Indestructibility of Gravitation

INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF GRAVITATION.

Gravity cannot be produced or destroyed. It acts between all parts of bodies equally; the force being proportioned to their mass. It is not affected by any intervening substance; and is transmitted instantaneously, whatever the distance may be.

While, therefore, it is impossible to divest matter of this property, there are two conditions which neutralize its effect. The first of these is position. Let us take two balls, one solid and the other hollow, but of the same mass, or density. If the cavity of the one is large enough to receive the other, it is obvious that while gravity is still present the lines of attraction being equal at all points, and radially, there can be no pull which moves them together.

DISTANCE REDUCES GRAVITATIONAL PULL.

Or the balls may be such distance apart that the attractive force ceases. At the center of the earthen object would not weigh anything. A pound of iron and an ounce of wood, one sixteen times the mass of the other, would be the same,–absolutely without weight.

If the object should be far away in space it would not be influenced by the earth’s gravity; so it will be understood that position plays an important part in the attraction of mass for mass.

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