Related Concept Videos

Gravitation01:16

Gravitation

In the years before Newton, a general belief prevailed that different laws governed objects in the sky than objects on Earth. When Kepler wrote down the three laws of planetary motion, explaining in detail the geometrical properties of the planetary orbits around the Sun, there was no immediate idea to discern their connection with more fundamental laws. It was Isaac Newton who, in 1665–66, figured out the connection between planetary motion, the motion of the moon around the Earth, and the...
Tidal Forces01:06

Tidal Forces

The origin of Earth's ocean tides has been a subject of continuous investigation for over 2000 years. However, the work of Newton is considered to be the beginning of the proper understanding of the phenomenon. Ocean tides are the result of gravitational tidal forces. These same tidal forces are present in any astronomical body; they are responsible for the internal heat that creates the volcanic activity on Io, one of Jupiter's moons, and the breakup of stars that get too close to black holes.
Simple Harmonic Motion and Uniform Circular Motion01:42

Simple Harmonic Motion and Uniform Circular Motion

While simple harmonic motion and uniform circular motion may be two separate concepts, they correlate and interlink with each other. Simple harmonic motion is an oscillatory motion in a system where the net force can be described by Hooke's law, while uniform circular motion is the motion of an object in a circular path at constant speed.
There is an easy way to produce simple harmonic motion by using uniform circular motion. For instance, consider a ball attached to a uniformly rotating...
Gravity between Spherical Bodies01:27

Gravity between Spherical Bodies

Newton's law of gravitation describes the gravitational force between any two point masses. However, for extended spherical objects like the Earth, the Moon, and other planets, the law holds with an assumption that masses of spherical objects are concentrated at their respective centers.
This assumption can be proved easily by showing that the expression for gravitational potential energy between a hollow sphere of mass (M) and a point mass (m) is the same as it would be for a pair of extended...
Eccentricity of an Ellipse01:27

Eccentricity of an Ellipse

An ellipse is a fundamental conic section defined by the constant sum of distances from any point on its curve to two fixed points, known as the foci. This geometric property can be physically demonstrated using a pencil, string, and two pins. By anchoring the string at both ends and maintaining it taut with a pencil, one can trace the outline of an ellipse.The shape and extent of the ellipse are determined by its eccentricity, e, defined as the ratio of the distance between the center and a...
Cause and Effect01:53

Cause and Effect

While variables are sometimes correlated because one does cause the other, it could also be that some other factor, a confounding variable, is actually causing the systematic movement in our variables of interest. For instance, as sales in ice cream increase, so does the overall rate of crime. Is it possible that indulging in your favorite flavor of ice cream could send you on a crime spree? Or, after committing crime do you think you might decide to treat yourself to a cone?