15.2: Summary
- Page ID
- 29492
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We’ll begin by stating Kepler’s laws, then apply Newton’s Second Law to motion in a central force field. Writing the equations vectorially leads easily to the conservation laws for angular momentum and energy.
Next, we use Bernoulli’s change of variable \(u=1/r\) to prove that the inverse-square law gives conic section orbits.
A further vectorial investigation of the equations, following Hamilton, leads naturally to an unsuspected third conserved quantity, after energy and angular momentum, the Runge Lenz vector.
Finally, we discuss the rather surprising behavior of the momentum vector as a function of time.