September 25, 2005
Gravity Hill?
Last night, the wife, a friend, and I drove up to Chattanooga for Wine over Water, a festival to support preservation of historic structures. Wine was drunk, historic structures preserved, and a good time was had by all.
On the way back, our friend informed us of a little place known as Gravity Hill. She grew up in Alabama, and was introduced to a place where the laws of physics simply do not apply. If you place your car with the front end facing down the hill, and put it in neutral, it will roll backwards, up the hill. This girl is intelligent, so I was a little intrigued, but I’m a skeptic and an engineer, and didn’t quite believe the hype.
Obviously gravity works just the same anywhere on earth, so something more must be occurring. She suggested that the mountain nearby was heavily full of iron, and the weight of that iron might be attracting that car. This is demonstrably false. Even if you fill that mountain with the most dense substance on earth, the relative mass compared to the entire earth will be miniscule. Any gravitational force could simply not overcome a downhill incline visible to the naked eye. Another possible explanation offered was magnetic force. Most modern cars are heavily made from metals like aluminum and stainless steel that is very weakly magnetic, so again, the magnetic force needed to pull a car up a noticeable incline would need to be enormous. Not a possibility.
Occam’s Razor states, that in the presence of multiple explanations for the cause of certain phenomena, the simplest explanation is most likely to be true. The simplest possible explanation is that it is not a downhill incline that you are being “pulled up” at all, but that an optical illusion makes you believe that it is a downhill incline. In reality, borne out by experience, this is also the true explanation. From the link above:
I have lived on Gravity Hill for 30 years. It is nothing but an optical illusion. From my home you can see you are really rolling down hill. A surveyor checked it once, and it has a 2 degree decline for about 75-ft. then a 31 degree decline, which gives it the appearance of going uphill.
In the car last night, we had decided that at some point in the future, we would need to make the 3-hour trek out to “Gravity Hill” with a carpenter’s level to try this for ourselves. I believed it would be an optical illusion, and would have relished the opportunity to prove our friend wrong (one of my pastimes). I think we can close the book on this.
What’s interesting, however, is how many “gravity hills” there are in the world. Wikipedia offers quite a few, as well as more evidence that the explanation is an optical illusion, rather than paranormal activity or the suspension of the laws of physics.
But I wonder, when I encounter people so willing to believe such nonsense, why they suddenly forego all normal sense to do so? I realize most people aren’t as versed in physics as I am, but it is almost that people have a desire to believe the most unlikely, but most “exciting” explanation. And people wonder why I don’t believe much of anything without verifying it for myself. There are enough people out there actively trying to deceive me, the last thing I need is to take the word of people who are simply gullible.
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A place where the laws of physics do not apply….sigh. Reminds me of this comic:
http://www.awacker.com/home/modules.php?set_albumName=Hef-Toons-%3A%3A-Volume-1&id=aat&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php
“Yeah, 6 feet tall, 30 feet wide, and a magic ‘no drag’ device on it. Sure.”