If Gravity gave up ; could gravity just give up, locally?

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Since my early twenties, I've suffered chronically from various phobias. Most notably, I have a fluctuating fear that the natural force of gravity will suddenly cease, and every body will fall upwards into space (a kind of inverted vertigo). Whenever a funk builds in this regard, I usually find I'm calmed by the thought that many physicists now believe it's likely that gravitons are present at a subatomic level. Therefore, if gravity is indeed present at the chaotic subatomic level, then, to my mind, it's implicit that if ever gravity did give up, there would be no contingencies, no time to complain, no forms to fill in, and more to the point - no falling: everything - all mountains, mountain bikes, buildings, people, people riding mountain bikes, in fact all atoms - would instantaneously turn into a profound soup. And the *soup* scenario doesn't scare me anywhere near as much as people being plucked from the Earth as it rotates; falling inexorably towards the sky; our cheeks rippling to the extent that our faces in a flash look like the brains they conceal; our eyes rolling back in their sockets; (if this falling episode happened to the characters in Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts, no doubt Pig Pen would appear pleasantly cleansed, as he plummeted upwards - at last jettisoning his aura of flea-like dirt; Snoopy would stay lying and staring upwards on the roof of his doghouse, perhaps still wearing sunglasses; but I for one would not be happy!). The soup scenario is rather wonderful, conferring in my mind an image of Death, using its spoon to eat from the outskirts of the bowl - where the soupy souls are coolest - slurping its way inwards, tilting the bowl to finish.

So, this is a question to anybody that know about these things: In physics, is it possible that gravity could just cease working on a local scale - i.e., just on the surface of our world? Would we fall, or would we all turn into soup? I have a friend who said that his guess was that were gravity to suddenly disappear then we wouldn't automatically be pulled from the earth's surface in some mass exodus to heaven, but rather it would take one small leap to propel each person off the earth, and there'd be no going back. I'm not sure I like this, either. I need a solid answer - can anyone help?

― Jamie Skinner, Friday, 23 January 2004 14:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I used to suffer from bizarre physics fears like this when I was a child. I blamed it on the fact that my dad was working at Jodrell Bank at the time. He told me that the universe was expanding and I freaked out and thought that we would drift away from our sun and die cold and alone. I didn't realise it would take billions and billions of years until Carl Sagan was nice enough to explain it. Then I started having phobias about volcanos and tidal waves instead.

I don't know enough about physics to calm your fears rationally. But it's unlikely. But I know that one often develops bizarre phobias of strange catastrophies in response to actual catastrophes developing in our lives that we cannot control. Sort of in the same way that cultural fear of nuclear annihilation in the 50s resulted in monster movies.

I became afraid of the Big Bang and the expanding universe because my family had just moved to America, and I was lost in a cold universe far from my familiar stars. So I don't think that finding out the science will make the fears go away. Finding out what you are actually afraid of being afraid of will help make the fear go away.

― the river fleet, Friday, 23 January 2004 15:09 (twenty-one years ago)

It isn't going to happen. Gravity exists in proportion to mass, so for gravity to cease to exist the earth would have to become mass-less, which it's only going to do by ceasing to exist. And if it ceases to exist, then the odds are you will have ceased to exist, too.

(p.s. don't become an astronaut)

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:10 (twenty-one years ago)

And the Weirdest Neurosis Award 2004 goes to...

(By the way, the answer is no. Gravity depends on the mass of an object. As long as you're on earth, and earth exists, you'll have gravity. Also, the soup theory sounds weird - wouldn't astronauts have turned into soup then?)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:12 (twenty-one years ago)

(x-post)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:12 (twenty-one years ago)

For gravity to vanish, the earth would have to lose all of its mass. The only obvious way it could do that is if all of its mass was converted into energy. Which would be an awful lot of energy (top of head E=mc squared, so Energy (in joules) would be 5.36934319 × 10 to the power of 41 Joules (thank you my Google Calculator).

To cause an near instantaneous lack of gravity would require this amount of mass to be converted very quickly, the amount of energy involved would certainly instantaneously destroy you too.

This is very, very unlikely.

― Pete (Pete), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Jamie, please write a book. That's great stuff. Sorry I can't help as such.

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks very much Pete, the river fleet, Tuomas, and Markelby. Whenever I start to panic, I'll cling to what you've said on this thread.
And thanks to you, Jaunty Alan. I have written a book. It's available through amazon.co.uk, here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0953456617/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-7907244-7177241

And my work can be sampled here: www.electromancer.com/artists/rogan_whitenails

― Jamie Skinner, Friday, 23 January 2004 15:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i'd be more terrified about gravy giving up, like, if while you're having a roast chicken dinner, all of a sudden the lovely meat juice extract goodness taste DISAPPEARS FROM YOUR GRAVY!

I'd cry.

It'd be okay if, say, i were to have garlic bread with me at the time, and that my roast chicken, upon the lost of gravy would turn into chicken soup, due to the fact that the stuffing were inserted at a sub-rectumic level. I have no idea how stuffing would taste as a soup, but i'd imagine it'd form crumbs around the edge of the bowl, while the liquified chicken skin being the lightest would float to the top of the soup.

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:44 (twenty-one years ago)

this is not the most uncommon fear. I once had to spend 30 minutes describing gravity & physics to my ex in a mall coffee shop years ago.
She then wondered why airplanes and satellites don't fall.

it got to the point when i just started illustrating on napkins.

the moral? don't ask an engineering major to explain basic physics, as they tend to go on a bit.

― Huggy Dork (Kingfish), Friday, 23 January 2004 17:12 (twenty-one years ago)

"Also, the soup theory sounds weird - wouldn't astronauts have turned into soup then?"
Yes, I could have been clearer: I meant that, in addition to recognising the more familiar gravity, which is observable in the way it affects the planets (and is couched in general-relativity), if one accepts the theory that gravity is also present at the subatomic level - working alongside the other quantum forces in the form of gravitons (not yet observed, to my knowledge) - then this makes it harder to see how gravity could ever cease solely on a local scale, on the surface of the Earth, leaving unaffected masses intact. If gravity did give up, it wouldn't do so locally (does it not exist unviversally?) - we wouldn't float up from a terra firma diving board left intact below us, because the diving board's mass would turn into soup, and so would we. And astronauts would turn into soup, not because they are far away from Earth, but because the human body, surely, wherever it is in space, is subject to gravity; are we not held together ourselves by gravity? I can be such a baby.

― Jamie Skinner, Friday, 23 January 2004 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Gravity is utterly insignificant on a subatomic level, because it's countless billions of times less strong than the electromagnetic, the weak atomic and the strong atomic force, or molecular bonds on the next scale up. It only has significant force on our scale because it accumulates in the same direction, so to speak, so if there are big masses it matters.

On a relativistic level, we can see gravity as a distortion in space. The classic explanation is to step back a dimension and imagine the universe as a flat rubber sheet; then imagine a heavy weight (like the earth) distorting that sheet locally, making everything slope down towards it - that's gravity, a distortion in spacetime. It's not like electricity failing, it's the shape of the universe. Frankly, this view and quantum mechanics don't tally well so we get into superstring and m-brane theory to try to reconcile them, but that's too much to try to explain even if I understood it fabulously well. In any case, gravity is still basic enough that it couldn't vanish without the fundamental laws of the universe changing completely.

You're safe.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 23 January 2004 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd be much more scared if the strong nuclear force just decided to quit working. It wouldn't even be matter soup, it would just be particle soup!

― the river fleet, Friday, 23 January 2004 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

"I couldn't read it because my parents forgot to pay the gravity bill."

-Calvin from Calvin And Hobbes

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 23 January 2004 19:31 (twenty-one years ago)

"Would you be prepared if gravity suddenly reversed itself?"

-Chris Knight

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 23 January 2004 19:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"Gravity is utterly insignificant on a subatomic level, because it's countless billions of times less strong than the electromagnetic, the weak atomic and the strong atomic force, or molecular bonds on the next scale up." Take gravity away at this level, and you think there'd be no consequences? Physically, my wife is weaker than me, but I'd be a single man and very sad without her.

― Jamie Skinner, Friday, 23 January 2004 20:07 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't help but feel that worrying about this type of thing is ever so slightly counter-productive.

― Llahtuos Kcin (Nick Southall), Friday, 23 January 2004 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

the moral? don't ask an engineering major to explain basic physics, as they tend to go on a bit.

You should never ask an engineer anything about physics except how many digits too use.

booo urns to engineers and their little stamps, rings and professional designations.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 23 January 2004 22:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Jamie, please write a book. That's great stuff. Sorry I can't help as such.

Or better yet don't sue me when I publish that Death's soupy gruel of souls bit.

― Leee Majors (Leee), Friday, 23 January 2004 22:56 (twenty-one years ago)

At the subatomic level gravity is unimportant. You can't take it away there and not everywhere else, so it's all academic, but it plays no role that anyone has found as far as I am aware.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 23 January 2004 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

"... don't sue me when I publish that Death's soupy gruel of souls bit."
Already published in me 2003 book, "Failure Crawled up my Leg (More Scatology and Pyrotechnical Self-Pity)"; and all power to me, I say!

― Jamie Skinner, Saturday, 24 January 2004 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

The law of Gravity and the Copyright Act. The sun and your talent will both attract satellites!

― undeskminton, Saturday, 24 January 2004 16:57 (twenty-one years ago)

So, folks, you're saying the only way gravity could give up is if there was suddenly, and illogically, no mass; i.e: gravity is ineffectual without mass. This is helpful, and of some comfort, though I still have one concern which hasn't been answered yet. You may have been wondering about my preoccupation with gravitons (gravity) being present at the subatomic level - I was hinting that I actually think (or hope) that everything, including our bodies, is ultimately held together by gravity. Bearing this in mind, what I'm now left wanting to know is, if there can be no gravity without mass, is the converse also true: if gravity gave up in our region of the universe, would the mass (Earth) that is thereabouts disappear / disintegrate / turn into 'soup'? Or would the Earth continue on its revolving merry way, with only its surface being affected and people flying off in a very much non-merry way? To put it another way: can there be any mass without gravity?

― Jamie Skinner, Sunday, 25 January 2004 13:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Add me to the list of those with strange fears. When I found out that only about a few miles beneath us boiling rock exists at unimaginable temperatures, I was terrified of the prospect of the crust opening up. And from there, I was rather scrared of the Earth splitting in two and falling away from each other, since its only held together by a really thin crust, and the rest is just like the inside of the egg. All it would take is for a plane to land too hard, and the word would split in two.

Fortunatly, I have now put childish thoughts behind me, but it scared the hell out of me when I was little.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Sunday, 25 January 2004 13:31 (twenty-one years ago)

So this book, is it the evil demon POETRY or is it interesting and bizarre stories like you're posting on this thread? I'm thinking of ordering it. Though I don't want to know if it's poetry cause I'm categorically AGAINST POETRY.

(Though, hrmmm, I'm starting to get suspicious that maybe this person is fishing us for our weird ideas to get ideas for their next book. Not like THAT has ever happened on ILX before. Though I must say this is a more charming and friendly and entertaining way of doing it.)

― the river fleet, Sunday, 25 January 2004 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Even more fun is trying to come up with a classical answer to what happens to gravity and its particles when matter is lost, in a nuclear reaction lets say. How fast is that information conveyed to other parts of the universe. What happens to the gravity particles, what happened to gravity being a warping of our space time reality and most importantly what happens when someone thinks about this too long.
I wonder if Maple is capable of HTML output?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Sunday, 25 January 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I was under the impression that the body (and everything else, for that matter) is held together with the other sub-atomic forces (strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetic), so the loss of gravity wouldn't mean that we would explode. It would take the other forces (which are a billion times stronger than gravity) to disappear for us to explode like that.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Sunday, 25 January 2004 15:34 (twenty-one years ago)

nuclear forces are very strong BUT only in a local range. Once you get out of the atomic range they aren't noticable.
The boring old forces like ectromagnetic and gravity still rule at the everyday level.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Sunday, 25 January 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

If strong nuclear force gave out, everything would turn to maple syrup. Maybe there is a localised loss of it in New England and Northeast Canadia! That explains all the poetry! And Robert Frost!

― the river fleet, Sunday, 25 January 2004 15:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Does it extend far enough south to explain Emerson, Thoreau and the other guy?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:03 (twenty-one years ago)

...Tom Scholz?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Frank Black, who else.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

(See, I was thinking about suggesting that.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Nathaniel Hawthorne?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

HP Lovecraft?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

And their experiences while under the influce of Maple Syrup.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:14 (twenty-one years ago)

"As I wandered the non-Euclidean geometry of the lost city of Ph'ragh'nghgg, my mind was suddenly overcome by cosmic horror as a wave of Maple Syrup rose above the tortured spires..."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

We're on to something, I tell you.

The Salem Witch trials. It was mass hysteria caused by maple syrup abuse among young girls of the village.

― the river fleet, Sunday, 25 January 2004 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Without looking it up (my eyes are bad today again) the fifference in strength between the weak and strong molecular forces and gravity is not just billions, it's 10 to the 20 or 20somethingth power. And these are more important in our everyday lives too - it's these forces that hold matter together enough that all the combined gravitational force of the whole earth can't pull us through, say, a thin piece of metal. Yje molecular forces of that small amount of matter are stronger than the gravitational force of the planet.

As for if gravity disappeared would mass go too, since there is no scientific notion of how such a thing could ever happen, there can't be a theory about its corollaries.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 25 January 2004 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

Thanks everyone - Martin, river fleet, Markelby. Unfortunately, however, I am still struggling with my fear of falling upwards. I am haunted by the problem of induction, specifically in relation to gravity: certainly all the evidence collected and examined thus far supports the theory that physical objects attract each other, but just because this has always been so in the past, doesn't mean it will continue to be so in the future, for such an assumption presupposes the principle of uniformity, and this principle can not be demonstrated.

― Jamie Skinner (nee James Vona), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

how about the problem of induction wrt existing at all, or having all your limbs, etc

― Britain's Jauntiest Shepherd (Alan), Thursday, 30 June 2005 10:56 (twenty years ago)

the principle of uniformity WILL fail, in respect of yr own continued existence (and mine, and everyone reading this)

it is probably more sensible to organise yr life round the problems - and opportunities!! - this inevitable failure causes

(of course you can refuse to believe induction and imagine yr comin immortality!)

in standard physics theory mass and gravity are the SAME THING, surely? it's not that the first "causes" the second and may one day stop bothering

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:03 (twenty years ago)

Lately i have developed a bizarre phobia that I will drop my very expensive digital SLR camera off a high place like a bridge or building while using it. I've only even taken photos near a ledge once. I've never dropped a camera in my life. I dont know where the hell this terrible worry is coming from but I cant get the vision of it fallign and smashing out of me head. It really is strange and a bit Wrong.

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

And so I suppose in my case if grav gave up I'd be ok! I could save my camera! =)

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

Suddenly not to exist at all would be rather relaxing, I imagine. The notion of gravity failing locally, just on the surface of the Earth, terrifies me.

"in standard physics theory mass and gravity are the SAME THING, surely" They are today, and have been thus far, yes.

― Jamie Skinner (nee James Vona), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

"i am not on the actual ground" = "my glasses are about to fall from my face beyond all human ken"

yes by induction this has never happened thus is not about to start!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

ok but i don't see why it's more scary to think "oh no one day mass and gravity will not be the same thing (locally)" than "oh no one day the planet will all be pudding and we shall drown in the custard"

(ok i know phobias are not usually cleared up by pointin out that they are silly) (my dad is frightened of spiders he is almost always a lot bigger than)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:11 (twenty years ago)

(I am frightened of the spiders that Mark S's dad is NOT a lot bigger than)(unless Mark's dad is teeny-tiny)

― RickyT (RickyT), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:14 (twenty years ago)

If they're big enough to look in the eye, he can tame and ride them!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:19 (twenty years ago)

I don't know why it scares me so, mark s. I live in anticipation of that sudden moment, when all I hear are the dulcet gasps of people falling upwards.
I have written a song about this and other fears (the pram in the hall, enucleation), here:

http://www.electromancer.com/showTrack.php?id=1112217919

― Jamie Skinner (nee James Vona), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:25 (twenty years ago)

My favourite take on induction is to consider that the Universe is at its heart a conservative and lazy old sod (cf Entropy). Yes, things could suddenly change tomorrow, but that would take an awful lot of energy and effort that this lazy old place just will not expend.

F'rinstance, I have always breathed, but there is no guarantee I will keep doing so. But if I try to stop I suddenly find that it is difficult, I get dizzy and actually have to concentrate to not breathe. Too much effort. I luv the lazy universe hypthesis (also why it is expanding as it is getting fat).

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:41 (twenty years ago)

pete you will not keep doing so

i suggest you try not stopping before breath's end is foredoomed

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Gravity isn't something that things *do*; it *is*. It holds equal last place in the list of "things in the universe that are likely to happen".

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:45 (twenty years ago)

Have you considered rage, raging?

The trick with Jamie may be to remind yourself that everything about you is as induced as everything else, and there's no reason that just because you have always feared this, you'll fear it tomorrow.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:47 (twenty years ago)

equal last place w.the pudding and custard thing

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 30 June 2005 11:49 (twenty years ago)

These days pudding never comes with custard. Bah.

I know I won't breath forever, but when I stop I'm pretty sure it won't be cos I am holding my breath for a laugh. Unless I become Houdini.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:05 (twenty years ago)

"Gravity is my enemy" [/Comsat Angels]

― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:07 (twenty years ago)

Or alternatively:

"Gravity
You just hold me down so quietly
You just hold me back

Gravity
You just hold me down so quietly
You just pull me down to Earth

Let me go into the depths of your infinity
I can sense your presence in the vicinity"

Maybe some comfort can be found in the words of Super Furry Animals?
And it's such a pretty tune...

― Bill A (Bill A), Thursday, 30 June 2005 12:54 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Everything leaves the Earth, nothing sticks, an unborn baby, who had been pressing on the cervix, falls upwards and is born through the crown of its mother's head; and its mother is trailing; gravity's sudden, ultimate failing ... We had assumed (scientists had told us) it was a law that would always hold, and yet it seems gravity was pushing us peristaltically towards the opening of its own non-existence, its sudden, ultimate failing.

Fermity and curdio!

― Jamie Skinner, Monday, 1 August 2005 19:56 (twenty years ago)

Is this mentioned upthread?: A new and very popular theory holds, more or less, that our four-dimensional universe is leaking gravitons through a two-dimensional conduit into a complementary four-dimensional universe, which is contracting even as ours is expanding, and which will continue to contract till it has acquired all gravitons and achieved a state of singularity, at which point that universe will experience its (next?)big bang and the flow of gravitons will reverse. Very elegant; probably bullshit.

― M. V. (M.V.), Thursday, 11 August 2005 10:27 (twenty years ago)

Will we have to eject the warp core?

― beanz (beanz), Thursday, 11 August 2005 10:46 (twenty years ago)

Will we have to eject the warp core?

Aye. She cannae stand the strain.

― M. V. (M.V.), Thursday, 11 August 2005 10:50 (twenty years ago)

rofl!

― ken c (ken c), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

Gravity never failed. [/OMD]

― Ian Riese-Moraine: a casualty of social estrangement. (Eastern Mantra), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:06 (twenty years ago)

I fell asleep and read just about every paragraph.

Read the scene where gravity is pulling me around
Peel back the mountains peel back the sky
Stomp gravity into the floor
It's a Man Ray kind of sky
Let me show you what I can do with it
Time and distance are out of place here

Step up, step up, step up the sky is open-armed
When the light is mine, I felt gravity pull

Somewhere near the end it said
"You can't do this", I said "I can too"
Shift sway rivers shift, oceans fall and mountains drift
It's a Man Ray kind of sky
Let me show you what I can do with it

Step up, step up, step up the sky is open-armed
When the light is mine, I felt gravity pull onto my eyes,
holding my head straight (looking down).
This is the easiest task I've ever had to do...

I fell asleep and read just about every paragraph

Read the scene where gravity is pulling me around
Shift the swaying river's shift
Oceans fall and mountains drift
It's a Man Ray kind of sky
Let me show you what I can do with it
Time and distance are out of place here

Step up, step up, step up the sky is open-armed
When the light is mine, I felt gravity pull onto my eyes,
holding my head straight (looking down).
This is the easiest task I've ever had to do...

Reason had harnessed the tame
Holding the sky in their arms
Gravity pulls me down

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:11 (twenty years ago)

(you know I never actally knew all the words to that song I've just realised. A Man Ray kind of sky, wtf Stipe.)

― Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:12 (twenty years ago)

Man Ray

And that kind of sky:

http://edlynch.blogs.com/aheadofallparting/images/calumet_sunset_2.jpg

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:30 (twenty years ago)

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