Grade 12 Physics · Kepler's bargain
The bargain: no masses required
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The bargain: no masses required

Kepler had no idea why, but he saw it in the data: for everything orbiting one central body, T2T^2 divided by a3a^3 is the same number. Compare two orbits and that shared number cancels, leaving T12T22=a13a23\dfrac{T_1^2}{T_2^2} = \dfrac{a_1^3}{a_2^3}.

The symbols, and the subscript convention stated once and for all: T1T_1 and T2T_2 are the two periods, a1a_1 and a2a_2 the two orbit sizes — the semi-major axis, which for a circle is just the radius. Subscript 1 is the body you are solving for; subscript 2 is the one you already know. Both bodies must circle the SAME central mass, and because every term is a ratio, the units simply have to match each other — days against days, kilometres against kilometres, no conversion required. That is the bargain: you may answer without ever knowing the planet's mass, or G, or anything else.

Working form: T1=T2(a1a2)3/2T_1 = T_2\left(\dfrac{a_1}{a_2}\right)^{3/2}, and backwards a1=a2(T1T2)2/3a_1 = a_2\left(\dfrac{T_1}{T_2}\right)^{2/3}. Four times wider is eight times slower; nine times wider is twenty-seven times slower. The exponents are the lesson — swap them and the answer is not slightly wrong, it is a different universe.