25c1f7bd   
   XPost: alt.philosophy.debate, alt.philosophy.objectivism, alt.philosophy   
   From: TommCarr@Gmail.com   
      
   Aardvark wrote:   
   >   The Ping-Pong Ball and The Sun.   
   >   
   >   [When it is at the Sun's surface,   
   >   the pull of the Sun's gravity on   
   >   the ping-pong ball will be at its   
   >   maximum.]   
   >   
   > The instant the ping-pong ball plunges   
   > past the surface of the Sun, the pull of   
   > the Sun's gravity on the ping-pong ball   
   > will begin to decrease.   
   >   
   >   [This is because as the ping-pong ball   
   >   travels closer and closer to the center   
   >   of the Sun: the mass pulling on the   
   >   ping-pong ball is decreasing, all the time   
   >   that there will be a growing amount of   
   >   Sun-mass behind it pulling back on it.]   
   >   
   > Once the ping-pong ball reaches the center   
   > of the Sun it will achieve gravity equilibrium   
   > and lie forever suspended there (at the exact   
   > center of a great hollow).   
   >   
   >      Conclusions from the above   
   >          thought experiment:   
      
   Your conclusions are flawed for a very simple reason. What you have done   
   is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand which, like a good magician, gets us   
   looking in one direction while the action is taking place in the other.   
   You get everyone looking only a gravity and missing the other forces at   
   work.   
      
   What you say about gravity is true: it is greatest on the surface and   
   will cancel out -- be effectively zero -- in the center. Pressure, otoh,   
   will be least on the surface and greatest in the center.   
      
   How is that? Because the pressure is not the result of gravity acting   
   directly on the ping-pong ball. It is the result of gravity acting on   
   everything else.   
      
   At the surface, and at all points under the surface until it gets to the   
   center, gravity is pulling the ball towards the center. In fact, gravity   
   is pulling all the hydrogen (yes, helium and other elements too -- but   
   vastly more hydrogen) toward the center. Once at the center, gravity is   
   no longer effecting the ping-pong ball, but it is still effecting the   
   trillions of trillions of trillions of tons of hydrogen, all being   
   pulled, and generating pressure, toward the center -- directly at the   
   hapless ping-pong ball. This exerts, as could well be imagined, a good   
   deal of pressure on said ping-pong ball.   
      
   You can even perform a real-world experiment to observe this principle,   
   using a real ping-pong ball and a swimming pool. At the surface, there   
   is no pressure on the ball -- it floats there quite happily. But cup   
   your hand over it and push it to the bottom of the deep end. By the time   
   you get to the bottom of the pool, the ball should be thoroughly   
   crushed. By gravity? No, the amount of gravity pulling on the ball will   
   not have changed significantly from the top of the pool to the bottom.   
   It was all that water on top of the ball that generated the pressure.   
      
   --   
   Tomm Catt   
   In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In   
   practice, there is.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)