# Gauss' Law Analog for Gravity?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gauss-law-analog-for-gravity/226389>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 28, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gauss-law-analog-for-gravity/226389 "2004-01-28T06:21:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gauss-law-analog-for-gravity/226389/1 "2004-01-28T06:21:17Z")

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Recently my E&M class derived Gauss’ Law, which got me thinking, Newton’s Law of Gravitation is very similar to Coulomb’s Law. So, can I likewise write an equation that replaces electric flux with gravitational, and charge with mass, K with G, and E-field with G-field? Is this done ever, is it useful?

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**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2004, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gauss-law-analog-for-gravity/226389/2 "2004-01-28T06:31:00Z")

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Can it be done? [You betcha!](http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~varnes/Teaching/321Fall2003/Notes/Lecture12.pdf') (.pdf document)

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**Author:** ![Qwertyasdfg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ecc23a/32.png) [@Qwertyasdfg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qwertyasdfg)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2004, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gauss-law-analog-for-gravity/226389/3 "2004-01-28T06:39:01Z")

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Thanks Darwin’s Finch, but that I can’t get that link to work.

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**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2004, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gauss-law-analog-for-gravity/226389/4 "2004-01-28T06:47:55Z")

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> [@Qwertyasdfg](#):
>
> Thanks Darwin’s Finch, but that I can’t get that link to work.

Try [this one](http://www.physics.arizona.edu/~varnes/Teaching/321Fall2003/Notes/Lecture12.pdf).

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [January 28, 2004, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gauss-law-analog-for-gravity/226389/5 "2004-01-28T23:36:54Z")

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In fact, you can have a version of Gauss’ Law for anything that falls off as the inverse square. For instance, you can also substitute light sources for the charges, and flux of light for flux of electric field. Or you could have sprinklers, and flux of water (how much water is entering or leaving a surface).