So the theory of gravity is bunk?

  • 2007 AAR League

    those burn fuel to do so. and when out of fuel, they will come down, unless in outer space.


  • Even there gravity applies Balung.

    And you must have missed all the magnetism experiments in physics… you can hover an item a LONG time, with no apparent “energy” used (as long as other factors do not disrupt the hover)

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    Throwing a rock in the air takes fuel too.  It’s measured in calories and not gallons or liters, but it’s still fuel.

  • 2007 AAR League

    but this doesnt use magnetism.

    its just certain small particles and such arranged in the right way.

    what i’m saying is what if nature had done this.  and nature had these arranged this way.  what would that do to the theory of gravity.  newton would be able to see things that float, which would mess up the theory.


  • I am not saying that it is magnetism.  It is a different force, but the appearance of how it works is similar is similar to magnetism… particles that in their normal arrangement attract each other (like N/S poles of a magnet) when their arrangement is changed they repel each other (like N/N poles of a magnet).  But outside force has been applied to change their alignment to reverse the normal action of the attraction.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    There are more poles then just N/S though.  The Sun, for instance, has an extreme number of different poles.  We on Earth are just lucky to have two which makes navigation easier. =)

    At least according to “The Universe” but I think even a TV show could get the number of poles right if the choice is between 2 and hundreds.


  • There are only 2 magnetic polarities though, and they coincide with N/S poles of earth, thus magnets have north and south poles.  The sun just has a lot of different areas that are alternately north polar magnetic and south polar magnetic


  • @balungaloaf:

    its always been said that this theory woudl go bunk if someone could levitate something, which has been impossible.  so the theory holds.  well now scientists have at least gotten things to levitate at a quantum (nano) level.  its a start, but in the future they should be able to get things to float.  basically rewritting the science books.

    The “levitating” they describe has nothing to do with gravity.  That’s just what they called it.  Those particles are still on Earth, subject to its gravitational force.

    i always tell believers in stict scientific knowledge and nothing else that they are fools.  b/c what they believe religiously today will be proved wrong in the future.  so those same “science and thats it people” are wrong today……b/c their science is wrong.  kinda makes you think.

    That’s the thing about science - it constantly works to improve itself.  Other themes of existence don’t necessarily do the same.  :wink:

    @balungaloaf:

    and all science have exceptions to their rules.  they just dont fully understand them.  in time they will.

    No, I’m pretty sure it’s you that doesn’t understand.  The only rules in science are in regards to conducting experiments properly.  The rest is hypothesis, a best guess based on trial after trial and current knowledge.  But it adapts as new breakthroughs are discovered.

    @ncscswitch:

    Dude, it is a reversal of attractive forces for particles smaller than protons.  And you can already get protons to repel each other… they do it naturally…

    For extra credit, why don’t nuclei blow apart?  8-)

    @dezrtfish:

    Lol, I had plans at one time to build a hovercraft from old vacuum cleaner parts.  I never did it in part because it would have to be plugged in and therefore been limited to fifty feet of travel.  With the balung anti gravity theory as long as it was plugged in I would have made a hole in the earths gravity.  I suspect All Gore would have made a movie about me…

    Dude, a hovercraft with a 50 ft range is still AWESOME!

    @Jennifer:

    So does light.  These things go up, but do not have to come down.

    Light is still subject to gravity, even if it doesn’t come “down.”  That is one thing that was wrong about Newtonian law of gravity.

    @Jennifer:

    There are more poles then just N/S though.  The Sun, for instance, has an extreme number of different poles.  We on Earth are just lucky to have two which makes navigation easier. =)

    At least according to “The Universe” but I think even a TV show could get the number of poles right if the choice is between 2 and hundreds.

    As Switch noted, it’s not a pole if there are more or fewer than two forces.  But a good show, either way.  :-)

  • 2007 AAR League

    I’ll claim the extra credit - I believe that nuclei stay together because of the “nuclear force” which at very close ranges is stronger than the repulsive force of magnetism between particles of the same charge.

    Anyhow, this thread shows a basic misunderstanding of the nature of science. The discovery of any new phenomenon, natural or man-made, actually demonstrates that the scientific method works. Yes, it demonstrates that previously, knowledge was not as advanced as it is after the new discovery.

    I don’t understand what you mean by “doesn’t that make the theory of gravity bunk?” Do you mean that gravity does not exist?

    That’s like saying that if you discovered that in certain situations it was completely dark (eg. a black hole), that this would prove that light does not exist.

    Or do you mean that this means that the entire scientific theory of how gravity works is completely wrong? If so it’s a miracle that the last space shuttle mission just happened by coincidence to have the right amount of thrust to get into an orbit around the Earth.

    Can you please clarify what you mean?

  • 2007 AAR League

    just means, that if we can place these particles in a particular fashion, so could’ve nature itself (theoretically)

    if in this theoretical world where some objects have been molded in this fashion, the objects could levitate.

    if people lived through this, how would newton come up with his “what goes up must come down, and wondered why the apple falls down and not up”.  it would be screwy b/c it would be that well things fall, except this thing, it just floats all the time.  it doesnt seem to follow the rules.

    thats what i’m saying.


  • @balungaloaf:

    just means, that if we can place these particles in a particular fashion, so could’ve nature itself (theoretically)

    if in this theoretical world where some objects have been molded in this fashion, the objects could levitate.

    if people lived through this, how would newton come up with his “what goes up must come down, and wondered why the apple falls down and not up”.  it would be screwy b/c it would be that well things fall, except this thing, it just floats all the time.  it doesnt seem to follow the rules.

    thats what i’m saying.

    the second law of thermodynamics prevents this from happening. ( what the 1st one ? i’ve only heard about the second)


  • @Frood:

    I’ll claim the extra credit - I believe that nuclei stay together because of the “nuclear force” which at very close ranges is stronger than the repulsive force of magnetism between particles of the same charge.

    That’s pretty much it in a nutshell…at least by our current understanding.  But to be a little more specific, it’s the interaction between particles that compose the nucleons themselves.
    A gold star for you.  :-)

    @balungaloaf:

    just means, that if we can place these particles in a particular fashion, so could’ve nature itself (theoretically)

    if in this theoretical world where some objects have been molded in this fashion, the objects could levitate.

    if people lived through this, how would newton come up with his “what goes up must come down, and wondered why the apple falls down and not up”.  it would be screwy b/c it would be that well things fall, except this thing, it just floats all the time.  it doesnt seem to follow the rules.

    thats what i’m saying.

    Ok…I think I understand.  But, frankly, your post really doesn’t have any value. 
    I mean, sure, if we had one thing in the world that defied our understanding of gravity because it levitated, then our theory of gravity would have a slight variance.  I’m sure there would be multitudes of studies on why this thing gravitates, or why it doesn’t gravitate, but is perceived to, or why we need to do an experiment in deep space to see if any other anomalies occur.
    However, science wouldn’t change - just our understanding and theory of gravity.  That’s not what’s happening here, though.

  • 2007 AAR League

    @balungaloaf:

    just means, that if we can place these particles in a particular fashion, so could’ve nature itself (theoretically)

    if in this theoretical world where some objects have been molded in this fashion, the objects could levitate.

    if people lived through this, how would newton come up with his “what goes up must come down, and wondered why the apple falls down and not up”.  it would be screwy b/c it would be that well things fall, except this thing, it just floats all the time.  it doesnt seem to follow the rules.

    thats what i’m saying.

    What I’m wondering is, are you saying that this proves something about science in general?


  • this is such a pathetic,ignorant attempt to knock science…Gravity is infinite in range,you fool. You cannot cancel out the gravitational fields generated by the sun,the earth,your own body. You may be able to temporarily overcome the effects of gravity,but its constant and cannot be circumnavigated. thats why perpetual motion machines wont work on earth…gravity always is victorious…faster-than-light-speed is impossible due to E=mc2…theorectically,you can go 99.999% the SOL but not faster…it would take an infinite amount of energy and we dont have that much --duh…ignorant people like you need to read more…that means entire books-not just snippets from some AP news story…no wonder everyone thinks Americans are so dumb… :roll:

  • 2007 AAR League

    i wasnt trying to knock science.  science is useful.

    i just thought this was a strange anomaly.

    i know gravity binds everything in the universe, and its a constant law.  i just thought this was a funny way to show that if nature had let it, we would have things that dont go with the laws of gravity.  even if they still techinically are bound by the laws, due to they only levitate to particles pushing against each other, but it would be funny if newton tried to make his theory when things were floating around him.

  • 2007 AAR League

    Ooh, that post was going to earn Mr. Hydra a smiting, but I got a session error… Grrr…

    And I was going to applaud BL for his tempered response (Me! Egads! Applaud Balungaloaf! My nemesis ;) ) but then I saw that his post had been edited by ncscswitch.

    Oh and Jermofoot - you mean the interaction between the two down quarks and one up quark that compose protons, and the two up and one down that make up a neutron? ;)

  • 2007 AAR League

    AHH physics! :-o


  • @Frood:

    Oh and Jermofoot - you mean the interaction between the two down quarks and one up quark that compose protons, and the two up and one down that make up a neutron? ;)

    Yup, that’s it.  But there’s a bit more than that.  Isn’t the universe interesting?


  • As a fellow scientist, I’m impressed by Jermofoot’s well reasoned and patient responses- we scientists can be arrogant at times with our proximal knowledge of the natural world.

    However, Balungalof, I think much of the confusion has to do with your concept of Newtonian Gravity. Newton’s theory of gravity (it is not a law, unlike his contributions to thermodynamics) simply stated that there existed an attractive force between two masses via gravitational potential energy. And Newton was almost exactly right. However, his theory fell short of explaining exactly “what” gravity is. That’s where Einstein came in with general relativity and improved (if not completely resolved) the question of “how” gravity occurs. However, with the blossoming field of Quantum Theory growing at the same time, gravity became a sort of conundrum as it was the weakest of the fundamental forces.
    -extra credit for anyone who can list them
    So now we have some new theories concerning quantum gravity that start springing up around this time while Einstein’s general theory gets scrutinized.
    Fast forward to the present and we’ve again confirmed General Relativity with a new gravity probe launched by NASA last year, I belive. Einstein was completely right. And we still haven’t unified physics yet (despite the best efforts of string, and later, M-theorists). Maybe someday you can take the banner of the likes of Pauli and Einstiein and try to figure out a “Theory of Everything”!

    Ladies and gentlemen, that’s what makes science so special. It’s not a “religion” because we rely on physical, falsiafiable evidence which can be confirmed by repeated testing and statistical verification. The method is very beautiful, and I think it begs everyone’s respect before we start claiming that her major theories are “broken”.

  • 2007 AAR League

    i know the theory of gravity is not bunk.

    if you read everything here, you will see i’m just messing around saying how neat it would be if nature had allowed such a thing and such forces to let something levitate naturally on earth.  our perception of gravity would have been pretty messed up.

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