月面の材料:宇宙船による密度と強度の測定

When a lump of clay is dropped into water, it sinks. But if the same lump of clay is molded into the shape of a boat, it starts to float. Because of its shape, the clay boat displaces more water than the lump and experiences a greater buoyant force, even though its mass is the same. The same holds true for steel ships. The average density of an object majorly determines if the object will float. If an object's average density is less than that of the surrounding fluid, it will float. The reason...

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...

An object's apparent weight is its weight measured by a spring balance at its location. It is different from its true weight, the force with which the Earth pulls it, because of the Earth's rotation. Mathematically, an object's apparent weight equals its true weight minus the centripetal force that keeps it in a circular motion along with the Earth's surface every 24 hours.
The difference between the true and apparent weights is proportional to the square of the Earth's angular speed. Since the...

Density is an important characteristic of substances, crucial in determining whether an object sinks or floats in a fluid. Its SI unit is kg/m3, and its cgs unit is g/cm3. The density of an object helps in identifying its composition, and also reveals information about the phase of the matter and its substructure. The densities of liquids and solids are roughly comparable, consistent with the fact that their atoms are in close contact. However, gases have much lower densities than liquids and...

Since all objects on the Earth's surface move through a circle every 24 hours, there must be a net centripetal force on each object, directed towards the center of that circle. The points of the north and south poles are the only exception to this rule.
For an object on the Earth's equator, the net centripetal force that accounts for its rotation is the Earth's pull towards its center, or the weight minus the normal force that prevents it from piercing into the Earth's surface. This force,...

Consider a coffee mug hanging on a hook in a pantry. If the mug gets knocked, it oscillates back and forth like a pendulum until the oscillations die out.
A simple pendulum can be described as a point mass and a string. Meanwhile, a physical pendulum is any object whose oscillations are similar to a simple pendulum, but cannot be modeled as a point mass on a string because its mass is distributed over a larger area. The behavior of a physical pendulum can be modeled using the principles of...