I was reading the derivation of the gravitational energy of a point mass and I seem to have found a contradiction.
The derivation in my textbook is given as follows:-
Let there me a large fixed mass 'M' and a small mass 'm' placed at a distance of r1 from mass M.
Now let there be some external force Fext that displaces mass m from r1 to r2.
Now according to the work energy theorem, we will have the following equation:- K2−K1=Wg+Wext
My query:-
But if we let r1=∞ and r2 = r , r1 will be greater than r2(since ∞>r ). Our original assumption was that the mass m was moving away from the mass M and that's why the dot product of gravitational force and displacement was negative. But now we are assuming it is moving towards mass M (from infinity to a separation of r). This looks like a contradiction to me.
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