Newton's law of universal gravitation

Newton's law of universal gravitation states that every pair of masses attracts with a force proportional to their product and inversely proportional to the square of their separation.

Gravitational constant: The proportionality constant that sets the strength of gravity in Newton's law. It fixes the scale of force in the law's inverse-square equation.
Kepler's laws of planetary motion: Three empirical rules describing how planets orbit the Sun. Newton derived these orbital patterns from universal gravitation and motion.
Isaac Newton: English mathematician and natural philosopher who formulated classical mechanics and universal gravitation. He presented the law as part of a unified account of motion on Earth and in the heavens.
Hooke's law of elasticity: A relation stating that elastic deformation is proportional to applied force within a material's elastic limit. Despite sharing Hooke's name, it describes material deformation rather than gravitational attraction.
Inverse-square law: A relationship in which a quantity decreases in proportion to the square of distance from its source. Gravity's distance dependence is the defining inverse-square pattern.
Orbital mechanics: The study of spacecraft and natural bodies moving under gravitational forces. The law supplies the central force model for calculating many orbits.
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica: Isaac Newton's 1687 work setting out the laws of motion and universal gravitation. The law's original mathematical exposition appeared in this book.
Aristotelian physics: A system of natural philosophy explaining motion through elemental tendencies and distinct terrestrial and celestial realms. Universal gravitation challenged the division between heavenly and earthly motion.
Gravitational field: A vector field describing the gravitational force per unit mass at each point in space. It recasts the pairwise force law as a field acting on a test mass.
Tidal force: The difference in gravitational acceleration across an extended body caused by an external mass. The law's distance dependence explains why the Moon raises tides across Earth.

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