Gravitational force, Law of Gravitation and its Importance
What is gravitational force?
The force with which the earth pulls everything towards its centre is called gravity or the force of attraction between any two bodies in the universe is called gravitational force. Gravitational force is the weakest force ever discovered until now. The force of gravitation is always directed towards the centre of the earth and it is so important in our daily life. And we have discussed the law of gravitation and its importance.
When we throw anything towards the sky it returns back to us, this is due to the effect of gravity. This is the gravity that pulls everything toward itself.
The force of gravity exists on the massive objects. The force of gravitation between the earth and the sun is one of the examples of it. Even between the small stones on the earth, gravity exists. But the force between them is not enough to take into account in the comparison to the gravitational force of the earth.
How is gravity discovered?
There is a long history in the discovery of the gravitational force. Once Sir Issac Newton was sitting under an apple tree, suddenly an apple falls down from the tree. Newton became quite surprised to see the apple falling down instead of going up. He thaught that there must be something that pulls the apple downward.
After long research, he came up with the idea of gravity. And that is how the concept of gravitational force was born. He proposed the theory of gravity commonly known as Newton’s law of gravitation.
Law of gravitation
Newton’s law of gravitation was discovered by Issac Newton in 1687 in his book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (“the Principia”). This law was experimentally proved by British scientist Henry Cavendish in 1798.
Law of gravitation states that”everybody in the universe attracts other bodies with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.”
The more the massive body, the greater the gravitation force and vice-versa. Similarly, the more the distance between their centers, the weaker the gravitational force and vice-versa.
How is gravitational force important?
Gravity plays a significant role in human life in various ways. It helps us in our day to day activity. Some of the importance of gravitational force are listed below:-
- Helps in the flow of water.
- Helps us to walk
- Causes rainfall.
- Provides our weight.
- Holds the planets, moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies in their own orbit.
- Helps in our daily activities like jumping, bathing, swimming, running, etc.
- Holds the atmosphere around the earth.
- Provides shape to the universe.
- Different types of constellations are formed in the sky due to gravity.
Niraj Raut is the CEO of Merocourse and writes blog posts for Ignited Nepal, Merocourse, and ProtoTrend. He studied B.Sc.CSIT at Tribhuvan University.
