Strength of Materials 2 min read
Sir Isaac Newton and the Acceleration of Gravity
In A previous Topic we watched a video of Astronauts Scott and Irwin simultaneously dropping a hammer and feather to…
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Computing Potential Energy
Previous Topic we discovered that objects acquire potential energy as it relates to gravity based on the height those objects…
Strength of Materials 2 min read
Calculation of the Effect of Machines — How to Calculate Kinetic Energy
Last time we learned kinetic energy as the energy of movement. Today we’ll see how to calculate it, using French mathematician…
Strength of Materials 3 min read
Gravity and the Mass of the Sun
As a young school boy I found it hard to believe that scientists were able to compute the mass of…
Strength of Materials 2 min read
How Big is the Sun?
Last time we calculated the sun’s force of gravity acting upon Earth. It was the final unknown quantity within Newton’s equation…
Strength of Materials 2 min read
What is Earth’s Mass?
Last time we learned how Henry Cavendish used Christiaan Huygens’ work with pendulums to determine the value of g, the…
Strength of Materials 4 min read
The Scale of the Solar System
Kepler’s laws agree with all observed planetary motions, and by the table in the previous section, they give the correct…
Strength of Materials 5 min read
Transit of Venus
Fig. 1 The 2004 Venus transit observed from 3 locations by the GONG collaboration Kepler’s third law allows one to evaluate the dimensions of…
Strength of Materials 3 min read
Calculating the Distance to the Sun
We’ve been paying a lot of attention to Venus and its orbital patterns, as did scientist Edmund Halley hundreds of…
Strength of Materials 3 min read
Earth’s Orbital Velocity
As Already Discussed Newton’s equation to calculate the sun’s gravitational force acting upon Earth, and here we’ll begin solving for…
Strength of Materials 2 min read
Using Parallax to Measure Distance
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by…
Strength of Materials 3 min read
Optically Measuring Cosmic Distances
Last topic we learned that the bigger an optical rangefinder, the better its accuracy in measuring distant objects. here we’ll take that…