1. >>Warning: Gravity is “Only a Theory” by Ellery Schempp

All physics textbooks should include this warning label:

“This textbook contains material on Gravity. Universal Gravity is a theory, not a fact, regarding the natural law of attraction. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.”

2. >Now can someone write another article “The round earth is only a theory” ?

1. > > from http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/philos.htm

Gravity: the mystery force http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/261/

The moon: the light that rules the night. http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/764

Ken Smith responds:

I haven’t looked at the moon item – life is much too short to read all the creationist garbage there is around – but I thought I’d cast an eye over the one which claimed that gravity is a mystery force, since I’ve lectured to large numbers of students over many years on gravity and various problems involving gravity.

I really think Gladys should stop posting links to articles which she doesn’t understand, in the hope that some other scientuifically untrained person might swallow cretinist nonsense.

It is quite obvious that the author hasn’t even read some recent popular books about unifying gravity with the other three fundamental forces – electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force. He could start with Brian Greene’s excellent book “The Elegant Universe” which covers the subject about as well as can be done without getting into the complicated mathematical details. So his comment that “Gravity remains the least unbderstood force” is simply nonsense.

And his subsequant comments about “no underlying theoretical explanation” shows his gross ignorance of general relativity – so that this creationist, at least, is living pre-1915.

The last two sentences of the first paragraph under “Gravity and Scripture” are worth repeating just to show how ignorant DeYoung is.

‘Consider the alternative; if gravity ceased for one moment, instant chaos surely would result. All heavenly objects, including the earth, moon and stars, would no longer hold together. Everything would immediately disintegrate into small fragments.’

The politest thing I can say about this is “Garbage!” The earth and the moon are *not* held together by gravity, but by the forces between the atoms which go to make up the rocks, which are due to electromagnetic forces. You can easily hold up a brick against the gravitational force exerted on it by the whole earth. The electromagnetic forces in your small muscles are sufficient to overcome gravity.

Have you ever tried to pick up a brick from a wall which is being knocked down? The mortar between bricks is quite weak, but it is strong enough to resist you – unless you are exceptionally strong. But break the mortar and you can easily pick up the brick, against the very weak gravitational force of the whole earth.

The final section “Designer gravity” is good for a laugh. No doubt the phrase “In a chance, evolving universe …” would be greeted with cheers by the usual ignorant readers. But the inverse square law comes out of general relativity – and if anyone thinks that I am going to try explaining Reimannian geometry in a text message they had better think again. There are plenty of books which go into the mathematical details of general relativity, and even Einstein’s basic paper on it can be read by any competent mathematician today.

All in all, this article shows that creationists are just as ignorant when they try to write about mathematics and physics as they are when they write about geology and biology.

Salaam

Ken Smith