Everyone knows the story about
Isaac Newton and the apple. Everyone knows about gravity.
Everyone knows that what goes up must come down. After
all, we live in the Space Age. We know that in order
to find freedom from the shackles of gravity, it's
necessary to achieve orbital velocity in a spacecraft.
We know all of these things to be true, but here's
a question: do we really know what we think we know?
In an isolated, out-of-the way
location in the gently rolling hills of Bedford county,
Pennsylvania, many vacationers visit a place where
the laws of gravity appear to have taken a vacation.
Known simply as Gravity Hill, it is a place where
the laws of physics seem to be badly misbehaving.
A vehicle, when parked in specified
locations on the road (marked with a nicely spray
painted "GH"), with the transmission in
neutral and with the brakes off, will actually roll
backwards UP the hill. Liquid poured onto the road
at the same spot will flow uphill.
Lives are said to have been changed
by a visit to Gravity Hill. People have been so disturbed,
inspired, or maybe just so doggoned confused by their
visit to Gravity Hill that their lives have been permanently
altered. Old beliefs shattered and gone, and replaced
by a new conception of the forces of nature.
Whether these phenomena are the
result of optical illusion, or of magnetic forces
poorly understood by modern science is a question
which will produce vehement arguments either way.
But regardless, it's a downright spooky feeling to
see - or to even THINK you see - water flowing uphill.
As the legend goes, the apple
may indeed have fallen on Isaac Newton's head, but
a visit to Gravity Hill - well, that probably would
have given old Isaac a REAL headache!
