What happens to the attraction between particles as the distance between them increases?

• A. As distance increases, attraction decreases.
• B. As distance increases, attraction increases.
• C. Distance does not affect attraction.
• D. Attraction is independent of distance.

Answer: (A)

The strength of forces between particles gets weaker as they move farther apart. For many fundamental forces, like gravity and electrostatic attraction, the interaction falls off roughly with the square of the distance, so increasing the distance makes the attraction much weaker. For example, doubling how far apart two objects are reduces their pull to about one-fourth. So, as distance increases, the attraction decreases.