Three masses are configurated like so 3kg mass d=2m 5kg mass d=3m 4kg mass a)Fin

Question

Three masses are configurated like so

3kg mass d=2m 5kg mass d=3m 4kg mass

a)Find the gravitational force (magnitude and direction) acting on 3kg due to the others.
b) ^ Do the same but for 5kg.
c) ^ Again, do the same but for 4kg.
d) Find the total gravitational potential energy.

For b), I came out with 6.67 x 10 (-11 power) x 5 x 4-3/2.5^2
and for d) I came out with (6.67 x 10 (-11 power)) x (-3x5/2 - 3x4/5 - 5x4/3)

Am I on the right trac for either of these and how do I go about the other ones?

Please help me! Im hitting a road block!

Explanation / Answer

I'm going to sleep in a second, but let's address: I thought it all had to be divided by the radius so I took the total distance (2m+3m) and divided it by 2 to get the radius of 2.5 So thats not right? -Nope, sorry. What you do is distance between the two. So the distance between the 3 and the 5 is 2. So we use that as the distance. And on the first 3..let me take the first 1 for ex. involving the 3kg mass. Why in the parenteses is it 5/2*2+4/5*2 ? I'm figuring the first numbers (the 2 and 5) under the division sign are the distance but where do the other 2 numbers (the second 2 numbers) come from? -It's 2^2 I was trying to format it like you did, but let's just look at it generally: Gmm/r^2+Gmm/r^2 6.67*10^-11*mass1*mass2/(distance between them)^2+6.67*10^-11*mass 1*mass2/(distance between them)^2 ^2 means itself squared so 5^2=25 I just then factored. Does this make sense?

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