Awesome Gravity

A gravity well is a cone-shaped device that pulls marbles or other small balls into its center like a vortex. JBV Creative built a version of a gravity well connected to an elevator, so as spheres drop through its middle, they head back up to the top and start their journey all over again. It’s incredibly satisfying once he drops thousands of steel balls into it.

If you’ve been to a science museum, you’ve probably seen those funnel-shaped tables where you can drop in a marble, and it spirals towards its center. Olivier Gomis shows us how he built three gravity well tables by cutting up pieces of walnut and maple veneer, gluing them into layers, turning them on a lathe, then sanding them to a smooth finish.

Movies and TV often use wires and CGI to make it look like actors are moving in low-gravity environments. This rig works differently, connecting a stuntperson to a counterweight on a metal armature via a rotating belt. The resulting effect is impressive, though we imagine it would be tricky to erase the rig in post-production.

Thus far, humans haven’t figured out how to control gravity. But it’s easy to achieve the illusion that we can manipulate its forces through the magic of photography. COOPH shares a handful of simple tricks which use rotation and props to help sell the illusion.

We’ve previously seen how gravity might affect a ball being dropped on different planets, as well as the sun and the moon. Now see what might happen if the same experiment were conducted with a stack of lumber dropped onto a car, courtesy of the automotive physics simulator BeamNG.

When you place a marble at the bottom of a ramp it shouldn’t roll uphill, right? Well in this tricky video from Things Made of Cardboard, they made it look like it’s possible. See if you can figure out how they did it before the end of the video.

Howdy, folks! It’s science time! Veritasium explains how gravity isn’t a force according to the General Theory of Relativity. He then demonstrates how the way we are moving through space-time while standing on Earth isn’t really any different from what an astronaut experiences as their rocket accelerates through space.

BeamNG.drive is known for its ability to simulate vehicle dynamics and crashes with impressive accuracy. In addition to weather conditions, it can also replicate gravitational forces. In this clip from The Action Lab, he shows off what might happen if you tried to drive a pickup truck on the Moon, Jupiter, and even the Sun.

Just how different are the gravitational forces on the planets in our solar system? Planetary scientist Dr. James O’Donoghue provides a great visual that compares the speed of a ball being dropped from 1 km onto each planet, as well as the sun, moon, and the asteroid Ceres where things take a really, really long time to fall.

Unless you’re a superhuman athlete, most of us here on Earth can only jump up about 18 inches. But if you went to Venus, you could jump twice as high. Bright Side takes a look at the gravitational forces on the moon and other planets for a look at how they would affect our ability to jump – assuming we could survive the conditions.

The lack of gravity in space can have strange effects on equipment and experiments. If you want to test in near zero-G conditions on Earth, you head to the Bremen Drop Tower, a 140-meter-tall chamber in which objects experience microgravity for up to 10 seconds at a time. Seeker explains how it works.

It’s been a couple of years since Gravity first blew our minds. Filmscapel looks back at Alfonso Cuarón’s masterwork, which deftly combined tension, incredible cinematography, and groundbreaking visual effects, accentuated by a shockingly minimal plot.

YouTuber Dustin Skye got one of those Levitron floating tops, but no, defying gravity wasn’t enough for him. He had to go and get all fancy on us, and put on a big show, complete with fog effects. He’s also likes to play with fire.

While Gravity was a pretty awesome movie already, artist Krishna Shenoi came up with a way to improve upon it, introducing a much better solution to Sandra Bullock’s seemingly endless tumble in space. The ending is priceless.

Screen Junkies pokes fun at Alfonso Cuarón’s space opus, reminding us of the of suspension of disbelief and iron stomach required to watch the film, as well as the less than thrilling experience that awaits us when we watch it at home.

Daniel Hubbard created this parody of the space epic Gravity, in which the unrelenting, disorienting blackness of space is replaced with the unrelenting, disorienting blue and yellow of Sweden’s mega store. And meatballs.