Vector Form
Newton's law of universal gravitation can be written as a vector equation to account for the direction of the gravitational force as well as its magnitude. In this formula, quantities in bold represent vectors.
where
- F12 is the force applied on object 2 due to object 1,
- G is the gravitational constant,
- m1 and m2 are respectively the masses of objects 1 and 2,
- |r12| = |r2 − r1| is the distance between objects 1 and 2, and
- is the unit vector from object 1 to 2.
It can be seen that the vector form of the equation is the same as the scalar form given earlier, except that F is now a vector quantity, and the right hand side is multiplied by the appropriate unit vector. Also, it can be seen that F12 = −F21.
Read more about this topic: Newton's Law Of Universal Gravitation
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