Gravity is one of most important forces for our livelihood and for everything on this Earth and in entire Universe. Without gravity everything would be completely different, and I wouldn’t be here writing this article, nor you reading it.
In one sense, gravity is working for us but in another it is working against us. To quote John Mayer’s great song called Gravity:
“Gravity is working against me. And gravity wants to bring me down.”
Gravity really is bringing us down.
Hence, let’s see how is gravity working against us (in direct way) and how is actually enabling everything on this Earth to strive.
If we were to be very simplistic – gravity is only working negatively for us in one way, and this is esthetics and some other physical changes. Namely, over time, the skin loses its resistance and elasticity due to sun damage, loss of water, ingested toxins, and other factors, and begins to sag and wrinkle under the pressures of both gravity and aging.
For example, when elasticity is lost, the skin loses its ability to bounce back when muscles contract and so wrinkles are formed. Additionally, the skin slumps because of gravity.
Besides wrinkles, almost everything else on our bodies also starts to collapse (think muscles) as a direct or indirect results of gravity (and aging, of course).
But let’s be honest, those are not real challenges. Everybody ages, and that is good. That means that we have forces enabling us to do so.
Without gravity there would be enormous consequences for us and for the whole universe. Sure, we would not age so fast as we do now. Actually, we would not age at all. We would be dead very soon.
Let’s then delve deeper into potential consequences to the world without gravity.
Related:
Mass, weight and gravity
First, we’d need to get a bit scientific. Just a bit, trust me. We need to distinguish between mass and weight of the body (or any other object on this Earth).
The mass of a body is the amount of matter contained within it, while the weight of a body is the force acting on it due to acceleration due to gravity. Now, while those terms may seem very similar you’ve probably noticed one thing, and this is – that gravity is not mentioned while defining mass. That is, gravity is not affecting mass of the body and thus mass would still be here if gravity suddenly disappears.
On the other hand – weight would not be present anymore if gravity disappears. Weight would be exactly zero. For everything, for you, for your body, for every physical object on the Earth.
Now, this is a problem. And a big one.
Without weight and gravity we would be gone. Not just we – entire world would be gone. No, no – not just whole our world (Earth), but whole universe with all of its planets and stars.
We all know the basic definition – the more massive the object is the stronger is its gravitational pull.
Largest (and most massive) objects in our solar system are planets and of course our star – the Sun. Sun is actually the largest by radius (696,340 km or 432,685 miles), by volume (1.4 x 1027cubic meters) by weight (1,989,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg or 4,385,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds) and by all other possible parameters.
Those are some unimaginable numbers especially if we compare them to Earth. Namely, sun is as heavy as circa 330,060 Earths.
Then by size, volume and weight comes Jupiter, then Saturn, Neptune, Uranus and so on.
Collapse of Everything?
So, if the sun is the biggest “beast” in our solar system let’s start with its consequences of no more gravity. Basically the Sun is what keeps everything in order, because without its huge gravitational pull force, everything would collapse.
And I mean everything. Earth would break into chunks. All other planets would break also. Because gravity is basically what holds this planet and all other planets together.
Then those pieces of different planets would float around the space.
Note: does this remind you of beginnings of Universe when also everything floated in space? Yet, now in a different order.
And what about our sun?
Well sun would also collapse. But this collapse, or explosion would be much bigger. Words can not express how big the collapse would be.
The same would happen with other stars in our known and unknown universe. And so little by little everything in universe would breakdown into pieces. Then those pieces would break into even smaller pieces.
And at the end universe would look terribly similar as it was in its beginnings. It would be plain soup of atoms.
So, that is what would probably happen on a grand scale and we can’t correctly prognose how fast it would happen.
Therefore it would be “fun” to hypothesize in more details what would potentially happen with humans and other things on Earth.
In that case let’s use our fictional character average Joe, who has been mentioned in several articles on CuriousMatrix.com.
Fictional Scenario of Sudden Loss of Gravity
- Gravity suddenly disappears. In a matter of milliseconds.
- Average Joe is sitting on his couch, playing with his doll.
Note: If you read article on Love dolls and humanity you might remember this "doll". - Second 1: Joe is not sitting anymore on his couch. Nor his doll. They are both flying in the air. Imagine something like people in International Space Stations. Just this scene in Joe’s apartment looks even more weird.
- Second 2: Joe notices that his heart is not beating properly. In normal circumstances, effort your heart creates takes gravitational force into consideration.
- Second 5: Joe is now in full panic mode. He, and his doll are completely vacuum-packed to the sealing. WTF is happening – Joe is thinking to himself.
- Second 10: Joe notices that all his furniture is also flying.
- 1 minute: Now the whole building is starting to detach. Joe is flying together with his building.
- 2 minutes: Building is almost destroyed but they are still flying. Other buildings are also flying.
- 3 minutes from loss of gravity: All objects on Earth are drifting off to the sky.
- 5 minutes: Joe is somehow still alive, and he notices huge waves of water around his building and in the air. Without gravity, all water on Earth (rivers, lakes, oceans) would also drift into abyss.
- 10 minutes: Joe loses his mind. And not only mind – also his breath. There’s no more air to breathe.
- 10 minutes, 15 seconds – Joe dies. His doll is still somehow flying.
- Several days or months: Joe and everything on Earth is decomposed to smallest parts. Including his doll.
And so, there you go – two distinct parts of potential consequences for sudden gravity loss. The first part is mostly focused on Earth and Universe, while second part if mostly fictional with some grounds in basic physics.
In any case, we would end up with the same scenario. The scenario of nothingness. Gravity is what keeps us together. Literally.
