Posted by Rachel on Friday, March 11, 2011 at 7:35pm.
Relative to a situation where the masses are widely separated, the potential energy of the equilateral configuration will be negative. That is because it will require work to separate them.
A single mass m has no potential associated with it.
When you add a second mass m at distance a, there will potential anergy equal to
-G m^2/a
When you bring in a third mass m at distance a from both, you add potential energy equal to -2G m^2/a
The total potential energy is therefore
-3G m^2/a
G is the universal constant of gravity, m = 0.0021 kg and a = 0.22 m
Expect a very small number.
The constant G can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_constant
Thank you very much sir!
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