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Free fall in a gravitational field.

An object with mass m in a gravitational field will experience a gravitational force F = mg which is equal to its weightProvided that no other force acts on the object it will experience an acceleration according to Newton's second law of motion of a = F/m.The object will therefore fall freely with an acceleration of g, so g may be described as the acceleration of a freely falling object due to gravity.

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Specification: OCR Physics A (H556), A-level, 5.4.2 Newton's law of gravitation and 5.4.1 Point and spherical masses. Topic: Gravitational Fields.

Key terms in this lesson

capacitor
A component that stores electric charge, consisting of two conducting plates separated by an insulator, called a dielectric.

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