Explain Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation Gravitation Chapter Part5
Channel: Vidyadhan Education
Date: 2020-07-19

All the considerations including Kepler’s laws led Newton to formulate his theory of Universal gravity. According to this theory, every object in the Universe attracts every other object with a definite force. This force is directly proportional to the product of the masses of the two objects and is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
The above law means that if the mass of one object is doubled, the force between the two objects also doubles. Also, if the distance is doubled, the force decreases by a factor of 4. If the two bodies are spherical, the direction of the force is always along the line joining the centres of the two bodies and the distance between the centres is taken to be d. In case when the bodies are not spherical or have irregular shape, then the direction of force is along the line joining their centres of mass and d is taken to be the distance between the two centres of mass.