Nearly every physics textbook has an adequate section regarding Newton’s universal gravitation, Cavendish’s work and an introduction of Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. Therefore, in this work I will not attempt to teach those topics, but will assume that students have a basic understanding of the physics involved as it pertains to an understanding of gravity. Many textbooks do not contain a treatment on current understanding and development of the ideas regarding gravitation. Those that do often place this material as footnotes to a chapter or as chapters late in the text that a typical class may never cover. This chapter of the Century Physics FlexBook will attempt to address our changing understanding of gravitation and in doing so also introduce the student to a few interesting areas of astronomy and cosmology. This chapter should be an appropriate extension to a study of Newton’s universal law of gravitation. The presentation deals with gravitation from a purely conceptual approach. The appropriate high school level mathematical treatment would pertain to Newton’s universal law of gravitation and it is assumed that the students will study from traditional text or with their teachers.
The chapter is set up in dialogue style. This technique has a wonderful heritage in physics going back to Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems published in 1632. Bold Print statements represent questions asked by a student with the appropriate answers following. It is my practice and suggestion that a treatment of universal gravitation in a high school physics class be approached in a historical manner starting with Aristotle and extending to as near the present understanding as possible.