It is a hot summer afternoon and you are lying in an orchard with a glass of lem

Question

It is a hot summer afternoon and you are lying in an orchard with a glass of lemonade in your hand. You watch an apple fall from a high branch and recall that this must be the result of the Earth's gravitational force on the apple. You quickly look up an apple's mass on your smartphone and find it to be 64 g. You decide to apply Newton's Third Law and argue that the apple must also exert a gravitational force on the Earth. Assuming this is the only external force acting on Earth, calculate the acceleration of Earth. (You would need to look up the Earth's mass)

Explanation / Answer

Force = G*m_earth*mass_apple/(distance2)

average apple tree height = 1.4m

So accleration = force / m_earth = G*m_apple/(distance2) = 6.674×1011*0.064/(1.4*1.4) = 2.2*10-12 m/s2 Answer

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