Newton and the apple

I if you believe the story, then the apple has a place in history. What Really Happened with the Apple? Probably the more correct version of the story is that Newton, upon observing an apple fall from a tree, began to think along the following lines: The apple is accelerated, since its velocity changes from zero as it is hanging on the tree and moves toward the ground. Thus, by Newton's 2nd Law there must be a force that acts on the apple to cause this acceleration. Let's call this force "gravity, and the associated acceleration the "acceleration due to gravity. Then imagine the apple tree is twice as high. Again, we expect the apple to be accelerated toward the ground, so this suggests that this force that we call gravity reaches to the top of the tallest apple tree. Sir Isaac's Most Excellent Idea Now comes Newton's truly brilliant insight: if the force of gravity reaches to the top of the highest tree, might it not reach even further; in particular, might it not reach all the way to the orbit of the Moon! Then, the orbit of the Moon about the Earth could be a consequence of the gravitational force, because the acceleration due to gravity could change the velocity of the Moon in just such a way that it followed an orbit around the earth. This can be illustrated with the thought experiment shown in the following fiqure. Suppose we fire a cannon horizontally from a high mountain; the projectile will eventually fall to earth, as indicated by the shortest trajectory in the figure, because of the gravitational force directed toward the center of the Earth and the associated acceleration. (Remember that an acceleration is a change in velocity and that velocity is a vector, so it has both a magnitude and a direction.

Thus, an acceleration occurs if either or both the magnitude and the direction of the velocity change.) An object that is falling under the sole influence of gravity. A free-falling object has an acceleration of 9.8 m/s/s, downward (on Earth). This numerical value for the acceleration of a free-falling object is such an important value that it is given a special name. It is known as the acceleration of gravity - the acceleration for any object moving under the sole influence of gravity. A matter of fact, this quantity known as the acceleration of gravity is such an important quantity that physicists have a special symbol to denote it - the symbol g. The numerical value for the acceleration of gravity is most accurately known as 9.8 m/s/s. There are slight variations in this numerical value (to the second decimal place) that are dependent primarily upon on altitude.

You might believe that Newton came up with all this gravity stuff and planetary motion by observing the apple. But you would be wrong. Actually it was his cannon that gave him the

inspiration. And this was in his mind Newton's did a thought experiment. "Imagine a huge cannon located on the surface of the earth, firing a cannonball at greater and greater speeds. Ignore the effects of air resistance. As the speed increases, the cannon ball will fall at greater and great distances from the cannon (A, B, C). At some point (D), the speed will be so great that by the time the cannonball "falls" to the earth, the surface of the earth will have curved away from it! Instead of striking the earth, the ball swings all the way around the earth. Now the cannonball is in orbit! If you continue to give the cannon ball more and more speed (D, E, F), its path will carry it farther and farther away from the earth as it travels around it. Newtons cannon ( below)

This thought is how we put satillites in orbit today. awsome isent it. Funny how we can base complex ideas and theories on simple foundations. so orbits came from that apple? an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System. Orbits of planets are typically elliptical. Note that the following is a classical (Newtonian) analysis of orbital mechanics, which assumes that the more subtle effects of general relativity, such as frame dragging and gravitational time dilation are negligible. Relativistic effects cease to be negligible when near very massive bodies (as with the precession of Mercury's orbit about the Sun), or when extreme precision is needed (as with calculations of the orbital elements and time signal references for GPS satellites.[8]) To analyze the motion of a body moving under the influence of a force which is always directed towards a fixed point, it is convenient to use polar coordinates with the origin coinciding with the center of force. In such coordinates the radial and transverse components of the acceleration are, respectively: and

Since the force is entirely radial, and since acceleration is proportional to force, it follows that the transverse acceleration is zero. As a result,

After integrating, we have which is actually the theoretical proof of Kepler's second law (A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time). The constant of integration, h, is the angular momentum per unit mass. It then follows that

where we have introduced the auxiliary variable

The radial force (r) per unit mass is the radial acceleration ar defined above. Solving the above differential equation with respect to time[9](See also Binet equation) yields:

In the case of gravity, Newton's law of universal gravitation states that the force is proportional to the inverse square of the distance:

where G is the constant of universal gravitation, m is the mass of the orbiting body (planet) - note that m is absent from the equation since it cancels out, and M is the mass of the central body (the Sun). Substituting into the prior equation, we have

So for the gravitational force or, more generally, for any inverse square force law the right hand side of the equation becomes a constant and the equation is seen to be the harmonic equation (up to a shift of origin of the dependent variable). The solution is:

where A and 0 are arbitrary constants. The equation of the orbit described by the particle is thus:

where e is:

In general, this can be recognized as the equation of a conic section in polar coordinates (r, ). We can make a further connection with the classic description of conic section with:

If parameter e is smaller than one, e is the eccentricity and a the semi-major axis of an ellipse. Boy is that apple getting heavy. Astronomers today can use Newtons thoughts to figure out orbital velocities an astronomer may wish to know how fast an object must travel in a circle around a central body so that it is in a stable circular orbit. This can be called the orbital velocity. Most of us have an intuitive understanding that if a satellite were to go too slowly in orbit that it would fall or it was going too fast it would be slung out of orbit. Let quantify that intuitive understanding by applying some simple physics to the situation. We will be examining a simplistic version of the orbital motion, where we assume the orbit is a circle. A general result can be derived for elliptical orbits, but its additional mathematical complexity, serves us no greater insight that this simpler circular motion assumption. Imagine a less massive object in a circular orbit around a more massive object as pictured below. There are two forces acting on the orbiting mass. One is the attractive force of gravity that we are already slightly familiar with. The other is a common force associated with circular motion called the centripetal force. (A real physicist knows that the centripetal force is not a real force but only an outcome of moving in an accelerated frame of reference If that sentence made no sense to you dont worry. I had to say it for the Physicists.) The centripetal force is the force that apparently tips you bag of groceries over when you are driving home and take a turn going too fast. The centripetal force always points towards the outside of the curve.

v d M FGravitational m

FCentripetal

FGravitational

Astronomers and Physicists use a technique to investigate problems like this using a Balance of forces approach. For the orbit to be stable the gravitational and centripetal forces must be equal and opposite so they cancel out. If one is too large it will either pull the object into the center of expel it from orbit. Lets see how the force balance plays out. The centripetal force has a fairly simple expression as shown below. It depends on the mass of the moving object, m, and its velocity v and distance from the center of the orbit, d. The force of gravitys formulation you know by now (I hope). By equating the two forces and substituting their expressions we can algebraically solve for the orbital velocity v.
Centripeta l mv d
2

Force = Gravitatio nal

Force

=G

vORBITAL

Mm d2 GM = d

Thats not so bad. The orbital velocity depends of the square root of the gravitational constant times the Mass of the planet divided by the radius of the orbit. Lets do an example: What is the speed required to orbit the Earth at the altitude of the Space Shuttle? M is the mass of the Earth (look it up (for now) in the Appendix of the text. The radius of the shuttles orbit is assumed to be 300 km plus the radius of the Earth.
M = 5.97 10 24 kg n km 2 kg 2

d = 6,378 km + 300 km = 6,678 km = 6.678 10 6 m G = 6.67 10 vORBITAL = vORBITAL

11

6.67 10 11 5.97 10 24 6.678 10 6 m km = 7.7 10 3 7.7 17 ,000 mph s s GM = d

As shown, the shuttle must travel at about 17,000 miles per hour to maintain a stable orbit. We can further calculate how long the shuttle requires to complete one orbit by dividing the circumference of its orbit by the orbital velocity.

T=

2rORBITAL 2 6.678 10 6 m = = 5.45 10 3 s = 1.51hrs vORBITAL 7.7 10 3 m / s

At this speed, the shuttle will circle the Earth once every 1.5 hours. During a 24 hour day the shuttle astronauts will see about 16 sunrises and sunsets. Lets do another example. This will lead somewhere interesting. Hang in there. What is the speed required to orbit the Earth at the altitude of the Moon? M is the mass of the Earth (look it

up (for now) in the Appendix of the text, as before. This time the radius of the orbit is the distance to the Moon which is, on average, 384,000 km. The calculation follows. M = 5.97 10 24 kg n km 2 kg 2

d = 384,000km = 3.84 108 m G = 6.67 10 17 vORBITAL vORBITAL

6.67 10 11 5.97 10 24 3.84 108 m km = 1.02 10 3 1 1,175mph s s GM = = d

As shown, the Moon must travel at about 1,200 miles per hour to maintain a stable orbit. This is much slower than the shuttle needs to move to stay in orbit. We can further calculate how long the Moon requires to complete one orbit by dividing the circumference of its orbit by the orbital velocity. 2rORBITAL 2 3.84 108 m T= = = 2.36 10 6 s = 27.3d 3 vORBITAL 1.02 10 m / s At this speed, the Moon will circle the Earth once every 27.3 days. We have seen this number before. Its the sidereal period of the Moon. This is the important point: The ancient astronomers have known that the moon cycles around the zodiac in 27.3 days for 1,000s of years, but only since Newtons time 300 years ago have we known why the Moon takes 27.3 days to cycle the zodiac. The Moon must take this amount of time because of the mass of the Earth and the distance the Moon orbits at. Lets look at one other historically important example of interpreting the orbital velocity equation. Keplers Third Law P2=a3 for circular orbits can be derived from a force balance argument similar to what we did before. Please try to follow the algebraic steps shown below where we solve for the orbital period T as a function of orbital radius r.

Centripeta l mv r
2

Force = Gravitatio nal

Force

=G M r

Mm r2

v2 = G
2

M 2r =G T r 2 2 4 r M =G T2 r 2 3 4 r = GMT 2 GMT
2

= 4 2 r 3 3 r

4 2 T2 = GM

This is a form of Keplers Third Law derived from Newtons Law of Gravity; Period squared is proportional to orbital radius cubed. Kepler worked on his Laws of planetary motion for 15 years before he came across the correct pattern. He didnt know why his third law was true, only that it appeared to be true. Again, Newton came to the rescue by proving that Keplers Laws (His 1st and 2nd, also) MUST be true because that is how gravity demands it be. It is amazing what can come fr5om a falling apple!