Lec 36 MIT 8 02 Electricity and Magnetism Spring 2002

Description: the neutron star has a mass capital M and has a radius R. And let's assume that we dump some matter, little m, onto the neutron star. Well all of you should remember from 8.01 that you can calculate very easily the speed with which this matter reaches the neutron star. The kinetic energy, one-half mV squared, must be equal to m MG / R. We had this equation on the blackboard last lecture when we discussed cosmology. It was the same equation. This is the speed with which the matter will fall ...