Gravity links for classes

Especially for Periods 8-9, for Thursday when Doc V will be out with a dental appointment, check out the beginnings of what we call FLUX, and the reason why gravity for most objects turns out to be an inverse-square law, or 1/r^2. The rule that is used to define and calculate this flux quantity is something we will call Gauss's law.

Notice I say "most objects." The 1/r^2 rule turns out to be true for objects that can be treated as a point mass or are spherical, like planets and stars. However, the law for gravity would actually change if the shape changes! We will think about what gravity would look like for us if the earth was a large cylinder, as well as what gravity would look like if the earth was actually flat! Gravity would behave differently! Take notes on this first video.

A second video to check out is for a hypothetical that is fun to think about - how does gravity behave inside the earth?!!?

After checking out these videos, you can work on a few things. If you need to still go through your last quizzam on momentum, check out the solutions in the Momentum folder on Doc V's school site, on the 3 Chem/Phys page. Or you can get together with your lab group to work on the pendulum lab, which will be shared with Doc V by next Wednesday. Or you can work on the conceptual questions about gravity on pages 5-6 of our packet. Note that there is a video on Einstein's principle of equivalence, if you want to check it out for the first question. This is a simple idea that led Einstein to develop his General Theory of Relativity (i.e. our modern theory of gravity).