Earth's Gravitational Force On Me

AI Thread Summary
The discussion revolves around calculating the gravitational force between an individual and the Earth. The original poster calculated a force of approximately 8.35x10^8 N, but others pointed out that this value is significantly higher than expected. The correct gravitational force should be around 834 N, derived from the mass of the individual and Earth's gravitational acceleration. The error was attributed to a misunderstanding of distance units, as the poster mistakenly used kilometers instead of meters in their calculations. Ultimately, the poster acknowledged the mistake and thanked the participants for their assistance.
Zack Davis
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I am working on a problem to sate my own curiosity. :) My mass is approximately 85.1 Kg. The Earth's mass is approximately (5.972x10^24 kg) and the distance between our center of masses is roughly the same as the Earth's radius of (6371 km) so I was wondering; what would the Earth's gravitational force be between the two of us. My answer is 8.3514...x10^8 N
(Using the formula:
F=G ( (m1xm2)/r^2) )
Am I correct? Thank you!
 
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Oh my, no. One kilogram is equal to about 9.8 Newtons here on Earth, so you should be getting about 834 Newtons, or 8.34x102. It looks like you've made some sort of order of magnitude error, but I can't be sure.
 
Hi Zack Davis. http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5725/red5e5etimes5e5e45e5e25.gif

Your answer is a little greater than expected. I was thinking more like 85.1x9.81 N

Did you convert distance to metres for that formula?
 
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NascentOxygen said:
Did you convert distance to metres for that formula?

I bet that's it. 6,000 Km squared is 3.6x107, but 6,000,000 meters squared is 3.6x1013, a difference of 6 orders of magnitude, which is how far off his final value is.
 
I found the problem, I was acting as though I am a celestial body! Haha. Thank you all for the help!
 

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