Gravitational acceleration

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Gravitational acceleration
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In physics, gravitational acceleration is the acceleration of an object caused by the force of gravity from another object. An interesting fact is that any object will accelerate towards a large object at the same rate, regardless of the mass of the object. On the surface of the Earth, all objects fall with an acceleration of one g, which is approximately equal to 9.80665 m/s² (32.17 ft/s²).

The gravitational acceleration towards an object with M mass is given by:

\mathbf{g}=-{MG \over r^2}\mathbf{\hat{r}}.

where:

r is the vector from center of the object to the location we are considering, and
G is the gravitational constant of the universe.

Mathematically, gravitational acceleration is negative of the gradient of the gravitational potential.

[edit] See also

* Air track

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_acceleration"

Categories: Gravity | Gravimetry
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