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Glite Dictionary
law of equal areas

law of equal areas

9.5
A rule that a line from a planet to the sun covers equal areas in equal times
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : ley de áreas iguales
  • According to the law of equal areas, planets move faster when they are closer to the sun.

Examples

  • Astronomers use the law of equal areas to predict a planet's changing speed along its orbit.

  • The law of equal areas states that planets sweep out equal areas.

  • Kepler's law of equal areas was a breakthrough in understanding planetary motion.

  • According to the law of equal areas, planets move faster when they are closer to the sun.

  • According to Kepler's law of equal areas, a planet's speed increases as it approaches the sun.

  • Astronomers apply the law of equal areas to calculate the positions of planets in their orbits.

  • Kepler established the law of equal areas to describe how planets move in elliptical orbits.

Synonyms

Kepler's second law
vslaw of equal areas
  • Specialized
7.9

A planet's line to the sun covers equal areas in equal times

is the same principle but focuses on areas rather than emphasizing speed
law of areas
vslaw of equal areas
  • Specialized
8.4

A rule that a planet moves faster when closer to the sun and slower when farther away

is the same principle but presented more generally without explicit speed wording

Surface Forms

law of equal areas singular
laws of equal areas plural

Morphology

law + of + equal + area

The phrase is fully compositional: 'law' + 'of' + 'equal areas' straightforwardly denotes a scientific rule about areas that are equal. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words can infer that this is a law concerning equal areas (even if they lack the specific astronomical detail about planets and time intervals), and the construction is cross-linguistically transparent.

Etymology

Law of equal areas comes from a simple picture: imagine the sun and a moving planet joined by a line that sweeps out a slice like a piece of pie. Kepler found each of these 'slices' is the same size in the same time, so a planet must go faster when it is closer to the sun and slower when it is farther away.