Gravity is one of the fundamental forces of nature. No matter what
we try, we are pretty much always under the affect of gravity from
some body. As a matter of fact, based on the laws of physics we are
constantly under the affect of gravity from an almost uncountable
number of items. For this assignment, you will compute the force of
gravity between various elements.
Details
The gravitational force between two objects can be computed using
the equation:
F = G × M1 × M2 / r2
Where the gravitational constant G = 6.673
× 10-11,
M1
and M2
are the masses (in kg) of the objects in question,
and r is the distance (in meters) between
the centers of mass of the two objects.
Write a function called compute_gravitational_force(mass1,
mass2, distance), which will compute this force. This
function takes 3 floating point values: the masses of the two
elements, and the distance beween the two items (in meters).
This function should return the gravitational force, labeled
appropriately.
You will also need functions to convert from kilometers to meters and
from pounds to kilograms.
Make sure you test these three functions thoroughly before you continue on.
The Sun has a mass of roughly 1.981 ×
1030 kg. Its mass is over 300 times that of the
Earth (5.97 × 1024 kg).
Compute the gravitational force between the Sun and the Earth,
assuming the average distance between them is 147 million km.
The Earth's orbit is not perfectly circular. The elliptical nature
of the orbit causes the distance between the Earth and the Sun to
vary by about 5 million km over the
course of the year (about 2.5 million km in either direction).
Write a new function that returns how this affects the gravitational
force, by computing the gravitational force for every 1000 km
increment in that range.
You can also use this equation to compute the force of gravity that
is acting upon you from the Earth. Look up the radius of the Earth,
and plug in your weight into the above function. If you try some
various weights, you could probably find a shorter equation to
compute this same value.
Write a new function that simply compute the force of gravity (on
earth).
"Hacker" Prompt
-
My Pancreas:
My pancreas attracts every other
Pancreas in the universe
With a force proportional
To the product of their masses
And inversely proportional
To the distance between them...
"Weird Al" Yankovic in Pancreas
Who would have thought that real physics would appear in such an
absurd song? It's true, your pancreas does attract every other
pancreas in the universe. The typical human pancreas weighs
about 80 grams. Compute the attractive force between your
pancreas and a person who is 1 meter away from you.
-
Magnets, how do they work? One of the goals behind the
"Grand Unified Theory" of Physics is to describe all four of the
fundamental forces of the Standard Model using one single force
equation. While it might seem like a silly thing to do, we know
that the equations for the electro-magnetic forces and
gravitational forces are very similar:
F = k × q1 × q2 / r 2
Where q1 and q2 are the charges of two
electro-magnetic particles (measured in Coulombs), r is the
distance between them (measured in meters), and k is Coulombs
constant defined as :
k ≈ 9 × 109 N ˙ m2 / C2
Write a function to also compute this force as well. Research
the electro-magnetic force, and use your function to compute
some well known magnetic forces.