PhysicsCode 9702
Gravitational potential
What this topic asks you to be able to do
- define gravitational potential at a location as the amount of work performed for each unit of mass when a small test mass is moved from infinity to that location
- apply ϕ = –GM/r to obtain the gravitational potential within the field created by a point mass
- understand how gravitational potential energy for a pair of point masses follows from the idea of gravitational potential, and use EP = –GMm/r