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Re: little gee and its sign



Jim Green wrote:


Jim's point is well taken, but he is too adamant here by saying 'in any
case'. The fact is g_vec *is* an acceleration.

This of course is merely semantics -- but I would hold that g is NEVER
acceleration -- It can be numerically equal to the "free fall"
acceleraton. But for an intro class, g is a gravitational constant, which
has nothing to do directly with acceleration. To hold otherwise is

It seems to me calling g a gravitational constant is a bit dangerous
since we give a similar name to G. Also, I like to stress that the
value of g is a local phenomena, in which case calling it a constant
seems inconsistent. In my own mind, if not in my lectures, g is the
gravitational field in the same way as E is the electric field. This
way of thinking is so far off the textbook approach that I hesitate to
bring it up.

\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\_/^\

Doug Craigen
http://www.dctech.com/physics/about_dc.html