How does the gravitational field strength vary with distance from a point mass?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
How does the gravitational field strength vary with distance from a point mass?
It increases linearly.
It decreases with the square of the distance.
It remains constant.
It decreases linearly.
The gravitational field strength decreases with the square of the distance from the point mass.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: How does the gravitational field strength vary with distance from a point mass?
Solution: The gravitational field strength decreases with the square of the distance from the point mass.
Steps: 5
Step 1: Understand what a point mass is. A point mass is an object that has mass but takes up no space, like a tiny dot.
Step 2: Know what gravitational field strength means. It is a measure of how strong the gravity is at a certain point in space due to a mass.
Step 3: Recognize that gravity pulls objects towards each other. The more mass an object has, the stronger its gravitational pull.
Step 4: Learn that gravitational field strength is affected by distance. As you move away from the point mass, the strength of the gravitational pull decreases.
Step 5: Understand the relationship between distance and gravitational field strength. Specifically, the strength decreases as the square of the distance increases. This means if you double the distance, the gravitational field strength becomes one-fourth as strong.
