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Question:
What would happen if something suddenly affected the gravitational pull of the earth? Is gravity directly proportional to the gravitational field as electricity is to the electrical field?


Replies:
Yes, there is a gravitational field produced by the earth, just as there are electrical fields produced by charged objects. However, I do not know what you mean by "electricity being directly proportional to the electrical field". Electricity usually refers to the whole process of using electrical fields to do things (such as transmit power down power lines). We cannot manipulate gravity in any such way, and gravity is only really important when you have a very large object (such as the earth) nearby, and the only way we COULD manipulate that would be by moving around similarly massive objects, but throwing large moons etc. around does not seem like a very practical technology. Maybe there is another way, but science currently does not know of one. Anyway, to answer the question a little more succinctly, what a gravitational field (or an electrical field) tells you is the FORCE that gravity (or electricity) would exert on an object (a charged object in the case of electricity) at the point where you measured the field. The gravitational field is pretty much constant everywhere over earth's surface... (except that the direction changes!)

Arthur Smith


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