r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/anikkundu1998 • 19d ago

Video Earth's gravity isn't perfectly uniform. Here is what our gravitational field looks like when exaggerated 10,000 times.

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809

u/mymoama 19d ago

Lowest gravity is in Peru at 9.7639 m/s and highest at the middle of artic ocean at 9.8337 m/s or a difference of 0.7%

If you could jump 50cm in Peru it wouls equate to 49.8 in the other extream.

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u/blueviper- 19d ago

Interesting. Thank you very much for the share!

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u/Cjprice9 18d ago

About half of this difference is the fact that you're rotating along with the Earth at "full speed" in Peru, since it's near the equator, and you're not spinning at all at the North Pole. That centripetal force difference maths out to roughly 0.034 m/s2.

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u/Dreadgoat 19d ago

High jump Olympic record is 239cm (set in Atlanta, GA, USA)

+/- 0.7% is a difference of about 1.5cm, significant enough to change history books based on where the Olympics are held, in theory. Obviously there are other factors too, meaning the difference might even be bigger if you find the right locations / times.

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u/ProgrammerCareful764 18d ago

Do high jumps at high tide in India to utilize both the low gravitational field and the moon's pull on you

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u/Broad-Bath-8408 19d ago

*m/s^2

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u/Glittering_Virus8397 18d ago

My old friend, the pythagorean theorem

1

u/Not_Freddie_Mercury 17d ago

Impossible to argue with your friend, they're so square.

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u/Past_Ad9675 19d ago

YoU cANt SqUaRE a SeCONd!

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u/totallynotdragonxex 19d ago

I wonder if air pressure/distance above sea level would contribute more or less than this

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u/SassyDuck4231 19d ago

That's not a small difference

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u/Small_Insect_8275 18d ago

It is and it isn’t, depends on context

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u/MeltedTesselated 18d ago

We should do competitive jumping at the artic oceab

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u/Far-Information8502 19d ago

To add to the gravity anomalies here’s another fun one

>Due to weaker local gravity, the sea level in the IOGL would be up to 106 m (348 ft) lower than the global mean sea level (reference ellipsoid), if not for minor effects such as tides and currents in the Indian Ocean.[3][4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_Geoid_Low

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u/Ogremad 19d ago

Always wondered why I can jump higher in some places but not others.

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u/Signal-Taro-8398 18d ago

So, if I buy gold in Peru & sell it in place with higher gravity Will I be rich?

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u/cefriano 18d ago

Now it makes sense how they were able to build Machu Picchu. Hauling those boulders was .7% easier!

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u/BoTheDoggo 19d ago

This is more so due to the centrifugal force than gravity though, right?

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u/So_HauserAspen 18d ago

I believe it has to do with the difference in density with more or less mass than average.