Henry Cavendish first measured the universal gravitational constant G in 1798. The apparatus used is shown in Figure 1. Other experimenters repeated Cavendish’s measurement of G with various improvements and refinements. All measurements of G are found to be difficult because of the extreme weakness of the gravitational attraction. Setup of Henry Cavendish to measure […]
Acceleration due to gravity of a body is independent of its mass-How to Show mathematically?
Acceleration due to gravity of a body is independent of its mass – let’s show it mathematically. We will consider a body of mass m on the surface of the earth. Let M be the mass of the earth and R be the distance between the body and the centre of the earth (when the […]
Variation of g with height and depth – how g changes with height and depth
Variation of g with height and depth: Acceleration due to gravity or g varies as the height or depth varies with respect to the surface of the earth. This means the value of g on top of a mountain won’t be exactly the same as that on the earth’s surface. Similarly, g at a location […]
Vertical motion when a ball is thrown vertically upward with derivation of equations
when a ball is thrown vertically upwards it goes up for a while and then stops and starts to come down and touches the ground. Maximum height reached, velocity at the highest point, time for upward and downward movements, velocity before touching the ground- find all these mathematically
Freefall in physics
In this post, we will find out (a) how to find the weight of a freely falling body (b) How the velocity of a freely falling body changes every second if we ignore air drag force (air resistance)? (c) Why do we feel weightless during freefall (d) Kinetic energy of a body under free fall (e) Applicability of Law of conservation of energy for free fall (e) how distance traveled per second varies
