Are you prepared for the sudden and complete inversion of gravity?
I don’t expect that anyone can truly be ready. Similarly, for the sudden stopping of the Earth’s rotation, I think we’re woefully underprepared.
If gravity were to simply shut off, there wouldn’t be anything to hold things to the ground. But things wouldn’t suddenly fly apart, would they? I suppose, like if the Earth stopped rotating, the shearing forces would play a bigger role. The Earth would no longer be drawn to the sun, and so would “fly off” in the direction it was previously headed. The spin of the Earth would cause everything on it to do similarly. The ground would fly “up”, away from the center of mass that gravity drew everything toward.
I was sitting at the kitchen table this morning, imagining the failure of gravity, executing a mental plan for this potentiality. I clung firmly to my coffee mug, and squeezed my butt cheeks. Plan enacted successfully.
