[Physics] Gravity between two unequal masses. Do both masses move

conservation-lawsinertial-framesnewtonian-gravitynewtonian-mechanics

I've been watching videos about gravity and I have a question
My understanding is that mass have gravity and gravity is a force which attract other object with mass. For example, I jump up and the Earth's gravity pulls me down.

  1. So my question is, is it always the case that the smaller mass that move towards the bigger mass?

  2. Does the bigger mass EVER move towards the smaller mass?

  3. If two objects with same mass are left in a vacuum, they meet in the middle point of the distance, right?

  4. so what if one of the object has little bit more mass? i would assume the bigger mass would still move towards the middle point (but bit shorter)

  5. If the above is true, can we technically move the Earth by us (human population) jumping indefinitely?

Though, since Earth's mass is 5.972×10^24 and the mass for human population would be around 4.9×10^11 (assuming 70kg avg weight for 7 billion people), it would have a minimal effect but given that we would jump infinity, we can technically move it, I think?

Best Answer

In all cases, the two objects move towards one another. In fact they experience exactly the same gravitational force. However, because acceleration equals force over mass $$\mathbf{a} = \frac{\mathbf{F}}{m}$$

that equal forces causes the heavier object to accelerate much less than the lighter one. But technically, the Earth does move towards you very slightly when you jump. However, it first moves slightly away from you because in order to jump you have to push it. By the time you land it returns to its original position.

The two objects will meet at their centre of gravity. That is to say if, for example, one mass is twice as big as the other, the meeting point will be one quarter of the way from the heavy mass to the light one. In general it is the point where

$$m_1 * r_1 = m_2 * r_2$$

We can't move the Earth by jumping indefinitely because the push-away from the jump exactly cancels the pull-towards from gravity. There is no net motion. This is the same reason you can't move a boat by sitting inside and kicking the walls.

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