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Gravity - weak??

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crazy legs | 15:21 Mon 03rd Sep 2007 | Science
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I seen a programme that said that gravity is a weak force compared to nuclear and electromagnetic forces.If this is true how come black holes stop light from escaping. That is of course if black holes 'use' gravity to stop light from escaping.Thanks.
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Gravity is an unbelievably weak force, the only reason you feel it at all is because of the massive size of the Earth.

Look at it this way, the Earth is 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes and yet the gravitational force it generates is small enough that it can easily be overcome by a childs magnet of a few grammes.
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Tanx, but what about the black hole bit?
Again Black holes are formed from the remnants of huge stars maybe 5 times the size of our sun.

Pound for pound Gravity is weak but it does add up and if you get enough matter in one place it can overcome the Electromagnetic force that holds atoms apart and create neutron stars, add more mass and even that gives way to a black hole
imagine a baby karate chopping a brick.not much force there and the brick would win easily. now imagine the force of a billion babies karate chopping that same brick. it will vaporise.

Everything has gravitational force. a marble attracts you to it with gravity, its just too small to have any effect. maybe if you were both in an absolute vacuum for a few million years you would eventually meet due to the gravity of both the marble and yourself.

Pick up a pen. you are defying gravity right there
boobesque - I have often wondered why you chose that name ???
Firstly, gravity is the only one of the four fundamental forces to not have (as far as is known under normal circumstances) a positive and negative component. Gravity attracts and that is that.

The other three (the strong and weak nuclear forces and electromagnetic force) can all be +ve or �ve. That is, they can both attract and repel.

Secondly, gravity is effective over enormous distances (even over interstellar distances). The others are effective over very small distances. The nuclear forces are very strong (they prevent, for example, the atoms of your body from flying apart and prevent the atoms of your feet from passing through the atoms of the floor of your house). But they are effective over only atomic distances.

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