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Re: what to call little "g"



gastineau@badgerden.com (John E. Gastineau) wrote:
My peeve is the naming of little g as "the acceleration of (or due
to) gravity" Both phrases are wildly misleading. Using "of gravity" is
obviously a conceptual disaster since gravity is not accelerating.
However, saying "acceleration due to gravity" is very misleading
because there are lots of situations (like everything except airless
freefall) there the acceleration is not 9.8 m/s^2.

Howdy,

Sorry but "magnitude of the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of
the earth" is the correct title. The implication is that when gravity is
the ONLY force acting on the object the object will have an acceleration
with magnitude 'g'. If the name is too long for you that's why we use 'g'!

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs@interaccess.com)