# If The Government Controlled Gravity... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240 "2003-11-04T00:07:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Pandoradox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Pandoradox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pandoradox)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/1 "2003-11-04T00:07:54Z")
lets say that they can control it anywhere from a ten foot diameter to the size of the earth, meaning they could make a ten foot square, or the earth, just loose gravity and “fall” up. well i think this would be a very effective way of getting all of those terrorists. but what if each person had their own frequency and the government could insert that frequency into something causing an effect on just your particualr gravity. like what if they made the gravity of every person twice the amount that it is on their right than it is on thier left, every one would fall right, and hilarity would then ensue…i dont know where im going with this ---
**Author:** ![Coffeeguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/958977/32.png) [@Coffeeguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coffeeguy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/2 "2003-11-04T00:25:36Z")
Perhaps a more logical choice would be some sort of 1950’s style death-ray. —CoffeeGuy ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/3 "2003-11-04T00:28:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Pandoradox \* > …i dont know where im going with this You’re not alone. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/4 "2003-11-04T00:29:03Z")
**Pandoradox** : Where’s the factual question here? If a thread doesn’t have a factual question, it doesn’t belong in General Questions. Maybe MPSIMS would be a better home for this thread. Email a mod and ask him (or her) to move it. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/5 "2003-11-04T00:31:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Pandoradox \* > **just loose gravity and “fall” up.** First of all, it’s “lose”, not “loose”. Second, a lack of gravity will not make things “fall” up. It would simply prevent things from falling _down_. > [@](#): > > \*\*i dont know where im going with this \*\* Obviously. The _General Questions_ forum is for general questions with factual answers. Your post belongs elsewhere (possibly the _IMHO_ or _MPSIMS_ forums). ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Random](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Joe\_Random](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Random)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/6 "2003-11-04T00:32:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Coffeeguy \* > **Perhaps a more logical choice would be some sort of 1950’s style death-ray.** Is that the decade that they added gravity control to the death-rays? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/7 "2003-11-04T00:41:19Z")
On second thought, there might be a half of a GQ here: How does gravity work? What would happen if it were shut off? As for the first one, gravity can be thought of as matter warping space-time around itself, like a marble on a rubber sheet. If you put a big marble on the sheet and roll ball bearings around, the ball bearings will make their own indentations on the sheet (though not as big as the marble’s) and will, eventually, roll towards the marble by following the indentation in a `straight’ line. (Here, the concept of `straight’ needs to be altered a bit. In a gravity field, a straight line follows the curve made by gravity. When a planet orbits a star, or a moon orbits a planet, the object is following a path as close to straight as it can. The fact that the path is an ellipse is due to the reality-bending done by gravity.) If gravity were to shut off (and, no, we have absolutely no reason to believe it could), everything would travel in a straight line. Those straight lines would no longer be warped by gravity, however, so everything would basically fly apart. Earth, for example, would fly apart into a huge cloud of dirt and rocks and such, because gravity would no longer be keeping everything in one piece. Individual humans would fly off Earth because they still have the inertia given to them by Earth’s rotation. But because humans are basically all one piece, an individual would stay in one piece. The Sun would become a mass of hot gases flying off into space. Fusion would cease, and the gases would eventually go cold. Some gases may form more complex chemical compounds. Black holes would become … what? Rocklike masses of condensed matter? Gases, like stars? Portals to the realm Cthulu came from? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/8 "2003-11-04T01:01:27Z")
Seems to me that shutting off gravity in a ten-foot area would create some kinda hurricane effect. All the atmosphere in the area, no longer held down by gravity, would be pushed out into space by the pressure of all the air around it, which would rush in to take its place, only to be also pushed out into space. If the area was kept gee-free long enough, eventually most of Earth’s atmosphere would leak away. Though it might be interesting to think about reducing the gravity in a shipyard or a spaceship launch facility, but before you could start moving 100-ton components around like balloons (yeah, yeah, they still have mass, I know, shut up) everybody in the place would have been blown away by the wind. ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/9 "2003-11-04T02:24:03Z")
Best OP ever. ---
**Author:** ![Bruce\_Daddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Bruce\_Daddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bruce_Daddy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/10 "2003-11-04T02:45:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cheddarsnax \* > \*\*Best OP ever. \*\* 😃 Good username too. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/11 "2003-11-04T02:58:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Pandoradox \* > \*\*…i dont know where im going with this \*\* The next time you end a post with this line, hit ‘delete’ rather than ‘submit reply.’ ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/12 "2003-11-04T03:14:02Z")
You’re no fun, **moriah**. ---
**Author:** ![mrsam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5ac83/32.png) [@mrsam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrsam)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/13 "2003-11-04T03:51:29Z")
I think **CoffeeGuy** nailed it. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/14 "2003-11-04T04:08:24Z")
I believe the Rhino Party used to have repealing the law of gravity as part of their election platform, back in the day. I miss those guys. ---
**Author:** ![Forbin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5e9695/32.png) [@Forbin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Forbin)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/15 "2003-11-04T05:55:42Z")
They’d place a **heavy** burden on the taxpayer. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/16 "2003-11-04T05:58:57Z")
The poor wouldn’t get any. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-government-controlled-gravity/211240/17 "2003-11-04T06:10:02Z")
General Questions is for factual questions. I don’t see a General Question here, so I’m closing this thread. Please check out the forum descriptions and repost in an appropriate forum. **DrMatrix** - GQ Moderator