# Acceleration due to gravity

Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
Citable Version  [?]

This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

An object with mass m near the surface of Earth experiences a downward gravitational force of magnitude mg, where g is the acceleration due to gravity. The quantity g has the dimension of acceleration, m s−2, hence its name. Equivalently, it can be expressed in terms of force per unit mass, or N/kg in SI units.

Newton's gravitational law gives the following formula for g,

${\displaystyle g=G\,{\frac {M_{\mathrm {E} }}{R_{\mathrm {E} }^{2}}},}$

where G is the universal gravitational constant,[1] G = 6.67428 × 10−11 m3 kg−1 s−2, ME is the total mass of Earth, and RE is the radius of Earth. This equation gives a good approximation, but is not exact. Deviations are caused by the centrifugal force due to the rotation of Earth around its axis, non-sphericity of Earth, and the non-homogeneity of the composition of Earth. These effects cause g to vary roughly ± 0.02 around the value 9.8 m s−2 from place to place on the surface of Earth. The quantity g is therefore referred to as the local gravitational acceleration. It is measured as 9.78 m s−2 at the equater and 9.83 m s−2 at the poles.

The 3rd General Conference on Weights and Measures (Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, CGPM) defined in 1901 a standard value denoted as gn.[2] [3] The value of the standard acceleration due to gravity gn is 9.80665 m s−2. This value of gn was the conventional reference for calculating the now obsolete unit of force, the kilogram force.