okay guys today I found something really
weird in my kitchen
it's a gravitational anomaly around this
area I was hoping you guys could help me
figure it out
so in Santa Cruz California there's a
special spa called the Santa Cruz
mystery spa and it's something that's
known as a gravity hill there's not just
one gravity hill even where I grew up
there was a place in a little Canyon
known as gravity hill and there's
multiple places all around the world
where people seem to find gravitational
anomalies where balls seem to roll
uphill or things don't quite fall over
like they're supposed to and I think
I've discovered one in my house here so
a lot of people contribute these weird
phenomenon of balls rolling uphill at
these gravity hills to supernatural
phenomenon or maybe a gravitational
anomaly or a magnetic anomaly in the
earth the scientists actually attribute
these gravity Hills to nothing more than
an optical illusion but an optical
illusion is not what you're about to see
here it's something entirely different
and I want you to try to figure out
what's going on here so let me show you
what's going on here in order to show
you I need two books I'm gonna use my
very first physics book and my favorite
physicists are one of my favorite
physicists Richard Feynman's book okay
so let me show you what I mean so I'm
just gonna create a slight slant here so
the two books are stacked up here it's
in my kitchen so you can see this is not
an optical illusion obviously my floor
is level my baseboards are level so I'll
set this board on it you can see it's
obviously at a slant here but then watch
what happens when I try to roll this
disc down it so I'll set it here I'm
gonna let it go very gently so you don't
think I'm pushing it
and it goes up so look at this again
it's clearly slanted it's not going
downhill but I place it here anywhere on
it and it goes up okay look at this
again
just set it here on a clear slant it
just goes up and I already know what
you're thinking you're thinking I'm
blowing it uphill or something so I got
some very fragile gold leaf here that
reacts to the tiniest little bit of wind
you can see when I barely blow on it
just wave it around it flows in the wind
okay I'm gonna let it go in three two
one
so has anyone figured out what might be
going on here on these places around the
world these gravity hills that people
find where things seem to roll uphill
they've looked for gravitational
anomalies and magnetic anomalies and
they haven't found any strong enough to
make something roll uphill because
around the globe depending on what
mountain ranges are nearby or the
density of the earth the strength of the
gravity on earth can change slightly
wherever there are more dense areas
gravity's a little bit stronger in that
area wherever there's a large mountain
gravity's a little stronger pointing
towards that mountain but it's orders of
magnitude too weak to make any change in
the direction that something could roll
same with magnetism even if you have
something magnetic which the styrofoam
clearly isn't the magnetism could not be
strong enough on the earth to make
something roll uphill especially with
this steep of an incline so what is
actually going on here well let's look
at this in terms of potential energy in
order for something to go uphill it's
essentially as though it's being lifted
up in the air and in order to lift
something up in the air you have to
input energy you have to input energy
that gets turned into potential energy
so for a pure styrofoam disk the center
of mass meaning the location of the
average mass is right in the center of
it and when it starts at the bottom of
the hill the center of mass is here
but then in this situation when I let it
go and it goes uphill now the center of
mass is here so the center of mass of
this whole styrofoam disk has now gone
up so there's been an input in energy or
has there so if the center of mass of
the styrofoam disk was right in the
center then there would have had to be
an input of energy to make it roll
uphill but what if the center of mass
isn't directly in the center of this
styrofoam disk so that instead of being
here it's here then if I let it go and
it rolls uphill and stops here then you
can see that the center of mass is now
actually lower than before so it
actually fell so there was no input and
energy in fact there was a release of
energy and that follows all of our known
laws of physics so there's not actually
anything weird going on here at all as
long as the center of mass of this
styrofoam disk isn't right in the center
and in fact it's not I have two steel
balls pushed into the styrofoam right
here so that the center of mass is now
located almost right here so that when I
release it it falls down but rolls
uphill
so there you go I think we solved the
mystery of the gravitational anomaly in
my floor it's just a case of an
unbalanced center of mass hey everyone
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