{"id":820,"date":"2019-06-17T19:27:11","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T19:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/louisville-wm-physics\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=820"},"modified":"2019-08-11T17:20:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-11T17:20:31","slug":"why-it-matters-gravitational-potential-energy","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/louisville-wm-physics\/chapter\/why-it-matters-gravitational-potential-energy\/","title":{"raw":"Why It Matters:  Gravitational Potential Energy","rendered":"Why It Matters:  Gravitational Potential Energy"},"content":{"raw":"When we initially determined that the change in the gravitational potential energy of an object as it moves up or down is equal to `\\pm mg \\Delta h `, we had assumed that the gravitational force acting on the object was constant.\u00a0 This was true near the surface of the Earth.\u00a0 If I have a set of point masses, however, the gravitational force that a point mass feels as it moves in the presence of other masses is not constant.\u00a0 Therefore, we can\u2019t use `\\Delta U_{g}=mg \\Delta h` to calculate the change in the gravitational potential energy of a point mass in the presence of other masses.\u00a0 We need to go back to our definition for the change in a potential energy to determine an equation we can use for the gravitational potential energy due to the interactions between point masses.","rendered":"<p>When we initially determined that the change in the gravitational potential energy of an object as it moves up or down is equal to `\\pm mg \\Delta h `, we had assumed that the gravitational force acting on the object was constant.\u00a0 This was true near the surface of the Earth.\u00a0 If I have a set of point masses, however, the gravitational force that a point mass feels as it moves in the presence of other masses is not constant.\u00a0 Therefore, we can\u2019t use `\\Delta U_{g}=mg \\Delta h` to calculate the change in the gravitational potential energy of a point mass in the presence of other masses.\u00a0 We need to go back to our definition for the change in a potential energy to determine an equation we can use for the gravitational potential energy due to the interactions between point masses.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-820\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Why It Matters:  Gravitational Potential Energy. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Raymond Chastain. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: University of Louisville, Lumen Learning. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":25803,"menu_order":1,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Why It Matters:  Gravitational Potential Energy\",\"author\":\"Raymond Chastain\",\"organization\":\"University of Louisville, Lumen 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