Gravitational Fields
In our work in dynamics, we learned that the force of gravity is one of the four fundamental forces. We extend the knowledge of forces to fields. In lesson one, we will learn what is meant by the term field and we will diagram the earth’s gravitational field using lines of force. We will contrast the terms mass and weight and see how the apparent weight of an object changes as it moves up and down in moving systems like elevators. In lesson two, we will look at free fall and make connections between what we learned about Newton’s laws and kinematics. We will see how to determine the gravitational fields constant and the acceleration of objects due to the gravitational field of the earth. This will allow us to apply the kinematics equations we studied earlier to free fall situations. We will learn that when an object falls through the air, it will eventually reach a point where it will no longer accelerate, but will fall at a constant velocity called terminal velocity. In lesson three, we make use to our knowledge of the force of gravity to study friction and how it affects the motion of objects.