Two objects attract each other gravitationally with a force of 3.0×10−10N when they are 0.45m apart. Their total mass is 4.0kg . find the individual masses
If everything is in meters and kilograms, then the gravitational force between 2 masses is
F = G M₁ M₂ / R²
G = 6.67 x 10⁻¹¹ M₁ and M₂ = the masses of the two masses R = the distance between their centers.
When we plug in 3 x 10⁻¹⁰ for the force, and 0.45 for the distance, we get the product of the 2 objects M₁M₂ = about 0.911 , and that's as far as we can go without some more information.
The question says that the two masses add up to 4.0 kg. So now we know that M₁M₂ = about 0.911 and (M₁ + M₂) = 4.0 kg. With this, we immediately step into a big squishy quadratic equation, whose solutions are:
