Gravity — believe or disbelieve?

A friend on Facebook who also happens to teach physics at WSU posted an interesting note on his page yesterday.

It said 

“Yes! tweetfeel.com shows 65% of people are in favor of gravity. Support gravity, write your congress person.”

 Needless to say, the idea of anything but 100 percent of the population being in favor of gravity must amuse a physicist no end. Approve or not, it’s there and darn well better stay there. We really have no alternative.

How gravity works is a theory. Under under the current manner in which scientific theories are regarded by the general public, we could say that how gravity works is just a wild guess, or that it is a matter of believing in gravity, or perhaps a matter of agreeing that gravity has no logical explanation so it must be the work of a divine being.

This latter option is somewhat disturbing — if that divine being suddenly stops working that miracle as it impacts you, you could suddenly float off into space. Makes you wonder why an obvious sinner — Hitler, for example — was allowed to stay earth based when a simple flick of the divine finger would have settled his hash.

The posting  brought a number of responses — Facebook is public but I’m taking their names off anyway because they didn’t know a journalist was going to splatter their comments all over the world.

Except for the last guy, of course. He’s just a jerk:

Gravity isn’t a scientific issue. It is a political one. Gravity, or mass attraction, or whatever you want to call it, isn’t about what’s true. It’s a political issue. It’s a pat on the back, a way to feel like you’re doing something good when you fall down.

Mon at 5:10pm

I’m going to believe in gravity. Somewhat anyway. If I control the level I believe in it, I think I can control my personal flight capabilities.

Mon at 5:36pm

1) Bumblebees have theoretically been shown to be unable to lift themselves against gravity. 2) Bumblebees have been observed to fly. 3) Therefore gravity does not exist. QED

Mon at 8:03pm

 

Ugh. THEORISTS.

Mon at 8:04pm

 

try existentialist:
the law of gravity is nonsense
no such law exists
if i think i float
and you think i float
then it happens

Tue at 8:11am

I’m from the Loony Toons school of thought: once you notice you’ve run off the cliff, gravity takes effect. Ba dee ba dee ba dee: that’s all, folks!

Tue at 10:14am

Charles Trentelman

there is no gravity — the earth sucks. (1960s bumper sticker)

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There are 14 comments.

14 Responses to “Gravity — believe or disbelieve?”

1. 
   Midwinter
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 4:59 pm: 

   I’m particularly fond of the idea that we don’t know why ice is slippery or why the shower curtain billows inwards.

2. 
   John Armstrong
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 5:36 pm: 

   I think I know the answer to both those questions!

3. 
   Brad Carroll
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 6:05 pm: 

   But you don’t know whether water itself is wet, or if it just makes other things wet.

4. 
   Charles Trentelman
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 6:11 pm: 

   i would caution mr armstrong — Cecil of “The Straight Dope” devoted several columns to the shower curtain question, Bernoulli principles and so forth — not sure he ever got a straight answer. We await (as the cat who ate cheese and sat outside the mousehole said) with ‘bated breath for his explanation.

5. 
   Charles Trentelman
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 6:12 pm: 

   ice isn’t slippery. the film of water that melts on the surface reduces the coefficient of friction to low levels ….

6. 
   John Armstrong
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 6:18 pm: 

   I said I *think* I know the answer…I’ll ask the real experts – my physics students – tomorrow.

7. 
   John Armstrong
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 6:23 pm: 

   I found this for the shower curtain…

   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-the-shower-curta

   I was about to fire up FLUENT but they beat me to it.

8. 
   Catherine Burt
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 8:33 pm: 

   // non-nerds, begin ignore

   I can’t tell you anything about the local gravity without a yo-yo.

   http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Yo-yo

   //end ignore

9. 
   ctrentelman
   on Dec 3rd, 2009
   @ 8:34 pm: 

   as to yo-yos, come to my desk tomorow and I’ll let you play with my SB-1.

   as to sci-am articles, i note that the commenters on the article aren’t buying it …..

10. 
    Catherine Burt
    on Dec 3rd, 2009
    @ 9:09 pm: 

    I think Dr. Who actually had another name for it, was something like gravitational assessment something or other … heh.

    Aw sweet! Look, it’s Dr. Carroll – my FAVORITE physics professor EVER!!!! =)

11. 
    John Armstrong
    on Dec 4th, 2009
    @ 12:53 pm: 

    I just hope nobody gets a hold of these emails…

12. 
    Neal Humphrey
    on Dec 5th, 2009
    @ 12:21 am: 

    I love gravity. Especially when I’m skiing.

13. 
    Dovie
    on Dec 5th, 2009
    @ 10:07 am: 

    I work w/ Dr Carrolls wife. Good people. However, we should not reveal identities. I, personally, am in hiding from the Danites and Tea Party people.

14. 
    dan s.
    on Dec 5th, 2009
    @ 11:58 pm: 

    Gravity is the opposite of levity, but I somehow believe in both.