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Newton's Law Of Universal Gravitation

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Two lead spheres each of mass 8 kg are placed so their centres are 20 cm apart on a smooth bench. What is the gravitational force of attraction between them?

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About This Question

Subject
physics
Chapter
gravitation
Topic
newton's law of universal gravitation
Difficulty
Medium
Year
2025
Tags
Newton's law of gravitationgravitational constantinverse square lawpoint mass approximationcentre-to-centre distance

Solution

Correct Answer:

According to NCERT Class 11, Chapter 8 (Gravitation), every point mass attracts every other point mass with a force directed along the line joining their centres, given by Newton's law of gravitation , where is the universal gravitational constant. This law is universal, applying equally to laboratory spheres and to planets. Because each sphere is uniform, the shell theorem lets us treat all of its mass as concentrated at its centre, so the centre-to-centre distance is the correct separation to use. Substituting gives . The option doubles the result, an error from mishandling the product of the masses. The value wrongly keeps in centimetres rather than converting to metres. The value comes from using instead of . As a plausibility check, gravitational forces between everyday masses are extremely small because is tiny, so a result of order is entirely consistent.

This medium difficulty physics question is from the chapter gravitation, covering the topic of newton's law of universal gravitation. It appeared in the 2025 exam.

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