The earth attracts a large flying bug toward its center with a force of 0.10 Newtons. With what force does the bug attract the earth itself?
what is Newtons third law? (Equal and opposite)
To determine the force with which the bug attracts the Earth itself, we can use Newton's law of universal gravitation. According to this law, the force of attraction between two objects is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.
In this case, we can assume that the mass of the bug is much smaller than the mass of the Earth, so we can consider the bug's mass negligible. Thus, we only need to focus on the force exerted by the bug on the Earth.
To calculate the force, we can rearrange the equation as follows:
F = G * (m1 * m2) / r^2
Where:
F is the force of attraction,
G is the gravitational constant (approximately 6.67430 × 10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2),
m1 is the mass of the bug (negligible),
m2 is the mass of the Earth (approximately 5.972 × 10^24 kg), and
r is the distance between the bug and the center of the Earth.
Since we're given the force exerted by the Earth on the bug (0.10 Newtons), we need to solve for the force exerted by the bug on the Earth. However, since the bug's mass is negligible, the force of attraction on the Earth due to the bug is also negligible. In other words, the force with which the bug attracts the Earth itself is extremely small, to the point where it is not significant in most practical scenarios.
Therefore, in this situation, we can say that the force with which the bug attracts the Earth is negligible or can be considered zero for practical purposes.