The Science of How Things Work: How gravity and magnets work.
dr rocker
Regular
I am often asked how gravity and magnets work. I am not so sure they have taught this in schools for a long time for the amount of people that I meet that do not know how gravity and magnets work. We will start with gravity
Gravity is what holds everything together, and the earth is no exception. The earth, and its atmosphere, are in space. Space is a vacuum. It can be confusing to think that all of the air that surrounds our planet could just fizz off into the distance. Gravity stops this.
This is easy to witness in your own kitchen. Go and pour a soda – a clear or light coloured drink will allow you to see right the way through it. Cola will not be so good. Pour that drink into a clean glass – make sure it is really clean.
Leave the drink to settle for a few moments. Return to it and you will see small bubbles of gas in the liquid – not just ones on the sides of the glass but some actually in the middle of the liquid. This is because the liquid and the gas have been made equiliberal by the atmosphere. The atmosphere really does want to go fizzing off across space, but as it is chemically locked together so it would have to tear first.
Due to the pressure created by these chemical bonds holding a massive amount of air on us, the air is pressing us down. Overtime, this downward pressure rearranges the bonds in some minerals so they too have gravitational properties. It is due to a reaction between the air and the mineral, meaning these rocks cause things to be pushed and if you turn them the other way around they can then be used to pull things.
These are magnets – they are just rocks that contain the gravity the air has created.
Gravity is what holds everything together, and the earth is no exception. The earth, and its atmosphere, are in space. Space is a vacuum. It can be confusing to think that all of the air that surrounds our planet could just fizz off into the distance. Gravity stops this.
This is easy to witness in your own kitchen. Go and pour a soda – a clear or light coloured drink will allow you to see right the way through it. Cola will not be so good. Pour that drink into a clean glass – make sure it is really clean.
Leave the drink to settle for a few moments. Return to it and you will see small bubbles of gas in the liquid – not just ones on the sides of the glass but some actually in the middle of the liquid. This is because the liquid and the gas have been made equiliberal by the atmosphere. The atmosphere really does want to go fizzing off across space, but as it is chemically locked together so it would have to tear first.
Due to the pressure created by these chemical bonds holding a massive amount of air on us, the air is pressing us down. Overtime, this downward pressure rearranges the bonds in some minerals so they too have gravitational properties. It is due to a reaction between the air and the mineral, meaning these rocks cause things to be pushed and if you turn them the other way around they can then be used to pull things.
These are magnets – they are just rocks that contain the gravity the air has created.
Comments
Excuse me while I ponder the future of my country.
It does not help to explain this - not in proportion to size anyway. Jupiters magnetic field is 14 times greater than that of the Earth. Jupiter is massive in size - 10x25 × 1.52 m3, wheras earth is 10x21 × 1.1 m3 in volume. This is near 1400 times the size of Earth, however, the gravity on Jupiter is only 2.5 the power that of gravity on earth.
One theory is, that as Jupiters atmoshpere and Jupiter the planet itself are both made mainly from gas - at some point in the past had avery heavy gas ion the atmoshpere oxegen, or nitrogen, or carbon dioxide; however, it has all turned to hydrogen - and it is not heavy.
It is believed with the heavy gasses of the past, the rocks took a heavy charge from the air on Jupiter and while the gasses were no longer in a equiliberal state they disasociated from themsevles in a state of nutron loss until they become hydrogen.
Thus, Jupiter has heavily charged magnatism in its rocks from the mass of its atmosphere in the past. A throwback to many years ago.
I'm pretty sure all the space probes we sent to the gas giants proved that this is no longer a theory, but a fact.
That they are gas is not in dispute - the theory is that they were made up of heavier gasses that have become lighter gases.
Clearly, somebody should direct the Insane Clown Posse towards this thread.