Exploring the Many Slides of Gravity

Exploring the Many Sides of Gravity

Poetic / Prosaic —  

There is a mystical virtue in right angles. There is an unspoken morality in seeking the level and plumb. A house will hold together only if the joints are square and the members upright. When the bubble is lined up between two marks etched in the glass tube of a level, you have aligned yourself with the forces that hold the universe together. 

— Scott Russell Sanders, from THE PARADISE OF BOMBS

Prosaic-Poetic / Scientific —

Reconciling Gabriel Marcel and Ida Rolf

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.

— Gabriel Marcel

Consign your body to gravity.

— Ida P. Rolf

Indeed, gravity is that force which holds the universe together.

And yet, we observe that the universe is expanding.

Then, gravity must be an expansive force too.

Scientifically, we know that gravity on Earth has two operations.

Everyone is quite familiar with the one, the downward pull of gravity.

“Let go your cup of Joe, you know where it go.”

But there is the other side of gravity.

It is expansive and lifting.

Exquisitely so.

I know it is.

Not from a book.

Well, I also did read it in a book.*

But mainly and importantly from my own direct lived experience.

While learning how to live fully adapted with the gravity field of the Earth.

What is that experience?

Feet firmly rooted to the Earth.

A subtle yet definite and powerful liftedness toward the heavens.

In between . . . the great mystery of life, everything and nothing.

The force of gravity is always attractive.

— Isaac Newton

I like it. I’ll take it.

— David Wronski

Scientific—

*Centripetal Force and Centrifugal Force

Centripetal force and centrifugal force [are the] action-reaction force pair associated with circular motion. According to Newton's first law of motion, a moving body travels along a straight path with constant speed (i.e., has constant velocity) unless it is acted on by an outside force. For circular motion to occur there must be a constant force acting on a body, pushing it toward the center of the circular path. This force is the centripetal ("center-seeking") force. For a planet orbiting the sun, the force is gravitational; for an object twirled on a string, the force is mechanical; for an electron orbiting an atom, it is electrical. The magnitude F of the centripetal force is equal to the mass m of the body times its velocity squared v  2 divided by the radius r of its path: F = mv 2/ r. According to Newton's third law of motion, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The centripetal force, the action, is balanced by a reaction force, the centrifugal ("center-fleeing") force. The two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. The centrifugal force does not act on the body in motion; the only force acting on the body in motion is the centripetal force. The centrifugal force acts on the source of the centripetal force to displace it radially from the center of the path. Thus, in twirling a mass on a string, the centripetal force transmitted by the string pulls in on the mass to keep it in its circular path, while the centrifugal force transmitted by the string pulls outward on its point of attachment at the center of the path. The centrifugal force is often mistakenly thought to cause a body to fly out of its circular path when it is released; rather, it is the removal of the centripetal force that allows the body to travel in a straight line as required by Newton's first law. If there were in fact a force acting to force the body out of its circular path, its path when released would not be the straight tangential course that is always observed.  

Source: Infoplease^®

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