• Question: Can gravitational effects be increases using natural forces?

    Asked by anonymous to Steve, Emma, Christian, Bose, Alice on 9 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Emma Dean

      Emma Dean answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Gravity is an acceleration. So artificial gravity can be created. This is an excellent way to reduce the negative effects of weightlessness that astronauts experience. Gravitational effects can be created using centripetal forces, the force that pushes outwards when you are being spun around, and linear acceleration, the force that pushes you backwards when accelerating forwards.

    • Photo: Steve Marsden

      Steve Marsden answered on 10 Mar 2016:

      There are several theories which suggest that gravity used to be much stronger in the past. Specifically a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang. We recreate the extremely hot conditions soon after the big bang in the LHC, but as of yet we’ve not been able to measure the effects of gravity at in these conditions. This is because it would still be far weaker than the other fundamental forces.

      Also, it is not only mass that creates a gravitational pull. Energy creates the same attraction (though you need a HUGE amount of energy to generate the same pull as a relatively small amount of mass). NASA is currently funding research into a star trek style warp engine, which uses this gravitational field generated from a large amount of stored energy.

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