problems concerning the motion of objects was presented. The solution of the problem of
the planets – essentially proving Kepler’s first law – is one of the more difficult results in
the Principia.
Therefore the force of the sun on the earth — or any planet — must also be proportional
to the planets mass, so that the mass can cancel out in the acceleration:
1
Force on earth = F = constant × mearth ×
r2
The earth also exerts a force on the sun, which similarly is
1
Force on sun = F = constant × msun ×
r2
These must be the same numbers, by the third law! It follows that the force of gravity
of the sun on the earth, or the earth on the sun, is proportional to the mass of the sun and
the mass of the earth. The astonishing discovery is that the force of the sun’s gravitational
force on the earth is proportional not only to the mass of the earth, but also to the mass of
the sun. The mass of the sun or the earth, introduced in the second law as the inertia, the
resistance to acceleration, is also the strength of the gravitational force.
Gravitation is universal – everything attracts everything. The moon attracts the earth,
Jupiter the sun, and you the earth. The rule for the magnitude of the force between two
bodies of masses m1 and m2 is
m1 m2
F =G 2
r
The acceleration of m1 is F/m1 = Gm1 /r2. It is independent on m1 , as it is supposed to
be. Same for m2 .
The constant gravitational acceleration we experience here near the earth’s surface is
but a special case. It was of course one of the original observed facts which suggested the
universal law.
so its acceleration is
F N Nearth
a= = G 2
m m r
Now it might have been that the ratio N/m is different for different bodies. But it seems
that nature did not make that choice. We know ever since Galileo dropped a heavy ball
and a light ball off the tower of Pisa that the acceleration of two objects under the force
of gravity is independent of the objects mass. Later experiments have checked this identity
to very high accuracy. The upshot is that the ratio N/m is the same for everything. N/m
is a universal constant. Since it multiplies G, we can never measure it independently, so
it’s value is just absorbed into the definition of Newton’s constant G, and we say that
gravitational mass and inertial mass is the same for all objects. This is a profound and
powerful principle, called the principle of equivalence, and is at the foundation of the
modern theory of gravity, called the general theory of relativity.
v2
mg − W 0 = m
rearth
The weight is now
0 v2
W =m g−
rearth
What is the acceleration of a falling object at the equator? Well, if the force on it is the
weight W 0 above, its acceleration, by Newton’s second law, is2
W0 v2
g0 = =g−
m rearth
v2 r GMearth
a= = 4π2 2 =
r T r2
or
GMearth 2 gR2earth 2
r3 = T = T
4π2 4π2
Plug in the numbers: You get r ≈ 43, 300 km This is the height (measured from the center
of the earth) of a geosynchronous satellite.
11-19-03
2 This is the right answer, but the derivation is a little glib. After all, why is it allowed to use a coordinate
system that is rotating. Careful analysis, which can get a bit complicated, shows that this is the right answer.