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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Tidal Locking And The Gravitational Fold Catastrophe, Andrea Ferroglia, Miguel C. N. Fiolhais
Tidal Locking And The Gravitational Fold Catastrophe, Andrea Ferroglia, Miguel C. N. Fiolhais
Publications and Research
The purpose of this work is to study the phenomenon of tidal locking in a pedagogical framework by analyzing the effective gravitational potential of a two-body system with two spinning objects. It is shown that the effective potential of such a system is an example of a fold catastrophe. In fact, the existence of a local minimum and saddle point, corresponding to tidally locked circular orbits, is regulated by a single dimensionless control parameter that depends on the properties of the two bodies and on the total angular momentum of the system. The method described in this work results in …
Universal Gravitation And Circular Motion, Xin Gao
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.