Direction of Gravity

Most recent answer: 08/26/2011

Q:
where does acceleration due to gravity act on a body, lying on a table??? some say it acts downward towards earth center but how can it be possible since g reduces as we go down and at the center of the earth it will become zero(0) so it will be wrong to say that g acts towards the center of the earth. please tell me the appropriate answer that can satisfy me and my queries.
- Rishabh Banerjee (age 16)
bareilly
A:
I understand your question but don't follow your logic. g does point toward the center of the earth. The magnitude of g gets weaker as you go deeper into the earth, reaching zero at the middle. This all follows directly from simple Newtonian gravity. Where is the logical difficulty with that?

Mike W.

(published on 08/26/2011)