Gravity is not a force. Gravity is a convenient word and in Newtonian physics you can get away with treating it as a force but it's units are not Newtons are they? Gravity is always measured in the units of acceleration. It cannot be a force because it accelerates all mass at exactly the same rate. A real force like, say, me pushing a rock along the ground is different because if I push two rocks of different mass with the same force they do not accelerate at the same rate.
This is not true. Gravity is proportional to mass, but the mass of the earth is stupidly greater than the mass of anything ON the earth, so everything falls at the same rate. Consider the Moon. On the moon, which is a mass less than the earth, things falls proportionally slower. On mars, objects weight about a third what they do on earth. The gravity of a body is directly proportional to its mass.
Your rock and boulder analogy is accurate, but limited. The boulder in the case of the earth is so extraneously huge that you could never push it. In Flat Earth theory, earth-boulder pushes YOU.
First off, there is no static point. Only Frames of reference.
Given, but that's really just syntax. My analogy wasn't a complete enough universe to allow a genuine point of reference, so I had to create one to illustrate the point. In the real world, you could use a distant star (one not orbiting us) or galaxy just as easily.
But then why, at the edges of the Earth, do we not observe gravity pointing towards the center of mass as Newtonian physics would have it? it should be tilting around 45 or so degrees there, making it immensely easier to jump, etc... gravity would be observed to be like 0.5 g at say...Australia...not to mention that gravity would pull you sideways, but never mind.
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You simply cannot have a uniform gravitation on any other shape than a sphere. So if mass gives way to acceleration then the Earth must be a sphere.
Clearly because the center of mass of the earth is so far below the plane of the earth that it appears parallel, similar to how the rays of the sun seem to always arrive parallel to each other. The earth could very well consist of a deep, less dense upper layer of the stuff we can dig into, sitting on a substrate of denser iron or uranium, so immensely long that gravity only SEEMS to be parallel.
Or, the substrate could, in fact, be infinite. It's just tortoises, all the way down. My point is, an extremely deep, bottom weighted cylinder would create pseudo-uniform gravity, certainly more uniform than RE theory, which claims all sorts of variations based on latitude imperfect sphere-shapes.
Alternately, there may be some sort of gravitational lensing phenomena, but that seems a bit too magical for me to really explore further.
Sorry, no. Think about it. How do astronauts-in-training simulate zero G? They free-fall in a plane. So, therefore, they can consider that no force is acting on them
This doesn't mean the force doesn't exist, it means they can't observe it. We, however, CAN observe gravity acting on us when we are not in direct contact with the earth. Gravity is weird, I'll grant you. It behaves nothing like "normal" electromagnetism, It's weaker, and affects its influence across significantly larger distances, but it IS a force.
An object in motion which comes into interaction with a gravity well will change its heading and velocity. An object at rest will begin to accelerate towards a body of sufficient mass to exert a gravitational pull on it. The Sun and the Moon wouldn't orbit us if gravity did not exert a force on them.
Forces felt != forces in effect. We are not aware of the gravitational effect of the moon, but we can observe it in the tides of the oceans. A body passing through the gravity well of our earth/moon/sun system will not feel the effects of the gravity, but will ultimately fly off in a different direction
What FE theory states is that masses do not attract each other at all and our perception of being attracted to Earth is caused by the Earth constantly accelerating in to us. If we jump up with a greater acceleration than the Earth then we leave its surface. However we must maintain this acceleration otherwise the Earth will eventually catch up with us. Does this make sense? Remember to always be aware of the difference between velocity and acceleration.
But the sun and the moon orbit us. Two sources of magic acceleration to propel them in such a parabola? Unlikely.
I think I do understand the implications of an accelerating earth, though, now... except it seems it would complicate air travel in ways I can't fully envision right now. The only real problem with it, then, is magical dark energy, and other bodies exhibiting gravity. I see no reason to make exceptions in physics for the earth uniquely. Sun, moon, et. al.
I hope we can agree that the "classical" idea of flat-earth gravitation by acceleration is absurd. Now if only you would open your eyes for a moment, you'll see that the idea of a round earth is equally absurd.
The difference between V and A is simple, the latter is the rate of change of the former. Acceleration is the 1st derivative of velocity. I'm certainly up to speed on high-school level physics, to be sure.