What happens to the gravitational force between two objects if the mass of one object is tripled?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
What happens to the gravitational force between two objects if the mass of one object is tripled?
It becomes three times stronger
It becomes six times stronger
It becomes nine times stronger
It remains the same
The gravitational force is directly proportional to the product of the masses, so tripling one mass triples the force.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: What happens to the gravitational force between two objects if the mass of one object is tripled?
Solution: The gravitational force is directly proportional to the product of the masses, so tripling one mass triples the force.
Steps: 5
Step 1: Understand that gravitational force depends on the masses of two objects and the distance between them.
Step 2: Recall the formula for gravitational force: F = G * (m1 * m2) / r^2, where F is the gravitational force, G is the gravitational constant, m1 and m2 are the masses of the two objects, and r is the distance between them.
Step 3: If we triple the mass of one object (let's say m1 becomes 3 * m1), we can rewrite the formula as F' = G * (3 * m1 * m2) / r^2.
Step 4: Notice that the new force F' is now three times the original force F, because we have tripled one of the masses.
Step 5: Conclude that tripling the mass of one object results in tripling the gravitational force between the two objects.
