![]() ![]() ![]() Instead, they would fly off in whatever direction gravity was keeping them from going. Objects would no longer be drawn toward each other, because there would be no sloping surface for them to fall down. However, there are two alternative ways to switch gravity off, while letting all the other physical laws of the universe keep working.ĭialing down the scalar field to zero everywhere would essentially flatten the universe. In the interest of not being boring, let's consider an alternative scenario: What if the universe formed with gravity and developed normally up until a certain moment in space-time, and what if then, suddenly, gravity switched off?Īccording to Overduin, Einstein proved that you can't change the value of the gravitational constant known as "G" - doing so simply doesn't work mathematically, so there's no way for physicists to do it and still make sense of what would happen next. "This would be a boring universe," Overduin told Life's Little Mysteries. So, if the universe can't curve (because gravity doesn't exist), then there can be no matter or energy within it. Just as a bowling ball placed on a trampoline curves its surface, it is the presence of matter and energy that cause space-time to curve. According to James Overduin, a physicist at Towson University in Maryland who specializes in gravitation, a universe without gravity would be "completely flat and featureless." Overduin explained that gravity is just another term for the curvature of space-time - how steep or shallow the fabric of the universe is in a given place (and thus how likely objects are to fall toward the source of curvature). ![]()
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