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Paperweight, defined
by the Oxford Dictionary as
“a small, heavy object for
keeping loose papers in
place.” The humble
paperweight has more to it
than what meets the eye. It
will not serve its purpose of
holding down papers
without the help of the
Earth’s Gravitational Force.
In everyday life, gravitation
is most familiar as the agent
that gives weight to objects
with mass and causes them
to fall to the ground when
dropped. Paperweights are objects with mass, therefore; the gravitational
force pulls the object to the earth’s core thus giving the paperweight its
weight. When a paperweight is put over pieces of paper on a surface, the
weight that draws the paperweight downward clamps the paper in place.
Gravity is the attraction of mass to other mass. It is a "pull" rather
than a "push" in that light. This is a 17th century Newtonian way of looking
at Gravity. According to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, gravity is a
push. The space around an object is malleable and is warped by that object.
So in Earth's case the Space is pushing us back down to earth.
Each atom that makes up the Earth will pull us, slightly of course, towards
it. The force that we feel towards the center of the Earth is the vector sum of
all these tiny forces. Some atoms will pull us more towards the East, but to
compensate, others will pull us more towards the west, for example. The
pull of most atoms will have a downward component; there are hardly any
atoms (as components of Earth) above us, to compensate for that.
There are many arguments for both pull and push when it comes to gravity, a
search of the internet will lead you to many arguments for both push and
pull.
Mechanics