## The gravity of the situation

May 11, 2007 at 3:33 am | Posted in Cartoon, Climate science, Humor, Humour, Mathematics, Science, Students | 2 Comments

Isaac Newton’s theory of universal gravitation states:

Every single point mass attracts every other point mass by a force pointing along the line combining the two. The force is proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the point masses:

$F=G\frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2}$

$F$ is the magnitude of the gravitational force between the two point masses
$G$ is the gravitational constant
$m_1$ is the mass of the first point mass
$m_2$ is the mass of the second point mass
$r$ is the distance between the two point masses

😎

Luckily, I fixed my banda machine (!) to duplicate that cartoon as an example of what is going on today (and why it is good to concentrate in Classical Mechanics classes even if you study Politics).

In other words, kids, this is true:

Every object attracts every other object with a force ( $F$ ) that is proportional to the product of their masses ( $m_1 m_2$) and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the two objects ( $\frac{1}{r^2}$ ).

🙂 >–<🙂

The edits to that original wording make an amusing diversion that may also be true, but has nothing to do with Newton, his theories, classical mechanics, mathematics, science:

Every object might attract some other object with a force that is debatable by the policymakers and their lobbyists and completely proportional to the clout of the interest group and the political objective.

😉😕😉😕

Get it? Now hop on over to DeSmogBlog and sign the petition to