system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is the inverse square law so prominent in physics?

Almost every subject that my physics coursework covers has included an inverse square law (Newton's law of gravitational attraction, Coulomb's Law, Biot-Savart Law, intensity of radiation, etc). Is there something fundamental about an inverse square law, or is this all just purely coincidental?
gpt
It has to do with the fact that our universe has three spatial dimensions*. When you have a field whose intensity is spread evenly over a surface (e.g. a gravitational field is the same everywhere at a fixed distance from a central mass), and the surface area of a sphere grows with the square of its radius, the field to remain evenly spread out must decrease with the square of distance.


*Trigger warning for string theorists.