Creative journal for science PeTa

Gravity is one of those things we take completely for granted. And there are two things
about it that we take for granted: the fact that it is always there, and the fact that it
never changes. If the Earth's gravity were ever to change significantly, it would have a
huge effect on nearly everything because so many things are designed around the
current state of gravity.
Before looking at changes in gravity however, it is helpful to first understand what
gravity is. Gravity is an attractive force between any two atoms. Let's say you take two
golf balls and place them on a table. There will be an incredibly slight gravitational
attraction between the atoms in those two golf balls. If you use two massive pieces of
lead and some amazingly precise instruments, you can measure an infinitesimal
attraction between them. It is only when you get a gigantic number of atoms together,
as in the case of the planet Earth, that the force of gravitational attraction is significant.
The reason why gravity on Earth never changes is because the mass of the Earth never
changes. The only way to suddenly change the gravity on Earth would be to change the
mass of the planet. A change in mass great enough to result in a change in gravity isn't
going to happen anytime soon.
Could we survive without gravity? It might seem like a fantasy to float weightlessly
through the air but practically, the human body would go through negative change, such
as muscle and bone atrophy while living in zero gravity. Even the rivers, lakes and
oceans on Earth wouldn't stand in zero gravity, without which humans cannot survive
What would the world be like without air resistance? Objects that are said to be
undergoing free fall, are not encountering a significant force of air resistance;
they are falling under the sole influence of gravity. Under such conditions, all
objects will fall with the same rate of acceleration, regardless of their mass.
But let's ignore the physics and imagine that, one day, the planet's gravity turned off,
and suddenly there was no force of gravity on planet Earth. This would turn out
to be a pretty bad day. We depend on gravity to hold so many things down cars,
people, furniture, pencils and papers on your desk, and so on. Everything not
stuck in place would suddenly have no reason to stay down, it would start
floating. But it's not just furniture and the like that would start to float. Two of
the more important things held on the ground by gravity are the atmosphere and
the water in the oceans, lakes and rivers. Without gravity, the air in the
atmosphere has no reason to hang around, and it would immediately leap into
 space. This is the problem the moon has -- the moon doesn't have enough gravity
to keep an atmosphere around it, so it's in a near vacuum. Without an
atmosphere, any living thing would die immediately and anything liquid would
boil away into space. In other words, no one would last long if the planet didn't
have gravity.
If gravity were to suddenly double, It would be almost as bad, because everything would
be twice as heavy. There would be big problems with anything structural. Houses,
bridges, skyscrapers, table legs, support columns and so on are all sized for
normal gravity. Most structures would collapse fairly quickly if you doubled the
load on them. Trees and plants would have problems. Power lines would have
problems. The air pressure would double and that would have a big effect on the
weather.
What this answer shows you is just how integral gravity is to our world. We can’t live
without it, and we can't afford to have it change. It is one of the true constants in
our lives!