Force and Motion Before Newton

• Galileo
– Determined that objects fall at the same rate, regardless
of their weight
– Concluded that motion is a natural state (an object in
motion will stay in motion until something stops it)
• René Descartes (1596–1650)
– Undisturbed motion continues in a straight line
– Self-sustaining circular motion therefore not possible
• Kepler
– Motion of planets due to “paddle” effect of Sun’s rays
(“anima motrix” force)
– Magnetism accounted for ellipticity of planetary orbits
• Robert Hooke (1635–1703)
– Showed that a central force could lead to orbital motion
– Falling objects and planetary orbits are due to same force
 Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727)
• Kepler’s Laws provide an accurate description of
planetary orbits, but do not explain them
– Newton provided the full explanation
• Newton lived in England and was educated
at Trinity College in Cambridge
• Shortly after Newton received B.A. degree
(1665), a plague epidemic shut down Cambridge
• During the next 2 years at his family farm, Newton
made major advances in several fields
– Invented calculus (needed to solve his new equations)
– Fundamental discoveries in optics (later included
development of the first reflecting telescope)
– Fundamental and universal discoveries in mechanics
• Newton published his findings in the Principia (1687)
 Newton’s Laws of Motion
• Newton’s 1st Law: An object remains at rest or
continues in motion at constant velocity unless it is
acted on by an unbalanced external force
– Often called the law of inertia (since inertia describes an
object’s resistance to changes in motion)
– Essentially the same as the description of Descartes
– Led Newton to realize that planets must be attracted to
Sun by some force
• Velocity is the rate position changes with time
– Depends on speed (magnitude) and direction of motion
• Acceleration is the rate velocity changes with time
– Nonzero when speed and/or direction of motion changes
• Force is a push or a pull that affects motion
– Can act when objects touch (contact forces) or even when
objects are separated by some distance (like gravity)
 Newton’s Laws of Motion
• Momentum (p) is the product of mass (m) and
velocity (v): p  mv
– Mass is an intrinsic property of an object that describes its
resistance to acceleration and amount of material in object
• Newton’s 2nd Law: When a net force (Fnet) acts on an
object, it produces a change in the momentum of the
object in the direction in which the force acts
– A change in momentum could be a change in mass and/or
velocity
– Usually, mass remains constant, in which case: Fnet  ma
– An object accelerates when the sum of all forces acting on
it is not zero
– Zero acceleration does not necessarily mean that there
are no forces acting on an object
 Newton’s Laws of Motion
• Newton’s 3rd Law: When one body exerts a force on
a second body, the second body also exerts a force
on the first. These forces are equal in strength, but
opposite in direction
– Sometimes called law of action and reaction
– “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”
– Forces always come in pairs (action–reaction pairs)
– Action–reaction pair forces always act on different objects
– When a small car and large truck collide, both experience
the same force and thus the same change in momentum
(but the less massive car experiences a larger change in
velocity)
– Total momentum of interacting objects is conserved
(remains the same) when forces are acting between them
 Newton’s Development of Gravity
• A key step in Newton’s understanding of gravity was
the calculation of an object’s centripetal acceleration
during circular motion 
v 
– We know an acceleration must be a 
present because object’s velocity   v
a a
keeps changing
• Associated with a centripetal  
v a
acceleration is a centripetal force

– Responsible for the circular motion v

– Familiar example: ball whirling around F
on a string (tension in string provides  
F F
centripetal force)

F
 Newton’s Development of Gravity
• Newton found that a falling apple experiences the
same type of force (gravity) as the Moon orbiting the
Earth
– In Newton’s own words: I thereby compared the force
requisite to keep the Moon in her orb with the force of
gravity at the surface of the Earth, and found them answer
pretty nearly.
• Newton’s Law of Gravitation: Every 2 particles of
matter in the universe attract each other through the
gravitational force
GMm
– Magnitude of the gravitational force: FG  2
• G = 6.67  10 Nm/kg
–11 2 d
• M, m are the 2 interacting masses M
• d = distance between M and m FG
d
– Direction always indicates attraction
• Equal magnitude forces in opposite directions FG
m
 Newton’s Development of Gravity
• Newton also showed (using integral calculus) that
the gravitational force between 2 spheres is the
same as the force between 2 point masses:
M
FG FG m M FG FG m
=
d d
(spherically symmetric masses) (point masses concentrated at centers)
• The weight of an object is the gravitational force
attracting an object to the Earth: GmM Earth
W 2
 mg
– g = acceleration of gravity = 9.8 m/s2 R
(or 32 ft/s2) at Earth’s surface (R = distance from Earth’s center)

– W and g depend on location (unlike mass)

– Weight on Moon < Weight on Earth (but mass is same)
 Newton’s Proofs of Kepler’s Laws
• Newton showed that elliptical orbits are the natural
result of gravity having a 12 dependence
r
– Thus proving Kepler’s First Law
• Newton showed that any body orbiting another body
under the force of gravity moves so that it sweeps out
equal areas in equal times
– Consequence of conservation of angular momentum
(momentum associated with rotation or revolution)
– Angular momentum is proportional to the product of orbital
distance and transverse velocity
– As orbital distance decreases, transverse velocity
increases (keeping angular momentum constant)
– These calculations proved Kepler’s Second Law
 Newton’s Proofs of Kepler’s Laws
• Newton was able to derive a more general form of
Kepler’s Third Law using his laws of motion and the
law of gravitation: 4a 3
2
P 
– P = orbital period Gm  M 
– a = average distance between the two bodies
– m, M are the masses of the two bodies
– If m = mass of planet, and M = mass of Sun, then m + M ≈
M
• That’s why Kepler found that P2 / a3 is the same for each planet
– These results are extremely useful for determining the
masses of astronomical objects
• Newton never determined how gravity works at a
distance
– Took Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity to explain it
 Orbital Energy and Speed
• Another way to look at the changing speed of an
orbiting body is through the energy of the body
• Energy of an orbiting body has two components:
kinetic and gravitational potential energy
– Kinetic energy = energy of motion
– Gravitational potential energy = energy of position
• The larger the distance from the Sun, the larger the gravitational
potential energy
• The smaller the distance from the Sun, the smaller the gravitational
potential energy
– Kinetic energy + gravitational potential energy = a constant
– When kinetic energy goes up by some amount,
gravitational potential energy goes down by the same
amount, and vice-versa
 Orbital Energy and Speed
• From energy calculations, we can determine the
orbital speed of an object moving in a circular orbit
about the Sun: GM
– M = mass of Sun vc  (circular speed)
d
– d = distance of object from the Sun
• For an elliptical orbit, the average orbital speed is
about the same as the circular speed for a
d
semimajor axis length that is the same as a
the radius (d) of the circular orbit (d = a)
• If the orbital speed of an object is large enough,
it can escape from its orbit
– This speed (escape velocity) is also the speed 2GM
necessary to escape the influence of gravity ve 
d
of an object (escape velocity)
• Important for launching spacecraft from Earth
 Orbital Trajectories
• Bodies moving slower than escape velocity follow
circular or elliptical trajectory
• Bodies moving at escape velocity follow a parabolic
trajectory
• Bodies moving faster than escape velocity follow a
hyperbolic trajectory

Circle Ellipse Parabola Hyperbola

(http://www.math2.org/math/algebra/conics.htm)
 Tides
• Whenever one object is attracted gravitationally to
another, the various parts of the object feel
gravitational forces differing in strength and direction
GMm
FG 
d2

Moon (m)
Earth (M)
– The differences in gravitational attraction that occur are
called tidal forces
– Strength of tidal force depends on strength of gravity on
side nearest attractor vs. that on side farthest from
attractor
– Tides are distortions in shape resulting from tidal forces
 Tides
• Tidal distortions cause an elongation of Earth and
the Moon along a line connecting the centers of both
bodies

Moon
Earth
(The amount of tidal distortion is exaggerated greatly in this drawing!)

• The effect of tides can be seen by noting the

differences in acceleration (including direction) at
various points on or in the object, measured relative
to tidal acceleration at the center
– Tidal acceleration has both horizontal and vertical
components in general
 Tides
• Both the Sun and Moon cause tidal forces on Earth
– Because of the Sun’s much greater distance, the solar
tidal acceleration is only about ½ of the lunar tidal
acceleration
• Since the Earth’s interior is very rigid, the solid Earth
distorts very little
– Maximum tidal distortion of solid Earth is only about 20 cm
• Tidal forces cause water in oceans to flow
– Produced by horizontal components of tidal forces
– Tidal force is weak (one ten millionth as strong as gravity
of the Earth)
– Collective motions of water molecules produce a
propagating wave that moves around Earth
– High tide occurs just after Moon crosses the meridian and
when Moon is on the opposite side of Earth (12 hours 25
minutes later)
 Tides
• Thus there are 2 high and 2 low tides per day at any
given location
– In a few areas on Earth (like the Gulf of Mexico), local
effects of the water basin act to modify tidal forces, and
these areas only have 1 high and 1 low tide per day
• When the Sun and Moon are aligned (full or new
Moon), the total tidal acceleration is the sum of the
tidal accelerations from the Sun and Moon
– Leads to what are called spring tides
– High (low) tides are unusually high (low)
– Has nothing to do with the spring season
• At first or last quarter Moon, tidal accelerations of
Moon and Sun partially cancel (neap tides)
– Tidal acceleration at spring tide is about 3x larger than at
neap tide
 Tides
• Spring tide example

Moon
Sun Earth

• Neap tide example Moon

Sun Earth
 General Relativity
• Newton’s theory of gravity doesn’t work well when
gravitational forces become too large (as is the case
for celestial objects)
• In this case, we need Albert Einstein’s General
Theory of Relativity (1916), a new way to think about
space and time
• Newton’s theory of gravity is really just an
approximation when distances, fields, and speeds
are on the order of our everyday experiences
 General Relativity
• At the foundation of general relativity is the Principle
of Equivalence:
– There is no experiment that can be done in a small
confined space that can detect the difference between a
uniform gravitational field and an equivalent uniform
acceleration.
 General Relativity
• Consider the following situations:
a=–g

Experiments performed in Experiments performed in

spacecraft while at rest on Earth spacecraft accelerating in free
will show affects of constant space with a = – g will give same
acceleration of gravity g results

 We can’t distinguish between the effects of an

acceleration and gravity
 General Relativity
• The equivalence between accelerated motion and
gravity suggested to Einstein a relationship
between space, time, and gravity
• According to general relativity, the presence of
matter (and energy) causes “spacetime” to warp or
curve
• Motion of particles determined by shape of
spacetime
• Amount of curvature is proportional to the density
of mass and energy  the more mass or energy,
the larger the curvature
• In the limit of speeds much smaller than the speed
of light and weak gravitational forces, space is
nearly flat and we can safely use Newton’s theory
of gravity
General Relativity

M.A. Seeds, The Solar System, 5th Ed., Thomson/Brooks-Cole, 2007

 General Relativity
• An implication of curved spacetime is that light is
affected by gravity
– Light merely follows the contour of spacetime
• Although effects of general relativity can be very small
(at surface of Sun, spacetime curvature is only 1 part
in 106), experimental tests have been performed which
verify predictions of general relativity
• Gravitational bending of starlight passing close to Sun
measured during total eclipse of Sun in 1919
– Two independent measurements in South America and
Africa obtained 1.98  0.16 and 1.61  0.40 seconds of arc
– General theory of relativity predicted 1.75 seconds of arc
• Many more experimental verifications obtained since