| QotD |
[09 Sep 2009|05:25am] |
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"Gravity may not seem like a weak force, but it is.
The simplest illustration of gravity's weakness is the old
'rub-a-balloon-on-your-hair-and-stick-it-to-the-ceiling'
trick. When you do that, the attractive force of maybe ten
billion extra electrons on the balloon is enough to hold it
up against the gravitational pull of the entire Earth pulling
on a billion trillion atoms in the balloon. Gravity is
preposterously weak compared to the electromagnetic force."
-- Chad Orzel,
2009-08-25 [
thanks to
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
acroyear70
for quoting it earlier (and including the observation from a physics
prof that, "it takes gravity 30-something seconds to get you to
fall a certain number of stories from the roof of a building...and
electro-magnetism a fraction of a fraction of a second to stop
you."]
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