Is it possible to create zero gravity on earth?

14 answers	Answer it!

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Apr 2, 2012. 11:38 AMkarnuvap says:

Now - when they actually detect the Higgs particle in the LHC. and start to make then in vast quantities then maybe they can also start to make anti-Higgs too.
Maybe these will be the key to anti-gravity.

But this will be many many years from now. So, probably not in your or my lifetime.

Apr 2, 2012. 10:29 PM

kelseymh says:

The Higgs (at least, the SM Higgs) is a scalar particle, and therefore it's own antiparticle.

Presumably the LHC has been making vast quantities of Higgs (SM and supersymmetric) all along, we just haven't figured out how to recognize them.

And yes, I am a professional physicist; don't try this at home.

Apr 2, 2012. 7:27 AM

steveastrouk says:

Any time you fall freely, you become weightless....

165

Apr 2, 2012. 7:50 AM

Kiteman says:

Yup, just jump off the nearest tall building.

Apr 2, 2012. 6:13 PM

WWC says:

What if i used the second nearest tall building, would i still get the same effect?

Apr 2, 2012. 7:55 AM

canucksgirl says:

Now didn't your mother say, "If all your friends jumped off a tall building, would you do it to?"

^{Evidently yes? ;)}

Apr 2, 2012. 8:58 AM

Vyger says:

Oh, so many replies to that.
"what friends? They all jumped"
"I usually hold their books."
"We have tall buildings?"
"I am usually first because its my idea."
"There goes the bell curve."
"You said the herd needed thinning."
"You know nobody ever tells me what's going on".
"Jump, pushed, its all the same in the end."
"Mom. you know I am the one that does the filming for the Youtube posts."
" I meant to ask you about a moral dilemma about this. Is it considered to be murder if you happen to jump and then landed on someone walking by and squashed them? Would that be a murder suicide? What if you changed your mind on the way down? Does it then become an accidental death? How about if it was a big dog I landed on, could the owner sue me or would the dog be considered to be a hero? ----- Mom?

165

Apr 2, 2012. 7:59 AM

Kiteman says:

_{_{I once had a kid say "if they were really my friends, yes, because I'd trust them, and assume they had something set up to stop me getting hurt".}}

Apr 2, 2012. 8:00 AM

canucksgirl says:

LOL... *facepalm*

Apr 2, 2012. 11:32 AM

knife141 says:

Technically, the answer is "yes." Zero gravity = no gravity, and each of us have the ability to generate no gravity. Gravity exists, but each of us have no ability to generate it.....

Apr 2, 2012. 10:28 AM

kelseymh says:

No. As Frollard said, you can experience zero weight.

Apr 2, 2012. 9:51 AM

Jack A Lopez says:

Yeah. I've been on that ride.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_tower
It's fun, but the fun only lasts for a few seconds.

Apr 2, 2012. 9:11 AM

rickharris says:

No.

Apr 2, 2012. 8:13 AM

frollard says:

Gravity is a force. It is a relationship between the masses of objects and their distance to one another. While you are in the presence of other mass, there will be a force of gravity. Weight is the effect of gravity pulling on something.

You can counter-act that force, such as how a plane uses lift, or an olympic deadlifter lifts iron 'against' gravity by exceeding its force with an opposite force, but the gravity is still there. If you are in freefall, you feel no weight, but you are still being accelerated by gravity.

They toy with the idea of how to counter gravity in the game "Mass Effect" -- by using fancy (read: sci-fi) physics to reduce the MASS of something to zero, they reduce all the forces associated. They can create or cancel gravity at will by simply changing the mass of an object - in the real world this is theoretically possible at a quantum level but we lack the technology to pull it off.

Long story short, in the presence of the earth, no, you cannot have zero gravity. You can have zero weight but its only because 'something else' is applying a countering force.

helium balloon = buoyancy.
plane = lift (pressure differential)
electrostatic levitator = electric field
magnetic levitator = magnetic field

All are doing the same thing, just using a different force.