will expend energy keeping the potential energy of that dense mass aloft
Why?
This makes perfect sense with gravity. But makes no sense in your model.
Especially as you want to claim it is just the air (even though you repeatedly contradict that) which should just push the object up, not down.
until you release it which will allow the atmosphere to basically spring crush it down
Again, as the pressure of the atmosphere is greater below the object, it should push the object up, not down.
Why should it magically overcome the atmosphere below?
aided by the atmosphere above to its own dense mass.
And yet again, you wish to claim it is the mass causing it.
So why bother with the atmosphere at all?
Why not just appeal to the mass and only deal with the atmosphere when it comes to buoyancy where the force of the atmosphere pushing up is significant?
Repeatedly appealing to the atmosphere as if it pushes objects down doesn't help your case at all.
But even with this, you still need to explain what is causing that mass to want to go down, and you can't use the atmosphere.
Nothing ever separates to leave free space.
Again, the massive difference in properties of a gas compared to the same substance as a liquid or a solid; and the phase transition to the gas clearly demonstrates that you can.
Brownian motion clearly demonstrates that you can.
If your nonsense was true, there should not be a clear barrier between liquids and gasses.
Instead, as you heat a liquid up it should just expand, becoming less and less dense as it does so as the molecules expand, with no clear transition to the gas phase.
But back in reality, we have a quite clear transition. As you heat a substance, the liquid becomes slightly less dense, but typically only changes by a very small amount. Until it reaches the boiling point, where it sits at the same temperature as more and more of the molecules overcome the intermolecular forces holding them together as a liquid, breaking free with plenty of free space between the molecules in the gas phase, until it has all boiled, at which point the gas then continues heating.
That large amount of energy needed to turn it into gas (for water, it is more energy to turn it into gas than it is to take it from ice to its boiling point) is the energy required to overcome the intermolecular forces holding it together.
Again, if the molecules simply expanded and remained held together, there would not be this large energy requirement as the intermolecular forces would not be overcome.
We can even demonstrate the kind of behaviour expected under your nonsense with the transition to a supercritical fluid where the volume is so small and the pressure is so great there the free space between molecules is insignificant.
So no, we know that in the gas phase, the molecules are not tightly held together like they are in a liquid or solid phase. Instead we know that there is free space between them. But because the molecules are contained, there is no expansion as it turns to gas.
You repeatedly rejecting this when you have no explanation at all for the observed properties shows that you are happy to wilfully reject reality to pretend your fantasy is true.
Less resistance to the drop is all you get
Why?
If it is the air pushing the hammer down, why don't we also get less of a push down?
Again, you are effectively appealing to gravity. You are appealing to gravity acting on the mass of the hammer to pull it down, with the air just resisting the subsequent motion.
Force is friction, Mass is always moving which means it's friction.
No, friction is a specific type of force. Not all forces are friction.
Friction is a force based upon relative lateral motion (or preventing that).
i.e. if you have a plate sitting on a table, friction tries to prevent that plate sliding on the table. But it isn't friction preventing that plate going through the table or flying up into the air.
And as objects in motion do not need a force to continue their motion, that means it definitely doesn't need friction.
The mass is treated as being in a perfect vacuum with no surface friction.
It's impossible.
While it is impossible to get to that perfect state, we can get to a state where the amount of air and friction is entirely negligible.
Your arms and body expend energy holding the dense mass displacing the atmosphere along with your own arms and body. No gravity is ever required in any magical form.
Of course it isn't required in a magical form. You are the one trying to use magic.
Gravity is required in a quite normal form. Gravity is what you are fighting to hold the dense mass up.
It clearly isn't the atmosphere as less atmosphere (by mass) is displaced at this higher altitude, and the atmosphere is trying to push the hammer up to reduce that displacement as much as possible.
So what are you fighting that requires you to provide that energy? Gravity.
A body is never at rest, it's always expanding and contracting by agitation or friction, or vibration.
That is the individual components of the object, not the object as a whole.
But what if the object is a single atom? Or a single proton?
The only thing the atmosphere offers is opposing the motion in the form of friction.
It's all it ever has to offer.
So you accept that it does not push things down.
Gravity is a fantasy, made up to keep a spinning globe and planets and a universe alive in people's minds.
Gravity is a reality, backed up by mountains of evidence, with no one able to provide a viable alternative.
And as pointed out, your delusional BS works just as well on a RE.
For starters, the pressure around the sledgehammer is in equilibrium.
It never truly is.
The gas molecules hitting the top of the sledgehammer are the same number as hitting the bottom.
No they aren't. Not quite, hence why we have a layered and stacked atmosphere.
That's right. It is never truly equal, at least not in a gravity well.
Instead you have a greater pressure at the bottom. This greater pressure acts to push the hammer up. Not down, UP!
This means if it was just the air, the hammer should be going upwards.
We can also demonstrate this by weighing substances in various fluids, where we see the lower the density of the fluid the more the object appears to weigh, and if we do that with a gas, we can see that as the pressure drops the density does as well, and the weight approaches the true weight of the object, that is the weight the object would have without being immersed in a fluid.
You're offering free-flowing gas molecules in free space.
i.e. REALITY!
You should not be surprised by this.
Your inability to refute it means people will continue to use it.
Without gravity there is no force to break the equilibrium.
No need for fictional gravity.
But a real need for real gravity.
Unless you can provide an alternative.
And as we have already firmly established, the air pushes up, not down, so the alternative cannot be the air.
We also know it isn't the atmosphere magically resisting a force that was applied earlier.
This is easy to demonstrate by moving the hammer sideways instead. The air doesn't magically push it back. So why should it magically push it back down?