What is the Inverse-Square law?

1 Answer
Apr 24, 2017

In the context of General Science, it is the law that the intensity of anything (sound, light, electrostatic force, gravity, and so on.) diminishes proportionately to the inverse of the square of the distance from the source to the object.

In the context of World History, it most likely refers to the Newton's law:

#F = G(m_1m_2)/r^2#

During the Baroque Era, there was a very famous and well documented debate between Newton, Leibniz, and Descartes as to how the force of gravity worked. Newton won but Leibniz was unsatisfied, because Newton had only described what gravity did; not how it worked. It took Einstein to do that a few centuries later.