Question

A person who weighs 800N on the earth's surface will weigh 200N at what height above the earth

Answer 1

Answer: 6,400 km

Explanation:

The weight of a person is given by:

$W=mg$

where m is the mass of the person and g is the acceleration due to gravity. While the mass does not depend on the height above the surface, the value of g does, following the formula:

$g=\frac{GM}{r^2}$

where

G is the gravitational constant

M is the Earth's mass

r is the distance of the person from the Earth's center

The problem says that the person weighs 800 N at the Earth's surface, so when r=R (Earth's radius):

$800 N= W=mg=m \frac{GM}{R^2}$ (1)

Now we want to find the height h above the surface at which the weight of the man is 200 N:

$200 N = W' = mg' = m \frac{GM}{(R+h)^2}$ (2)

If we divide eq.(1) by eq.(2), we get

$\frac{800 N}{200 N}=\frac{W}{W'}=\frac{(R+h)^2}{R^2}$

$4=\frac{(R+h)^2}{R^2}$

By solving the equation, we find:

$4R^2 = (R+h)^2=R^2+2Rh+h^2\\h^2 +2Rh-3R^2 =0$

which has two solutions:

$h=-3R$ --> negative solution, we can ignore it

$h=R$ --> this is our solution

Since the Earth's radius is $R=6.4\cdot 10^6 m$, the person should be at $h=R=6.4\cdot 10^6 m=6400 km$ above Earth's surface.