General / Off-Topic Gravity

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
Just repeating this here so that people can avoid this misconception. Gravity is weak! Its only strength is that it operates over VERY large distances. And I mean VERY large, the entire cosmos. The other fundamental forces tend to operate at the subatomic level where they're ridiculously strong. They can and do operate at the macro level but with difficulty.

JeffRyan said:
Actually gravity is ridiculously weak. Take a paper clip, hold a magnet over it. A tiny fridge magnet if you have one. Here's the thing. Your little tiny magnet exerting just a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic force if you put it close above the paper clip, the paper clip (assuming it's metal and not plastic coated) will jump UP to the magnet, when it does that and stays there, your tiny little fridge magnet has just overcome the gravitational force of the ENTIRE PLANET.

That's how weak gravity is and accelerating even in a normal plane is overcoming gravity and now operating stronger than gravity of planet earth by a few times. In space you could do that even more. So strangely gravity in space of an accelerating ship would be MUCH stronger than planet earth.

Hope this helps.

Ex-astrophysicist, currently a teacher.
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JeffRyan

JeffRyan
Electrons mainly the same thing that is used in electricity which is basically just forcing them to move where you want them.

It's actually electroweak now but I digress.

An atom is a positive centre (like the sun but charged +) it can't move (respect to the atom, they do move obviously generally) and is really small. The electrons are like planets and can and do move. Now elements when we talk about hydrogen, iron and gold are just bigger central suns and the bigger the sun it is, the more positive it is. So hydrogen is the smallest and only has one +. iron is a lot bigger and has twenty six + and gold has SEVENTY NINE +

For each of these atoms to be electrically neutral it has to have the same number of electrons (-) in orbit. So hydrogen 1 electron, iron 26 and gold 79.

The electromagnetic force we see is based on those balances not being right so if an atom of iron has 28 electrons (-) it's 26-28 so -2. If it has less electrons than 26 It's 26-24 +2.

This is me speaking at our level and generates the electromagnetism we see (and I'm simplifying a bit, but the principle holds).

On a quantum level it's just a fundamental property of particles, some are positive and some are negative. Like some people like optimists and some people are pessimists. So if we have 26 optimists and 24 pessimists in the room our room is generally optimistic ;)
 
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Susimetsa

Susimetsa
Did someone say that gravity was strong, or why was it necessary to say that it is weak instead? This thread is perplexing without the necessary background information... :S
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
Yeah it's a common misconception that came up in another thread. Just that you can only have strong gravity around planetary bodies. I was making the point that gravity isn't strong and it's pretty easy even with non-planetary bodies to have g-forces due to acceleration. I don't really want to go into that, but wanted to point out how weak gravity is.
 

Susimetsa

Susimetsa
Yup, too many people confuse gravity with g-forces and think that one is somehow dependent on the other.

Very weak force, indeed, but I'd still not recommend jumping off a skyscraper... :p
 

Zieman

Zieman
Nagual said:
It's easy to avoid a horrible death.



Hold a magnet above your head... :D
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You have to be a metal-head for that. :D Preferably ferromagnetic metal, such as iron.

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Yes, holding a magnet above your head (wearing iron helmet) works just as well as flying by lifting the chair you sit on yourself... ;)
 
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