So, I learned in physics class at school in the UK that the value of acceleration due to gravity is a constant called g and that it was 9.81m/s^2. I knew that this value is not a true constant as it is affected by terrain and location. However I didn’t know that it can be so significantly different as to be 9.776 m/s^2 in Kuala Lumpur for example. I’m wondering if a different value is told to children in school that is locally relevant for them? Or do we all use the value I learned?

  • DrunemetonEnglish
    6•1 year ago

    g = 9.80665 m/s^2 at sea level. Higher than sea level lowers the value due to GR (General Relativity).

    • @[email protected]English
      10•1 year ago

      Newtonian physics also has gravity decreasing with height, no need to get out the big guns.

            • @[email protected]English
              3•1 year ago

              G is also fixed in GR, although it’s not guaranteed to manifest in a neat relation like that in every situation because spacetime curvature has a lot of components at every point, and they interact super nonlinearly.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•1 year ago

          F=Gm1m2/r2

          G is the gravitational constant, the m’s are the masses in question, and F is the force generated. The r is radius from the center of one body to the other; that is, height. If it didn’t decrease, orbits wouldn’t exist the same way and astronomers would have laughed Newton out of the room.

          I could give you a link if you really want, but it’s the Newtonian gravity equation, so it’s probably just going to be “Gravity” on Wikipedia.