- #1
XSethX
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Four 9.5 kg spheres are located at the corners of a square of side .60 m. Calculate the magnitude and direction of the total gravitational force exerted on one sphere by the other three.
So, essentially my question is, why can I not use center of mass of the other 3 spheres to calculate the gravitational force? I set the top left sphere as my frame of reference, and found the center of mass of the bottom left and top right spheres and calculated the gravitational force at that center of mass on the top left sphere (I narrowed down my error to this part.) Why can I not do this? Thanks in advance!
Edit: Very very sorry, realized I should have posted this in "Introductory Physics Homework"...
So, essentially my question is, why can I not use center of mass of the other 3 spheres to calculate the gravitational force? I set the top left sphere as my frame of reference, and found the center of mass of the bottom left and top right spheres and calculated the gravitational force at that center of mass on the top left sphere (I narrowed down my error to this part.) Why can I not do this? Thanks in advance!
Edit: Very very sorry, realized I should have posted this in "Introductory Physics Homework"...