Now Let us Reflect on Some Spinny Things, and Some Gravitational Things...

Uniform Circular Motion...
In this unit we learned a great deal about uniform circular motion. Objects in UCM have a constant speed but they do not have a constant velocity. They do not have a constant velocity because the object is not changing magnitude though it is changing direction, making the velocity not be constant. Also we learned that if the uniform circular motion breaks, then the object will go in the direction of the tangental line of the circle at that exact point. If an object in UCM changes direction then the object is accelerating in which the acceleration is always pointed towards the center of the circle. The centripetal force can be caused by many different variable such as tension, normal, or any other force, so you would just have to equal Fc to which ever force causes it.

Universal Gravitation...
Now for some Gravitational de Universal! Newton found that the corfe that causes objects to fall to the earth exists between all other bodies. He discovered that the gravitational force varies inversely with the square of the distance between the centers of the two masses. The Law of Universal Gravitation says that, " Every object in the universe attracts every object in the universe with a force that varies directly with the product of their masses and inversely with the square of the distance between the centers of the two masses." This force is G=6.67X10^-11 which can be used for any planet no matter where it is.

This was a really challenging unit. The circular motion was not that difficult or hard to learn, but the main problem was the Universal Gravitation. I was able to set up the equations but the main problem was that you had to solve it mostly on the calculator. I was able to use my problem solving skills to just over use the parenthesies, and then once I fixed that I started getting the right answers without having to redo the calculations 10 times!