Sunday, July 1, 2007

Weight-the force of Gravity

All objects accelerate towards the earth.
Thus the earth exerts a force on these objects - this is called the force of gravity.

From Newton's Second Law,
an object of mass m falling due to gravity;
for the acceleration, a, we use the downward acceleration due to gravity, g.
The gravitational force on an object, F(G) = F = mg

The direction of this force is down toward the centre of the Earth.

The magnitude of the force of gravity on an object is called the object's weight.

In SI units, g= 9.8 m/s^2 = 9.80 N/kg.

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