Weight Management – a matter of some gravity

What is most important thing in our lives?  Family?  Career?  Love?  Religion?

No. Whatever you answered is wrong.  (Though I’ll allow religion.  An afterlife may be useful.)

The most important thing in our lives is gravity.  Don’t naysay me.  Give it a moment’s thought.

Nothing else – not even Oxygen – is as critical to human life as the attraction between masses.  If gravity takes a day off, there will be no Oxygen – at least not anywhere nearby.

Gravity is enigmatic; its behavior is understood, but not its nature. (Perhaps it is a thing of faith.) Despite its mystery and its incredible importance, most of us are disinterested in gravity’s behavior in the universe. We are happy to ignore Big G (universe) in favor of the parochial Little g (Planet Earth).

Now, if I remember my introduction to Little g, I was told that the acceleration due to gravity on Earth was a nominal 9.80m/s² and varied inversely with the distance from the planet’s center of mass. Simultaneously, I was introduced to the concept that the Earth wasn’t spherical, it’s flattened at the poles due to the centrifugal forces associated with its rotation. So, in this simplified explanation, gravity changes with latitude.

Over this basic understanding, we layer the complexity of moving oceans, large land masses, and vacant spaces – all of which distort the value of Little g.

Let’s get to the crux of the matter and address the question poised on every woman’s tongue: Why diet when we can lose weight by moving around the globe?

Sadly, this cure for chubbiness requires complex travel planning.  Scaling the Himalayas does not result in instant waist trimming.  Despite the peaks’ distance from the center of the Earth, the mountains are a concentration of mass that increases gravity and, thereby, our weight.

Contrarily, although the bottom of the Mariana Trench is closer to the Earth’s center, the trench has a low concentration of mass.  As a result, our weight will drop while visiting the trench’s deepest depths. Disappointingly, our bathroom scales will not survive the journey to these nether regions and – should we do some deep sea diving – our weight loss efforts will remain unvalidated.

Let’s look at some numbers associated with this diet-free weight-loss program:

The maximum variation in gravity/weight in northern Europe is a paltry 0.21%.  A person moving from Ireland (g = 9.81400 m/s²) to Sweden (g = 9.81666 m/s²) would gain weight. That puts a kibosh on the Christmas trip to Malmo.

How about a trip to the Carson Valley*, Northern Nevada, near my current home?  Here g is a modest 9.7961 m/s².  Yup – moving from Ireland to Nevada helped be lose a massive 0.18% of my weight.  Sadly, this does not justify the price of an airline ticket to Nevada.

For your further erudition, here is a graphic of Earth’s gravitational variation courtesy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The warm colors are areas of higher gravity and the cool colors are areas of lower gravity.

*The Carson Valley is appreciated for its fine views of the Sierra Nevada mountains. However – if you have a background in mechanical engineering – you will recognize the valley’s true claim to fame:  It’s the birthplace of Bentley Nevada (now subsumed in GE), a pioneer in vibration monitoring.

If you prefer fiction to fact, try:

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

References:

Click to access report.pdf

https://dendritics.com/scales/gravity-zones.asp

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