The Student Room Group

Re: Newton's Law of Gravity

Isaac Newton said that the magnitude of the gravitational attraction between two objects is directly proportional to the product of their masses, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Please bare in mind that G, the gravitational constant, was not yet found. Does anyone have any Mathematical material that would explain what led him to this assumption? Thank you.

Regards,
Newton
Reply 1
Kepler's laws of planetary motion were well known by Newton. Newton discovered that if we assumed the force between two bodies was an inverse square law and proportional to the product of the masses then he could derive Kepler's laws from them.

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