inverse square law
Brightness fades quadratically
The inverse square law describes how certain physical quantities—like light intensity, gravitational force, or sound—diminish with distance from their source.
Specifically, the strength decreases proportionally to the square of the distance: double the distance and you get one-quarter the intensity.
The inverse square law explains why a candle appears so much dimmer from across the room.
This principle governs phenomena that radiate outward in all directions from a point source.
- gravityMutual mass attraction
- gravitational pullAttractive force between masses
- radiationEnergy propagation through space
- solar radiationEnergy emitted by sun
- lightVisible electromagnetic radiation
light intensity · distance · falling off · intensity · Newton · force · attraction · field · point source · diminishing · propagation · sphere · photons · magnetism · Coulomb · electric field · flux · brightness
- gravitygravity, graviton, gravity well, gravitational pull, gravity wave
- classical physicsNewton, Newton's laws, Newtonian physics, laws of motion, force
- lawslaws, statute, ordinance, acts, statutes
- scalingscalability, power laws, horizontal scaling, self-similarity, proportionality
- orbital mechanicsorbital mechanics, eccentricity, inclination, apogee, perigee
inverse square lawexponential decay
Proportional decrease over time
inverse, inversely, inversion, invert, inverted, inverting, inverts, invertible, square