ARE YOU SMARTER THAN STEPHEN HAWKING??

Forget the 5th-graders, for cryin' out loud-I want to know if youre smarter than Stephen Hawking (yeahthe History of Time guy).

Well, Uncle Charnoch is,

and theres a good chance YOU are, too. (I'm not talking about math here--this isn't about matching math-wits with Steve. The thing is, math is only a language--a tool. There is a BIG difference between reasoning and ciphering. Think of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Could he balance your check book? You bet. Would you trade minds with him? Not hardly. You wouldnt trade math tricks for your intellectual and emotional properties. Math is NOT reasoning. Doing math is not the same as doing thinking. So if you ever have a choice between math and thinking, choose thinking. If intuitiveness means thinking, then sign me up! Flawed intuitive thinking is way better than NO intuitive effort at all.

Beware of math as a substitute for thinking. Math can get to be like drugs. It can impair your judgment worse than jailhouse home brew. Look at "physicists. Too much math, not enough thinking. Math to a "physicist" is like titties to a teenaged boy--

WARNING! NOT CONDUCIVE TO CLEAR THINKING!!! DANGER!! DON'T LOOK! STOP IT! STOP IT!!

Why the heck dont we feel the earth move?

This is a magical and mysterious question. Why is it so special? 1) its at the heart of understanding our world, & 2) its a question that Stephen Hawking has never honestly addressed. (Nor has anyone else in the post-Galileo era.)

WHY THE HECK SHOULD WE FEEL THE EARTH MOVE?

Logically, shouldn't the question really be: HOW IN THE WORLD COULD WE NOT FEEL THE EARTH MOVE?

Because she moves like a mother. Because she is part of the Solar System. You could figure her travel rates yourself, if you are inclined that way. (Lets ignore the bigger picture for this discussion. Forget about the galaxy we live in, and where our galaxy fits in beyond that, and so on. For getting ourselves oriented, our place in our Solar System will do just fine. Earth is positioned in an orbital path 93,000,000 miles from the Sun. You can work it from there. Circumference = pi X diameter. Due to her natural habit of annually orbiting the Sun-- day after day, year

after year-- the Earth flies through space at about 66,000 miles per hour (which is more than three times the speed a rocket needs to reach in order to get into Earth orbit). Oh, yes. And all at the same time, Earth is making a daily 360 degree rotation. Since Earths diameter is about 8,000 miles, you can figure it for yourself if you like. At the equator, Earth rotates Eastward-- day after day, year after year-- at about 1,000 miles per hour.

So, shouldnt we EXPECT to feel the Earth move? Wouldnt that be a rational thing to predict? If you strap into a drag racer and hit the gas you can be going 200 MPH before you know itand you will sure as heck FEEL your ass being hauled. So if youre strapped into a rocket ship which is going 66,000 MPH (while spinning around an axis)how come we dont feel itnot even a teeny bit? If this strikes you as worth asking, then you're already ahead of Stephen Hawking. Way ahead.

A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE (& VICE VERSA)

To understand why we dont feel the Earth move, we first need to understand what the Earth is.

This is not some unknowable, highly complex, mind numbing (non-intuitive) exercise. The answer is right there in front of our noses, readily available to anyone who wants to know. If you have: 1) 2) 3) a set of car keys , a picture of Earth taken from out in space, and a good mind,

then you have all the tools you need to figure out the reason we dont feel the Earth move.

Put your car keys in the palm of your hand. Imagine that millions of other people are doing the exact same thingall around

the world. Stretch your arm out. Rotate your hand. The keys will fall out of your hand and hit the floor. And all around the world, the exact same thing would be happening. Big deal? You bet. You have just seen the Principles of Gravity at work. Here is the First one:

FIRST PRINCIPLE OF GRAVITY

MATTER ATTRACTS MATTER, & OBJECTS ATTRACT OBJECTS, WITH A DEGREE OF FORCE COMMENSURATE WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE MASSES.

The reason your keys fell down was that the Earth is bigger than your keys. The power- to -attract of a big object is stronger than the power- to- attract of a smaller object. Although our entire existence is based on this phenomenon, it is hard to get our minds around itprobably because we are totally incapable of reproducing itor anything even really resembling it.

It is somewhat similar to the way heat radiates outward. Two charcoal briquettes put out more heat than one briquette, and so forth. But Gravity radiates IN-- not out. A big clump of matter wields more come here than a little clump. So little clumps gravitate to bigger clumps. The process is like a reverse explosion. Take a movie of something being blown up. Run it

backwards. That is the way Gravity makes clumps of matter behave. It imparts to all things the natural impulse to form groups. But there is nothing in our Earthly experience that is truly analogous to Gravity, so we have to constantly be on our toes. An explosion is something that has been causedthat has been done to something. Which fundamentally distinguishes explosions, and all other Earthly activities, from how Gravity operates. The mutual attraction of matter and objects isnt something done to the objectsit is part of the very nature of those objects. Objects simply possess a communal nature. This is the first principle behind the fact that there are millions of settlements (like Earth) scattered around the vastness of Space.

The second principle relates to the detailsof exactly HOW collections of matter are collected. A hot charcoal briquette puts out heat in all directions. A big space settlement like Earth puts out a come here force in all directions. I mean REALLY ALL DIRECTIONS. More directions than you can count. 360 degrees (or 6,400 mils) times the infinite number of circles that make up Earth. The attractive force of Earth operates omni-directionally. (Just as it did billions of years ago while Earth was being formed.)

The end result is inward shift toward a common center. Prolonged systematic inward shift produced a systematic arrangement of the bits a sphere. To Naturea sphere is the ideal form. It is Natures entity-Natures One. When a whole bunch of shapeable matter has a common center and the individual bits all have a mutual attraction, you have the natural makings of a sphere.

So-- looking at those pictures of Earth from space is kind of cheatingits like having someone give you the answers before the test. But if you were blind and you were given the First Principle of

Gravity, you could work the rest out in your mind. The sphere is the logically predictable result of the systematic physical application of the principle of matter- attracts- matter. It works backward and forward. The way the magnitude of a clumps comehere is based on its massiveness predicts spherical formation. And the existence in fact of a sphere proves that spherical forces have been at work on that particular clump of matter. Thats the principle behind the shape of Earthand the way Gravity regulates our existence.

SECOND PRINCIPLE OF GRAVITY: GRAVITY

WORKS SPHERICALLY

Because Earth was built according to that principle: if you split Earth in half, from any conceivable angle, her two hemispheres would be equal in mass. Which means that as you face in any direction, the forces pulling you down- and- to- your left will equal the forces pulling you down- and- to- your- right. The sideways forces (left / right) dont pull an object apart. And they dont cancel each other outbecause they are all part of the weight of an object. The working direction of those multi-directional pulls is their aggregate. Their aggregate is a pull in a single, dominant direction (straight down). They work in concertlike guy wires on a TV tower. Guy wires dont pull a tower apart. They exert tugs from geometrically balanced (symmetrical) angles, and the net working angle is the aggregate-- straight down.

Which is the same way the sum total of the multi-directional Earthly Gravitational forces at work on your body translate into a single, simple sensationa pull in a single direction straight down (on a line which would run through Earths center, of course). Earths attractive force works as if it derives from a single pointEarths center of mass. When your car keys fell to the floor they didnt feel competing and conflicting tugs from all around and beneath them. No. They felt a tug from a single direction from Earths center of mass.

Try and imagine the gravity connections between your body and every other single person, animal, car, house, rock, mountain, and so forth in Earth. Every single thing comprising Earth is connected. And inherent in the connection is the systematic organization. Things are collected based on their density and their rigidity, and it works out sort of like the way you take your hands and make popcorn balls out of hot caramel corn. Except Gravity shapes from within. And the product is marvelously predictable. When everything works according to plan, Gravity produces a sphere.

With or without any conscious thought, every human activity always has been, and always will be, based on the way Gravity works spherically.

Thats the working premise behind plumb bobs, bubble levels, sophisticated inertial navigation systemsand the good old originalthe human bodys equilibrium mechanisms. These orientation tools show us the center of Earth's mass, and work on the principal of Gravitational equilibrium. The top of the bubble in a bubble level is perpendicular to a vertical (orthogonal) line to the Earth's center of mass. How reliable is the premise that Gravity pulls us straight down toward Earths center? Well, for one thing, if that's a false assumption, then so is everything else we believe we know about Gravity. If matter attracts matter systematically, then we have to believe that the attraction is based on something. What better system than one based on magnitude of mass?* So: as Gravity forms communities, simultaneously a variation on survival of the fittesta survival of the massiest takes place.

If Earth were shaped like a brick (unless we lived at some weird geometric address, like a corner) it wouldn't fundamentally

change our daily routines. Gravity would still orient us to the center of mass of our local clump of matter. But to the extent that the components of this particular clump are malleable, such as the water in our lakes and oceans, Gravity inherently tries to create spherical form. And Gravity simply cannot collect without sorting and arranging. It's like a non-separable vector. So one of the major things Earth's form can tell us is whether Earth's component matter is malleable (is now or used to be at one timeit works the same). It makes our surface navigation a more rational and reliable process.

So if a photograph from out in space shows Earth to be a sphere, that is cause for celebration. It simultaneously validates the assumption that Earth's bits are / were malleable, that Gravity operates this local corporation as an independent entity, and that Earth's center of mass is not only the heart of Earth's Gravitational force field, but is also the geometric center of that community. It's equilibrium all the way, baby! Gravitational, geometric, navigational, you name it. Sweet!

Oh yes. I almost forgot. Back to Where the heck are we?. We are in the surface of a spherical gravity field called Earth (which happens to be flying and spinning through space).

HUSH!

Is this all really necessary? Only if you want to understand the rules of Earth-motion. Which has to start with a true foundation. What you have just learned isnt pointy-headed pocketprotector nerd stuff. It is the blood and bones-- the very foundation-- for the Rules of Motion. You have just learned the significance of Stillness. We all know about stillness. It is the continuation of a geographic location, isnt it? Yes and no. Absence of geographic change is the sign of stillness. But there is a critical principle at work in a still pond, a still glass of water, your sense of total rest when youre stretched out in your hammock.

When you are under the pure and unadulterated power of Earths Gravity you are in a state of serenity, stillness, placidity equilibrium with the rest of Earth. Here again, this is a phenomenon which flows logically from what we know about the nature of Gravity. Once Earths Gravity had formed her parts into a sphere, its agenda changed from Construction to Maintenance. Today Gravity works to maintain Earths spherical arrangement.

All of Earths movable bits-such as you, your car and your private jet-are constantly compelled downward on a line through Earths center, with a force commensurate with their respective weights. Weight is actually the ratio of a particular objects mass to the total mass of Earth. An objects weight and location are inseparable aspects of the objects Gravity-given identity. If you have weight then you also have an assigned place in Earths surface. Gravitys spherical nature imparts a natural state to individual bits of a sphere. That natural state is

Stillness. THIRD PRINCIPLE OF GRAVITY STILLNESS IS THE STATE OF SPHERICAL HARMONY / EQUILIBRIUM WITH EARTH And stillness is a permanent condition. When you plop down in your hammock, as far as Earths Gravity is concerned, you are supposed to stay there permanently. Gallivanting around is NOT EARTHS IDEA. Earths idea is for everybody to sit still. Sitting still is spherical behavior. It is a state of harmony with Gravitys spherical nature.

If you understand these basic principles of Gravity, then you have established a solid foundation for truly understanding motion. (and you are so far ahead of Stephen Hawking your face should be a bright shade of red right now!)