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Gravity, or gravitation is one of the fundamental forces of the universe. It is an attraction, or pull, between any two objects with mass. We discuss it here in three parts:
- Everyday sense: the force which causes objects to fall to the ground
- Newton's laws: how gravity keeps the Solar System and most major astronomical objects together
- Einstein's theory of general relativity: the role of gravity in the universe
Some physicists think gravity is caused by gravitons, but they are still unsure.
Everyday gravity
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Weight vs mass
[change | change source]In everyday talk, we say things fall because the Earth's gravity pulls on them. We talk as if our weight was a "given". Actually, weight changes when the pull of gravity changes. The Moon's pull of gravity is about one sixth smaller than Earth. So any object on the Moon weighs one sixth of its weight on Earth. What does not change is the amount of matter in an object. That is called conservation of mass. On Earth, mass and weight are the same for most purposes, though a sensitive gravimeter can detect the difference. The difference can be very different on other extraterrestrial objects such as the moon, and other planets.
From this we learn two things.
- The weight of an object is variable; its mass is constant.
- The pull of gravity varies according to the mass of an object. The Earth pulls more strongly than the Moon. A person also exerts a gravitational pull, but it is so tiny it can be ignored for all practical purposes.
The Earth has mass. Every particle of matter has mass. So the Earth pulls on every object and person, and they pull on the Earth. This pulling force is called "gravity" and it gives weight.
Gravity vs gravitation
[change | change source]These words mean almost the same thing in everyday use. Sometimes scientists use "gravity" for the force that pulls objects towards each other, and "gravitation" for the theory about the attraction.
Gravitational theory
[change | change source]Galileo
[change | change source]According to one of his students, Galileo did a famous experiment about gravity where he dropped balls from the Tower of Pisa. He later rolled balls down inclines. With these experiments, Galileo showed that gravitation accelerates all objects at the same rate regardless of weight.
Kepler
[change | change source]Johannes Kepler studied the motion of planets. In 1609 and 1616 he published his three laws governing the shape of their orbits and their speed along those orbits, but did not discover why they moved that way.
Newton
[change | change source]In 1687, English mathematician Isaac Newton wrote the Principia. In this book, he wrote about the inverse-square law of gravitation. Newton, following an idea that had long been discussed by others, said that the closer two objects are to each other, the more gravity will affect them.
According to Newton's law of universal gravitation, gravity is a force between any two objects with mass. Three numbers affect its strength: the mass of each object, and the distance between them. These two objects will both pull on each other with the same force. However, a force has a greater effect on objects with less mass. The force between the Sun and the Earth makes the Earth orbit the Sun, but it only moves the Sun a small amount.
Newton's laws were used later to predict the existence of the planet Neptune based on changes in the orbit of Uranus, and again to predict the existence of another planet closer to the Sun than Mercury. When this was done, it was learned that his theory was not entirely correct. These mistakes in his theory were corrected by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Newton's theory is still commonly used for many things because it is simpler and is accurate enough for many uses.
Dynamic equilibrium
[change | change source]Why does the Earth not fall into the Sun? The answer is simple but very important. It is because the Earth moving round the Sun is in a dynamic equilibrium. The speed of the Earth's movement creates a centrifugal force which balances the gravitational force between the Sun and the Earth. Why does the Earth continue spinning? Because there is no force to stop it.
Newton's first law: "If a body is at rest it remains at rest or if it is in motion it moves at the same speed until it is acted on by an external force".[1]
There is a kind of analogy between centrifugal force and gravitational force, which led to the "equivalence principle" of general relativity.[2][3]
Weightlessness
[change | change source]In free fall an object's motion balances out the pull of gravity on it. This includes being in orbit.
General relativity
[change | change source]The special theory of relativity describes systems where gravity is not an issue; by contrast, gravity is the central issue of the general theory of relativity.[4]
In general relativity there is no gravitational force deflecting objects from their natural, straight paths. Instead, gravity is seen as changes in the properties of space and time. In turn, this changes the straightest-possible paths that objects will naturally follow.[5] The curvature is, in turn, caused by the energy–momentum of matter. Spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.[6]
For weak gravitational fields and slow speeds relative to the speed of light, the theory's predictions converge on those of Newton's law of universal gravitation.[7] Newton's equations are used to plan journeys in our Solar System.
General relativity has a number of physical consequences.
Time dilation and frequency shift
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Gravity influences the passage of time. Light sent down into a gravity well is blueshifted, whereas light sent in the opposite direction (i.e., climbing out of the gravity well) is redshifted; collectively, these two effects are known as the gravitational frequency shift.
More generally, processes close to a massive body run more slowly when compared with processes taking place farther away; this effect is known as gravitational time dilation.[8][9]
Light deflection and gravitational time delay
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General relativity predicts that the path of light is bent in a gravitational field; light passing a massive body is deflected towards that body. This effect has been confirmed by observing the light of stars or distant quasars being deflected as it passes the Sun.[10]
Closely related to light deflection is the gravitational time delay (or Shapiro delay), the phenomenon that light signals take longer to move through a gravitational field than they would in the absence of that field. There have been numerous successful tests of this prediction.[11][12]
A parameter called γ encodes the influence of gravity on the geometry of space.[13]
Gravitational waves
[change | change source]Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of spacetime. They move as a wave, travelling outward from the source. Einstein predicted them in 1915 on the basis of his theory of general relativity.[14] In theory, gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation. Sources of detectable gravitational waves might include binary star systems composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes. In general relativity, gravitational waves cannot travel faster than the speed of light.
The 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for measurements of the Hulse-Taylor binary star system. These measurements suggested gravitational waves are more than mathematical peculiarities.
On February 11, 2016, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration teams announced that they had made the first observation of gravitational waves, originating from a pair of merging black holes using the Advanced LIGO detectors. On June 15, 2016, a second detection of gravitational waves from coalescing black holes was announced. Besides LIGO, many other gravitational-wave observatories (detectors) are under construction.
Related pages
[change | change source]References
[change | change source]- ↑ Duncan, Tom. 1995. Advanced physics for Hong Kong: I. Mechanics & Electricity. John Murray.
- ↑ Barbour, Julian B.; Pfister, Herbert (1995). Mach's Principle: From Newton's Bucket to Quantum Gravity. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-8176-3823-8.
- ↑ Eriksson, Ingrid V. (2008). Science Education in the 21st Century. Nova Publishers. p. 194. ISBN 978-1-60021-951-1.
- ↑ Wald, Robert M. (1992). Space, Time, and Gravity: The Theory of the Big Bang and Black Holes. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-87029-8.
- ↑ At least approximately. Poisson, Eric 2004. The motion of point particles in curved spacetime. Living Rev. Relativity 7, retrieved 2025-08-06 [1] Archived 2025-08-06 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Wheeler, John Archibald; Ford, Kenneth; Ford, Kenneth William (2000). Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31991-1.
- ↑ Wald, Robert M. (1984). General Relativity. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-87033-5.
- ↑ Rindler, Wolfgang (2001). Relativity: Special, General, and Cosmological. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-850836-6.
- ↑ Misner, Charles W.; Thorne, Kip S.; Wheeler, John Archibald (1973). Gravitation. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-7167-0344-0.
- ↑ Renn, Jurgen; Einstein, Albert; Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Max-Planck-Institut fur (2005). Albert Einstein: chief engineer of the universe. ISBN 978-3-527-40574-9.
- ↑ Ohanian, Hans C.; Ruffini, Remo (1994). Gravitation and Spacetime. W. W. Norton. p. 200. ISBN 978-0-393-96501-8.
- ↑ Stairs, Ingrid H. 2003. Testing general relativity with pulsar timing. Living Rev. Relativity 6. [2] Archived 2025-08-06 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Will, Clifford M. 2006. The confrontation between general relativity and experiment. Living Rev. Relativity. 9, 3.[3] Archived 2025-08-06 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Finley, Dave. "Einstein's gravity theory passes toughest test yet: Bizarre binary star system pushes study of relativity to new limits". Phys.Org.
Other websites
[change | change source]- Gravity Probe B experiment The Einstein website from Stanford University
- Gravity for kids Archived 2025-08-06 at the Wayback Machine (useful Q & A)
- How stuff works: How does gravity work?
- NOVA - PBS NOVA. Galileo's experiments
- Gravity Archived 2025-08-06 at the Wayback Machine - Kepler and Newton: excellent summary
- Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation Archived 2025-08-06 at the Wayback Machine on Project PHYSNET
- PhysOrg.com. Alternative theory of gravity may explain large structure formation—without dark matter