The Duality of Time Theory

Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that a particle with massattracts every other particle in the universe, with mass, via a forcethat is directly proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of the straight-line distancebetween their centers. Mathematically, this translates into the following equation:

Typically, the forceis measured in newtons, the massesandare measured in kilograms, while the distanceis measured in meters. The constantis the universal gravitational constant. The first experimental test of this law was conducted by Henry Cavendish in 1798, between small masses in the laboratory, 111 years after the publication of Principia.

Newton derived this general physical law from empirical observations that he called: inductive reasoning. When Newton’s book was presented in 1686 to the Royal Society, Robert Hooke (1635-1703 AD) made a claim that Newton had obtained the inverse square law from him. It can also be noted that the law of gravitation resembles Coulomb’s law of electrical forces, which is used to calculate the magnitude of the electrical force arising between two charged bodies, since both are inverse-square laws.

Newton’s law of gravitation is now superseded by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, but it continues to be used as an excellent approximation in most practical applications, when there is no need for extreme precision, or when the gravitational fields are not very strong.