What IF You Could Control Gravity?

What if you could control gravity? In this animated what-if story, you get the superpower to turn gravity up, down, off, or sideways for anything you can see. At 2 a.m. in the rain, you drop your coffee and it stops in mid-air. Then the rain starts falling up. With these gravity powers you walk on the ceiling, lift a whole street into zero gravity, make a thief run in mid-air, fall sideways down the road at 100 km/h, and send a bowling ball through four walls. Then the real physics catches up. Gravity is a direction, not a brake. Weightlessness makes your bones fade like an astronaut's. And everything you lift has to come down, including a 100-ton tower crane in a thunderstorm. The real science behind this superpower: • Einstein's "happiest thought" (1907): a falling person feels no weight, the idea behind general relativity • Zero gravity on the space station: gravity up there is still about 90% of Earth's. Astronauts float because they are falling. • NASA's "Vomit Comet": about 25 seconds of weightlessness per dive • Astronaut bone loss in microgravity (NASA / UC Irvine, Keyak et al., 2009, journal Bone): 13 astronauts lost about 14% of hip bone strength in ~6 months • High-rise syndrome (Whitney & Mehlhaff, 1987): 132 cats fell from New York windows, and about 90% survived If you had anti-gravity powers, what's the first thing YOU would lift? Tell us in the comments. S2 · Ep 5 of Then What?, the channel that asks "what if you had a superpower... then what?" Chapters: 0:00 The cup 0:21 How it works 0:55 The ceiling 1:33 The test 1:48 The science 2:27 The good part 3:46 The problems 5:10 The real problem 6:04 The cat's trick 6:58 The crane 8:01 The other one 8:12 Your turn #whatif #superpowers #gravity #zerogravity #physics #animation #thenwhat