this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2023
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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?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Going to guess civil. I work on space systems and we don't have one number. We have the g0 value, which is standard gravity out to some precision, but gravity matters enough we don't even use point mass gravity, we use one of the nonspherical earth gravity models. It matters because orbits.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Nope. Mechanical engineering. So usually we say g=10 and then make the steel a bit thicker and call it a day