What is the gravitational potential means? plz explain in simple words!?

Question

I can't imagine this thing...is it related to potential energy...????OR WHAT?

Answer 1

It is sometimes useful (mathematically) to think of gravity as a "field" surrounding a massive object, rather than as a "force" which pulls two objects together. In this view, the "gravitational potential" of the field refers to the amount of potential energy per kilogram that an object will have if it is located at a specific position within the field. The gravitational potential is expressed in Joules per kilogram, and it has a different value at different locations within the field.

For things like planets, the gravitational potential is given by this formula:

P = -GM/r

Where:
G = universal gravitational constant;
M = mass of planet;
r = location within the field (distance from center of planet)

At the earth's surface, the value of the gravitational potential is -62.5 million Joules per kg. (This ignores the contribution due to the gravity field of the sun.) One way to interpret this is that it would take 62.5 million Joules of energy to move 1 kg of mass from the earth's surface to a point infinitely far from the earth.

Answer 2

Gravitational potential is a scalar field -- that is, there is a simple numerical value assigned to each point in space. Let's call this value U.

Here's an example: Consider two points A and B.
A = point on surface of earth
B = point at some height h above A
(Let's keep h relatively small, so we can assume a uniform gravitational field.)

What is the "energy difference" between these points? There are two equivalent ways of thinking about this. First, if you try to move an object of mass m from A to B, it will require an energy, or work, of E=mgh, where g is the acceleration of gravity of the earth. Second, if you drop an object from B, it will have some velocity V when it reaches A. (Ignore air resistance.) The kinetic energy will be (1/2)mV^2, and this will be the same as E=mgh.

The gravitational potential at point A is lower than that of point B by a difference of gh. (We ignore the mass of the particle.) That is, this value (times m) is the energy it takes to move mass m from A to B, or the energy a mass gains when falling from B to A. We often say that the potential energy at point B is mgh, because that's how much energy the object gains by falling.

Consider the gravitational potential field of a uniform sphere like the earth (more or less). We arbitrarily set the potential at infinity to 0. The potential at any point P is the negative of the amount of energy (divided by m) that a body of mass m would gain when falling from infinity to P.

The potential of a uniform sphere of mass M is, for a point outside the sphere,
U = -GM/R
where G is the gravitational constant and R is the distance from the center of the sphere.

(Incidentally, this formula is correct not only for a uniform sphere, but also for any spherically symmetric object. Even if an object has a higher density at the center than the surface, the above formula is still correct.)

The potential inside the sphere is a different function. Consider the center of the sphere. There is no gravitational force there. Does that mean the potential there is 0? No, because it would take a lot of energy to move a particle to infinity (assuming we had a frictionless tube drilled through the sphere).

The potential at the center of a uniform sphere of mass M and radius A is
U = -(3/2) GM/A
Note that the potential gets smaller and smaller as one travels from infinity to the center of the sphere. That's why we call this a "potential well." The potential at the center is smaller than the potential at the surface (which is -GM/A). A potential well is analogous to a hole in the ground; it's easy to roll a rock into the hole, but takes a lot of work to bring it back out.

In physics, the really important thing about the potential function is that if you take the negative of the gradient (which is kind of a three-dimensional derivative), you get the gravitational force (divided by the mass of the particle). Thus, specifying the potential is equivalent to specifying the gravitational acceleration everywhere. The potential is a scalar field, while the gravitational acceleration is a vector field, but they carry the same information. Sometimes it's easier to work with one, and sometimes with the other; it's just a matter of convenience.

I mentioned that the potential outside a sphere is
U = -GM/R

If you take the negative of the derivative of this with respect to R, you get
-U' = -GM/R^2
This is the well-known acceleration due to gravity of a uniform spherical object; multiply it by the mass m of a particle, and you get the force. (The force is a vector, and it is directed towards the center of the sphere.)

-- edit
I had a couple of minor errors in my first answer. They've been corrected.

-- edit:
I also corrected my A's and B's. Sorry for any confusion.

-- edit:
I corrected "gradient" to "negative of the gradient."

There's one more thing that might confuse people. We can talk about the *difference* in potential between two points, but can't talk about the absolute potential at any point unless we arbitrarily select a point at which the potential is zero (or some other fixed value). The potential function always has an arbitrary offset.

Low-level physics textbooks talk about the potential energy mgh. The quantity gh is the potential for a point at or slightly above the surface of the earth, and it is zero at the surface of the earth. The more general formula given above (-GM/R) is the potential for any point outside a sphere, and it is zero at infinite distance. Both formulations are correct; they just use different zero points. If you calculate the difference in potential between the surface of the earth and the top of a 100-foot high building, both will give you the same result. (For this calculation, M is the mass of the earth, and R the distance from the center of the earth.)

Answer 3

First of all i have tried hard to put this into simple terms but since this is related to physics it is hard for me to do so. But you are right because this is related to potential energy.

gravitational potential means is basically the potential energy associated with gravitational force. If an object falls from point A to point B inside a gravitational field, the force of gravity will do positive work on the object and the gravitational potential energy will decrease by the same amount.For example, consider a book, placed on top of a table. When the book is raised from the floor to the table, the gravitational force does negative work. If the book is returned back to the floor, the exact same (but positive) work will be done by the gravitational force. Thus, if the book is knocked off the table, this work (called potential energy) goes to accelerate the book.

also according to the third website, gravitational potential energy is the energy stored in an object as the result of its vertical position or height. The energy is stored as the result of the gravitational attraction of the Earth for the object. The gravitational potential energy of the massive ball of a demolition machine is dependent on two variables - the mass of the ball and the height to which it is raised. There is a direct relation between gravitational potential energy and the mass of an object. More massive objects have greater gravitational potential energy. There is also a direct relation between gravitational potential energy and the height of an object. The higher that an object is elevated, the greater the gravitational potential energy. These relationships are expressed by the following equation:
PEgrav = mass * g * height
PEgrav = m * g * h

In the above equation, "m" represents the mass of the object, "h" represents the height of the object and g represents the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s/s on Earth).

To determine the gravitational potential energy of an object, a zero height position must first be arbitrarily assigned. Typically, the ground is considered to be a position of zero height.

Answer 4

Gravitational Potential Definition

Answer 5

Potential Energy Simple Definition

Answer 6

Gravitational potential energy is energy an object possesses because of its position in a gravitational field. The most common use of gravitational potential energy is for an object near the surface of the Earth where the gravitational acceleration can be assumed to be constant at about 9.8 m/s2. Since the zero of gravitational potential energy can be chosen at any point (like the choice of the zero of a coordinate system), the potential energy at a height h above that point is equal to the work which would be required to lift the object to that height with no net change in kinetic energy. Since the force required to lift it is equal to its weight, it follows that the gravitational potential energy is equal to its weight times the height to which it is lifted.

The general expression for gravitational potential energy arises from the law of gravity and is equal to the work done against gravity to bring a mass to a given point in space. Because of the inverse square nature of the gravity force, the force approaches zero for large distances, and it makes sense to choose the zero of gravitational potential energy at an infinite distance away. The gravitational potential energy near a planet is then negative, since gravity does positive work as the mass approaches. This negative potential is indicative of a "bound state"; once a mass is near a large body, it is trapped until something can provide enough energy to allow it to escape. The general form of the gravitational potential energy of mass m is:


where G is the gravitation constant, M is the mass of the attracting body, and r is the distance between their centers.

This is the form for the gravitational potential energy which is most useful for calculating the escape velocity from the earth's gravity.

Gravitational Potential Energy
From the work done against the gravity force in bringing a mass in from infinity where the potential energy is assigned the value zero, the expression for gravitational potential energy is


This expression is useful for the calculation of escape velocity, energy to remove from orbit, etc. However, for objects near the earth the acceleration of gravity g can be considered to be approximately constant and the expression for potential energy relative to the Earth's surface becomes


where h is the height above the surface and g is the surface value of the acceleration of gravity.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

gravity pushing down in forces

Answer 9

it means like toltaly bad news or very rair of good news

Answer 10

log this site u will get all details with formulas

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gpot.html