Acceleration due to gravity

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An object with mass m near the surface of the Earth experiences a downward gravitational force of magnitude mg, where g is the acceleration due to gravity. The quantity g has the dimension of acceleration, m s−2, hence its name.

Newton's gravitational law gives the following formula for g,

where G is the universal gravitational constant, G = 6.67428 × 10−11 m3 kg−1 s−2, ME is the total mass of the Earth, and RE is the radius of the Earth. This equation gives a good approximation, but is not exact. Deviations are caused by the centrifugal force due to the rotation of the Earth around its axis, non-sphericity of the Earth, and the non-homogeneity of the composition of the Earth. These effects are the cause that g varies roughly ±0.01 around the value 9.8 m s−2 from place to place on the surface of the Earth. The quantity g is therefore referred to as the local gravitational acceleration.

The 3rd General Conference on Weights and Measures (Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, CGPM) defined in 1901 a standard value denoted as gn.[1][2] The value of the standard acceleration due to gravity gn is 9.80656 m s−2.



References

  1. [http://physics.nist.gov/Document/sp330.pdf The International System of Units (SI), NIST Special Publication 330, 2001 Edition] (pdf page 29 of 77 pdf pages)
  2. [http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf#page=51 Bureau International des Poids et Mesures] (pdf page 51 of 88 pdf pages)