Universal Gravitation and Weight

Vocabulary terms covering the fundamental concepts of gravity, weight, and their mathematical relationships as described in the lecture notes.

Gravitas

The Latin word meaning "weight, seriousness" from which the English word gravity is derived.

Gravity

A noncontact attractive interaction between any two objects having mass.

Free fall

The effect of objects accelerating toward the ground caused by the force of gravity.

Weight

The gravitational force exerted by Earth on an object, resulting from their gravitational attraction.

Proportional to Mass

A relationship where an object's weight is directly related to its mass; if mass increases, weight increases accordingly.

Inversely Proportional to the Square

The relationship defining that weight changes relative to the inverse of the square of the distance between the centers of mass of the object and Earth.

Linearized data

Data plotted as a function of distance that forms a straight line to show inverse square proportionality.

Slope (Weight vs. Mass)

In a plot of weight vs. mass, this represents the value of approximately $9.40\,N/kg$ or $10\,N/kg$.