Re: Newton's Gravity

Jonathan Thornburg [remove -color to reply] il 16/01/2025 09:38:21 ha
scritto:

In article <vm536m$2acss$1@dont-email.me>, Thomas Koenig pointed out
a crucial ambiguity with Luigi's suggested formula.  His argument may
be easier to follow if we consider a simple special case: Suppose we
have 3 similar masses A, B, and C, arranged like this:
>
                      B
     A
                      C
>
with B and C actually touching (hard to represent in ASCII-art) so as to
form a compound object B+C.  What is the horizontal gravitational force
between A and the compound object B+C?

Is this diagram of yours the one on the left side of my animation
https://www.geogebra.org/m/yvvc2rap ?

If not, can you tell me what changes I need to make to make it the way
you thought?

>
Here's a related problem: what if m_B = m_C = m_A/2 so that
m_A = m_B + m_C, i.e. A has the same mass as B+C?  How do we decide
which body (A or B+C) should be "m" and which should be "M" in Luigi's
formula?

If m=M there is no decision to make because (replacing M with m) the
formula becomes F=G2m^2/d^2.

Luigi Fortunati