So, I learned in physics class at school in the UK that the value of acceleration due to gravity is a constant called g and that it was 9.81m/s^2. I knew that this value is not a true constant as it is affected by terrain and location. However I didn’t know that it can be so significantly different as to be 9.776 m/s^2 in Kuala Lumpur for example. I’m wondering if a different value is told to children in school that is locally relevant for them? Or do we all use the value I learned?
In freshman college physics we had a lab to measure gravity then had to use our lab result for the rest of the course.
Just don’t make the same mistake as one physics lab did. They made a series of measurements and their results showed that gravity quickly increases in fall, falls slowly over winter, and back to about pre-fall levels very slowly in summer. It took quite a while to figure out the reason of this unexpected result. They turned their equipment inside out to find a mistake to no avail. Then they realized that the university stored coal for the central heating and hot water in the basement under the lab…
Could you explain to me why that last part matters?
How much was the variation?
Can’t be that big, as the difference in mass close to the instrument only varied in the several tons category, but obviously enough to puzzle the scientists.
Well yeah. I was just curious if the difference was on the order of millimeters or microns /m².