Interactive Physics

Changing Gravity

BHS -> Staff -> Mr. Stanbrough ->IP How-To Notes -> this page

To change the effect of gravity in the Interactive Physics program, pull down the World Menu and select "Gravity..." This will open the Gravity Dialog, where the choices are:

No Gravity

No gravity dialog Clicking on "None" turns off the effects of gravity altogether.

Vertical Gravity

Vertical Gravity Dialog Clicking on "Vertical" creates the "normal" gravity that you are familiar with - a force equal to their weight directed vertically downward.

You have the option to adjust the acceleration due to gravity, however, either with the slider or by typing a new value.

Planetary Gravity

Planetary Gravity Dialog Clicking on "Planetary" creates a gravitational force between any two masses given by Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation. The force is directly proportional to the masses of the objects and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

You may adjust the proportionality constant "G" by moving the slider or entering a value. The default value is realistic.

Keep in mind that this gravitational force is extremely weak for human-scale objects - at least one of the objects must have a planetary or solar-scale mass for this force to be effective.

BHS -> Staff -> Mr. Stanbrough ->IP How-To Notes -> this page

last update June 12, 2000 by JL Stanbrough