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Stories from the Golden Age Blog
What is Gravity? A Short Lesson
Submitted by Gazette Editor on Wed, 06/16/2010In the story, A Matter of Matter, Chuck Lambert is tricked into buying a planet that you can't sit down on because there is something wrong with its matter and gravity field. Chuck has to think fast on his feet to make the most of the situation, which brings up interesting questions about the properties of matter and gravity that you yourself may have had. So let's take a few minutes to educate, and possibly dispel some misconceptions that might be floating about on this subject.
Gravity was only discovered believe it or not, in the past 300 years. Legend has it Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) discovered gravity when he saw an apple fall from a tree while contemplating the forces of nature. Before that time Greek philosophers thought and taught that the planets and stars were strictly relegated to the realm of the gods and followed a natural motion dictated by these supernatural beings. Luckily, this got straightened out by Newton, and several other really smart fellows (Galileo, Kepler, and Einstein).
Some Basics Facts About Gravity:
• Gravity is a force of attraction that exists between any two objects, and that a force is required to change the speed or direction of movement of an object. There is a force of gravity between the sun and the Earth, between the Earth and us, and really anything—satellites, planets, galaxies, are all influenced by gravity. It is a sort of an invisible glue, or rubber band.
• The gravity of the Moon is what is responsible for the ocean tides on Earth.
• The force of attraction between you and the Earth is what determined your weight. That is why you would weigh less on the Moon, and more on Jupiter than you do on Earth.
• No one really knows exactly what gravity is made of, just how it operates. In other words, you couldn't go to a local physics lab and order a bottle of "gravity particles."
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