17 Answers
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The force that causes people to be stuck to the earth is their weight. Isaac Newton did not invent gravity. He did experiments to discover the value of g. An object’s weight is equal to the Universal gravitational force.
Weight = m * g
The following equation is called Newton’s law of gravitation.
Fg = G * M * m ÷ d^2
m * g = G * M * m ÷ d^2
g = G * M ÷ d^2
G = 6.67 * 10^-11
M is the mass of the earth. This is 5.98 * 10^24 kg.
For objects that are near or on the surface of the earth, d is the radius of the earth. This is 6.38 * 10^6 meters.
g = 6.67 * 10^-11 * 5.98 * 10^24 ÷ (6.38 * 10^6)^2
This is approximately 9.8 m/s^2. When you drop an object, this is its acceleration toward the earth. Now you know how this number was discovered.
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I think you may have some misconceptions here.
Going back a couple of centuries the world was flat. There was no need for gravity because everything just stayed down anyway.
At the time if you reached the edge of the world you fell off never to be seen again.
Now Galileo didn’t like this so he remade the earth into the form of an approximate sphere.
At the same time he decreed that henceforth there would be gravity. Look up his leaning tower of Pisa demonstration where he showed off his new process.
The pope wasn’t impressed with the modification of the earth but despite the objection of the religious zealots the scientist managed to keep the earth in its new form.
Newton did not invent gravity at all.
What he did was very clever. He took gravity from the surface of the earth and stretched it.
Further and further. Of course the gravity became weaker with distance.
His idea of gravity was to bring the benefits of gravity to the residents of the moon and of mars an of other planets.
Because it was intended to be useful everywhere his extension of gravity became known as UNIVERSAL gravity.
Gravity for the masses!
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Brandon, I am not quite as misinformed as you imagine. Some of the ancient Greeks may have been aware that the earth was round but the crews in Columbus time were not so aware.
Knowledge was lost in the interim. The religious dark ages intervened.
So presumably although the earth was round in Grecian times, the Pope had refashioned it to be flat.
So that the stars and the sun and moon could be placed in the firmament ABOVE the earth.
They couldn’t be above the earth unless the earth was flat with a “This side UP” label attached to it.
After all this work it is no wonder that he was cross with Galileo for undoing it.
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The question is a TROLL, but what Newton DID do was invent the IDEA of UNIVERSAL Gravity—-ALL mass and planetary and Celestial bodies having Gravity too. Before Newton, Gravity was usually considered the EARTH’S own attracting force. Newton proposed ALL MASS has Gravity.
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According to Aristotle everyone and everything had its’ natural place. Air up there and land beneath. It was just “natural’ to stay stuck to the Earth before Isaac Newton. After Isaac Newton it was gravity.
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That’s actually a really good question!
Before Newton’s concept of gravity, we generally believed in descartes’ concept of gravity. Basically, he thought that everything in the universe contained matter. There was nothing in the universe that was devoid of matter and the reason we are stuck on the earth is basically because there is matter in the way. That’s a super super vague explanation. I’d advise you to look it up if you’re really interested.
Before Descartes’, the ancient greeks believed in the 4 elements (air, water, earth, fire) and they were characterized by weight. Water and earth were heavy and thus had a natural tendency to go towards the center of the universe (they thought the earth was at the center) and air and fire went away from the center, towards the aether (sky). That’s why fire burns upwards.
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Newton did not invent gravity, and he did not discover it either. It was already there. He worked out a formula to calculate the force of gravity and he worked out the gravitational constant G = 6.67408 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2
He created his laws of motion. He did not create motion, but he defined the laws which explain how things move.
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Newton discovered gravity
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LoL he didnt invented gravity he just called that force gravity
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Is this like how did people get answers to their questions, before Mr. Yahoo invented this thing?
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It was a discover, not invented. Gravity was always there.