Physics Commons^™

Universal Gravitation And Circular Motion, Xin Gao

Open Educational Resources

This is designed to serve as a pre-lab. Students will be asked to watch videos linked to in the instructions before the lecture and complete a worksheet with thought- provoking questions guiding them to relating circular motion with the motion of a satellite or planet, and then think about what force is serving as the centripetal force for planets when they move around the sun. Students will also be prompted to think about whether or not there is really no gravity in space, so as to realize how misleading those terms, such as “weightless” or “zero gravity in space” are.