Is Gravity An Illusion?

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Monday, August 31. 2015

Isn't almost everything an illusion?

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 16:14 | Comments (9) | Trackbacks (0)

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Funny concept. The force of gravity looks and acts in lots of predictable ways that are vitally important to us and can be calculated and predicted and used. But is it "really" there? What can such a question pretend to mean?

#1 Texan99 on 2015-08-31 16:26 (Reply)

PS, "Now, what I just said sounds preposterous and maybe even moronic, but it's not sophistry." He's referring to the idea that Einstein insists we have to consider that the Earth is falling up toward to the apple, instead of the apple falling down to the Earth. To which I can only reply, "Pooh," or "Yes, it certainly is preposterous sophistry." I can't see why Einstein would have had a preference for either one; they're accelerating toward each other.

Also, what's supposed to be the difference between calling it a "physical" force and calling it something else? It has a "physical" effect, which is what we care about.

But the video of the helium balloon in the accelerating car was cool.

#2 Texan99 on 2015-08-31 16:39 (Reply)

The air gets awful thick with smug scientism these days. It's useful to be reminded that we are susceptible as the ancients who believed a flat earth was the center of the solar system in assuming the physical world must operate according to our prejudices.

#2.1 Christopher B on 2015-09-01 12:42 (Reply)

I think Prof. Scott Bug does a better job of teaching Science.

#3 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz (Link) on 2015-08-31 20:13 (Reply)

Gyroscopes work by illusion.

#4 rhhardin (Link) on 2015-09-01 06:56 (Reply)

Interesting to see gravity hitting the mainstream, as it were. I'd no more trust PBS to pioneer a science than I would, say, the BBC, but it is an interesting happening anyway.

For more insight on the much longer history of the Standard Model getting it wrong about fundamental forces like gravity, see https://youtu.be/YkWiBxWieQU

These guys have been on fire lately.

#5 Ten on 2015-09-01 11:03 (Reply)

Fringe "science" in the extreme.

#6 bob sykes on 2015-09-01 11:24 (Reply)

If this were true we would not register weight on a scale. Since neither we nor the planet would move in relation to each other. Everything would be weightless and gravity would not exist. The planet could not accelerate towards us any more than we would accelerate towards it.

#7 Jeffersonian on 2015-09-02 01:46 (Reply)

"All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."
-- E.A.P.

#8 mysterian on 2015-09-03 23:53 (Reply)

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Monday, August 31. 2015

Is Gravity An Illusion?