Talk:Gravitational binding energy

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It is equal to minus the gravitational potential energy, but should not be confused with the case of separating e.g. a celestial body and a satellite to infinite distance, keeping each intact.

I have to confess that this sentence only served to support exactly the confusion it warns against. Can anyone clarify? Is gravitational binding energy the energy required to blow an object to smithereens, all infinitely separated? -- pde 01:40, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's the energy required to break up the object to infinitely small fragments and separate them infinitely. 193.171.121.30 21:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

This subject came up in a discussion of the Nordtvedt effect and the reply I got was that Gravitational binding energy was negative. The details are in this post on sci.astro

• http://groups.google.co.uk/group/sci.astro/msg/964cd1990593c9d9

I wonder if you could clarify this.

Thanks

George Dishman

83.67.26.177 22:28, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are different conventions on how the term is used, but as far as I know most times "binding energy" means a positive amount of energy, i. e. the amount of energy which is set free when the constituents come together. 193.154.191.21 04:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC) alias 193.171.121.30

It's negative compared to zero energy for all the components separated to infinity. Just a different convention. Mordecai-Mark Mac Low 13:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

should it be 10% greater than the seperation of two equal mass sphere of 2 r apart ?