Difference between revisions of "Talk:Gravity"

Revision as of 15:28, 28 October 2013

This is quite approximative. The problem with gravity is that it's often confused with what we "perceive" as gravity on earth, which is quite an extreme case.

"If an object has a larger mass, it will "pull" other objects towards it."

The force is actually applied to both objects in the same way. The heavier object would move less because it will accelerate less (F=m*a), but both object would be pulled toward the global mass center.

"The strength of this pull is directly affected by the size and mass of the matter of the central object."

The size have no place in gravity (if you replace the sun with a dot of the mass of the sun, we would perceive no difference in terms of gravity), it simply determines where objects will bump each others ;)

"Gravity is theoretically a constant"

Gravity(its acceleration) is approximated as a constant when considered as the strength applied to a body on the surface of the earth (9.8 m/s²), because the variation in the distance from the center of the earth and the mass of the body is negligible, but its not a theoretical constant. The gravitation "constant" G is just a factor to make the formula (F=G*m1*m2/r²) works with our measure system. Gravity can be modelled as a field, which means it has spherical symmetry, so yeah at the same distance you will have the same strength, but thats quite an approximation if the bodies are comparable in mass and/or not spherical.

I know I'm probably being too fussy but the name of the game is space engineers dang :D