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Newton’s Laws of Gravitation

Definition

Newton's Law of Gravitation states that every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square distance between them.

Analogy

Imagine if people were attracted towards each other based on how much they liked chocolate. The more both people loved chocolate (mass), and closer they were (distance), stronger would be their attraction! But if one person moved away (increasing distance), this attraction would decrease significantly.

Related terms

Gravity: Gravity is what we call this attractive force that exists between any two masses, any two bodies, any two particles. It's like the universal glue that keeps everything from floating away.

Mass: Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object. In our chocolate analogy, it would be how much someone loves chocolate.

Inverse Square Law: This law states that a specified physical quantity or intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source of that physical quantity. In simpler terms, if you double your distance from something, its effect on you becomes four times less (2 squared).