If you imagine yourself at the center of the earth your are floating since the pull is the same around you. But let us say you could turn up the gravity as much as you want. Why aren’t you pulled apart? The net forces are zero, sure. But wouldn’t the body experience tension?

Question

If we compare it to a rope pulled by two equal forces in each end. The net forces would be zero and you would have static equilibrium, but the rope would still break if pulled hard enough.

Additionally, wouldn’t a metal ball uniformly surrounded by powerful magnets be pulled apart as well?

I am not sure why I can’t wrap my head around this, when it comes to the center of the earth.

In: 83

Answer 1

I think the mistake you are making op is thinking of gravity as a force. Which it isn’t. its not like invisible tethers pulling on you.

If you think of it like a spacetime curvature instead it makes more sense how gravity can cancel itself out if you are in the center of a big hollow object. Its not like in a material we pull on where we have stress on all atoms.

But rather its like being on a big trampoline with a big weight around you(like a cylinder with you standing within the cylinder), the trampoline floor tilt in this example will be the gravity (spacetime) effect. Within this big cylinder the floor will be very flat, thus you wouldn’t be “falling” towards anything, just standing there normally, unaffected by the floortilt.