The inertial mass of an object determines its
acceleration in the presence of an applied force. According to
Newton's second law of motion, if a body of fixed mass
M is subjected to a force
F, its acceleration
α is given by
F/
M. A body's mass also determines the degree to which it generates or is affected by
a
gravitational field. If a first body of mass
MA is placed at a distance
r from a second body of mass
MB, each body experiences an attractive force
FG whose magnitude is
FG =
GMAMB/
r2, where
G is the
universal constant of gravitation, equal to 6.67×10
−11 N·m
2·kg
−2. This is sometimes referred to as gravitational mass.
[note 1] Repeated experiments since the 17th century have demonstrated that inertial and
gravitational mass are equivalent; since 1915, this observation has been
entailed
a priori in the
equivalence principle of
general relativity.
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