Topic > Isaac Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation

Before the early modern age, the system of the universe often eluded the inhabitants of the earth. Early scientists and philosophers such as Aristarchus of Samos and Ptolemy formulated hypotheses that touched the surface of the complex functions of the universe, but did not fully reveal the mysteries held in the heavens. However, when mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton proposed his law of universal gravitation, numerous doors to understanding the world began to open. Newton's law is represented as F = (G m1m2) / r^2, where F is the attractive force, G is the gravitational constant, m1 is the first mass, m2 the second mass, and r is the distance between the centers of masses. This equation suggests that all objects in the universe attract each other with a force directly proportional to the product of their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them [1]. The gravitational force between two objects is determined by the mass of both bodies and the distance between them. The smaller the distance between two massive bodies, the greater their gravity...