Gravitation Study Guide

Question 1

describes the amount of resistance an object has to any application of force

Answer 1

inertial mass

Question 2

states that an imaginary line drawn between a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal time periods

Answer 2

Kepler’s 2nd Law

Question 3

If the _______ of an object is increased, the gravitational force it experiences will increase as a result.

Answer 3

gravitational mass

Question 4

The region around the Earth in which objects experience a force due to Earth’s gravity is called the __________

Answer 4

gravitational field

Question 5

________ suggests that objects attract other objects with a force that is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them

Answer 5

Newton’s law of universal gravitation

Question 6

Who was the first astronomer to propose that the Sun is the center of the solar system?

Answer 6

Nicholas Copernicus

Question 7

Who believed that all planets except Earth orbit the Sun?

Answer 7

Tycho Brahe

Question 8

Who used huge instruments he built himself to record the exact positions of the planets and stars?

Answer 8

Tycho Brahe

Question 9

Who used 30 years worth of observations made by other scientists and concluded that the planets orbit the Sun?

Answer 9

Johannes Kepler

Question 10

Who proposed that the force on a planet by the Sun is inversely proportional to the distance between centers of the planet and the Sun?

Answer 10

Isaac Newton

Question 11

Who discovered that the shape of a planet’s orbit is an ellipse?

Answer 11

Johannes Kepler

Question 12

Who was the first to theorize that the force that makes objects fall to Earth is the same force that the Sun exerts on the planets?

Answer 12

Isaac Newton

Question 13

Who used geometry and mathematics to discover his three laws of planetary motion?

Answer 13

Johannes Kepler

Question 14

Which of Kepler’s laws relates the motion of more than one object about a single body?

Answer 14

3rd

Question 15

Which of Kepler’s Laws describes the shape of the planet’s orbits?

Answer 15

1st

Question 16

Which of Kepler’s laws states that the Sun is located at one focus of a planet’s orbit?

Answer 16

1st

Question 17

Which of Kepler’s laws states that the square ratio of two planets is equal to the cube of the planet’s ratio distance?

Answer 17

3rd

Question 18

the action of feeling or showing sorrow and regret for having done wrong

Answer 18

penitence

Question 19

the rebirth of Europe characterized by the rediscovery of classical literature, the rebirth of art, and intellectual endeavors

Answer 19

Renaissance

Question 20

having or representing Earth as the center; “the Sun revolves around the Earth”

Answer 20

geocentricity

Question 21

having the Sun as the center, with Earth and other planets around it

Answer 21

heliocentricity

Question 22

a fixed or movable habitation typically of light construction; a meeting place for worship used by Protestants or Mormons

Answer 22

tabernacle

Question 23

an example or pattern of something; a model

Answer 23

paradigm

Question 24

unconsciousness or incapacity, resulting from a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke

Answer 24

apoplexy

Question 25

unchanging over time

Answer 25

immutable

Question 26

The motion of a projectile has both _____ and _______ components.

Answer 26

horizontal, vertical

Question 27

A projectile fired horizontally will accelerate toward Earth at a rate of ______

Answer 27

9.8 m/s^2

Question 28

If the magnitude of the _______ component of a projectile’s motion is great enough, the projectile will fall to Earth at the same rate that Earth curves away from the projectile.

Answer 28

horizontal

Question 29

A projectile fired horizontally from less than 150 km above the surface of Earth will fall back to Earth no matter how fast is it traveling because of _________________________

Answer 29

air resistance

Question 30

An object that falls to Earth at the same rate that Earth curves away from the object is said to be in ______________________

Answer 30

orbit

Question 31

the effect of mass on space:

Answer 31

curvature

Question 32

the effect of gravity on light:

Answer 32

deflection

Question 33

Einstein thought gravity was a (n):

Answer 33

effect of space

Question 34

an object so dense that light leaving the object is bent back on itself:

Answer 34

black hole

Question 35

predicts the effects of gravity

Answer 35

general theory of relativity

Question 36

allows us to picture gravity acting at a distance

Answer 36

gravitational field

Question 37

Newton’s law of universal gravitation allows us to calculate the __________force that exists between two bodies because of their masses

Answer 37

gravitational

Question 38

Einstein proposed that gravity is not a _______, but rather an effect of _______ itself.

Answer 38

force, space

Question 39

According to Einstein, the mass of a body changes the ______ around it.

Answer 39

space

Question 40

______ causes space to be curves, and other bodies are accelerated because of the way they follow this curved space.

Answer 40

Mass

Question 41

According to Einstein’s theory of _________, if an object is MASSIVE and DENSE ENOUGH, any light it emits is actually actually bent back to the object

Answer 41

general relativity

Question 42

What is the difference between gravitational and inertial masses?

Answer 42

Gravitational mass determines the force of attraction between two masses
Inertial mass is the measure of an object’s resistance to any type of force

Question 43

Who developed an experiment to measure G and why was it valuable?

Answer 43

Henry Cavendish; measured the universes gravitational constant and proved Newton’s Law of gravitation worked on scales much smaller than those of the universe