Newton's cannonball

Newton's cannonball

Newton's cannonball was a thought experiment Isaac Newton used to hypothesize that the force of gravity was universal, and it was the key force for planetary motion. It appeared in his 1728 book A Treatise of the System of the World.

Contents

The experiment

Newton Cannon.svg

In this experiment Newton visualizes a cannon on top of a very high mountain.

If there were no forces of gravitation or air resistance, then the cannonball should follow a straight line away from Earth.

If a gravitational force acts on the cannon ball, it will follow a different path depending on its initial velocity.

  1. If the speed is low, it will simply fall back on Earth. (A and B)
  2. If the speed is the orbital velocity at that altitude it will go on circling around the Earth along a fixed circular orbit just like the moon. (C)
  3. If the speed is higher than the orbital velocity, but not high enough to leave Earth altogether (lower than the escape velocity) it will continue revolving around Earth along an elliptical orbit. (D)
  4. If the speed is very high, it will indeed leave Earth. (E)

Other appearances

  • An image of the page from the System of the World showing Newton's diagram of this experiment was included on the Voyager Golden Record [1] (image #111).

See also


Notes

  1. ^ Sagan, Carl et al. (1978) Murmurs of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-41047-5 (hardcover), ISBN 0-345-28396-1 (paperback)

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Newton's law of universal gravitation — Classical mechanics Newton s Second Law History of classical mechanics  …   Wikipedia

  • Newton Cannon — Not to be confused with Newton s Cannon or Newton s cannonball. Newton Cannon (May 22, 1781 – September 16, 1841) was an American politician who was a member of the Tennessee State Senate from 1811 to 1812 and 1829 to 1830, the U.S. House of… …   Wikipedia

  • Newton's Cannon — See also: Newton s cannonball Newton s Cannon (1998) is the first novel in Gregory Keyes s The Age of Unreason series. The main protagonist for the novel is Benjamin Franklin, other key characters to the novel are James Franklin Ben s brother,… …   Wikipedia

  • Isaac Newton — Sir Isaac Newton …   Wikipedia

  • Isaac Newton's early life and achievements — IsaacNewtonSegmentsThe following article is part of an in depth biography of Sir Isaac Newton, the English mathematician and scientist, author of the Principia .ChildhoodSir Isaac Newton was born on December 25, 1642 [ OS: 25 December 1642] in… …   Wikipedia

  • Orbit — This article is about orbits in celestial mechanics, due to gravity. For other uses, see Orbit (disambiguation). A satellite orbiting the Earth has a tangential velocity and an inward acceleration …   Wikipedia

  • Mass — This article is about the scientific concept. For the substance of which all physical objects consist, see Matter. For other uses, see Mass (disambiguation). Classical mechanics …   Wikipedia

  • Space gun — For other uses, see Space gun (disambiguation). The Quicklauncher spacegun A space gun is a method of launching an object into outer space using a large gun, or cannon. It provides a method of non rocket spacelaunch‎. In the HARP Project a U.S.… …   Wikipedia

  • List of physics topics M-Q — NOTOC A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z> M * M theory * M theory simplified MaMac* Mach, Ernst * Mach s principle Mag Mal* Magnetic confinement * Magnetic dipole * Magnetic field * Magnetic flux * Magnetic levitation * Magnetic… …   Wikipedia

  • Thought experiment — A thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment ) is a proposal for an experiment that would test a hypothesis or theory but cannot actually be performed due to practical limitations; instead its purpose is to explore the potential… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”