Gravity anomaly? · AditNow Community

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carnkie
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

16 years ago

Driving around the zinc and lead mines of Lafayette County, Wisconsin, there is an odd spot called Gravity Hill. Apparently it’s one of the great mysteries. At Gravity Hill, if you stop your car and shift the gear to neutral , it will start rolling uphill. Various explanations have been given for this but none are convincing. Any ideas? There are numerous mines in the area.

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

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RJV
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

I went here as a child:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Brae

Same thing?

tiger99
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

There is one of these in Ayrshire, known locally as The Electric Brae. The apparent uphill gradient is an illusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Brae

I suspect this will be much the same, as you would need several % variation in g, on the flat, to move a vehicle, and it does not happen around known gravity anomalies such as Sciehallion in Scotland, because the anomaly is maybe 1 part in 1000, or even 10000.

But things like these always make great tourist attractions.

tiger99
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

Looks like RJV and myself were composing our posts simultaneously! Great minds think alike, or.......

:)

Alan

RJV
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

Doubtful. At least in my case. I think a certain Mr Jennings in Cumbria did a creditable job of destroying half my brain cells last night. 😞

Knocker
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

Anyone eard of the "Camborne Bounce". About ten years ago the RGS carried out a study and found Camborne was the bounciest place in the country. They took levels over a period of time and found that Camborne (or more precisely Troon) rises and falls by 70mm twice a day. The suggested reason being the effect of being on peninsula, where the tide coming in on both sides effectely causes the ground to rise with its own bouyancy, totally bizarre!

carnkie
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie Topic Starter

16 years ago

"tiger99" wrote:
There is one of these in Ayrshire, known locally as The Electric Brae. The apparent uphill gradient is an illusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Brae

I suspect this will be much the same, as you would need several % variation in g, on the flat, to move a vehicle, and it does not happen around known gravity anomalies such as Sciehallion in Scotland, because the anomaly is maybe 1 part in 1000, or even 10000.

But things like these always make great tourist attractions.

So what is the illusion?

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

Roy Morton
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

I'm forever finding gravity anomalies when I step on my bathroom scales......... :lol:

"You Chinese think of everything!"
"But I''m not Chinese!"
"Then you must have forgotten something!"

Captain Scarlet
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

"carnkie" wrote:

"tiger99" wrote:
There is one of these in Ayrshire, known locally as The Electric Brae. The apparent uphill gradient is an illusion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Brae

I suspect this will be much the same, as you would need several % variation in g, on the flat, to move a vehicle, and it does not happen around known gravity anomalies such as Sciehallion in Scotland, because the anomaly is maybe 1 part in 1000, or even 10000.

But things like these always make great tourist attractions.

So what is the illusion?

That you are actually freewheeling uphill, but it is only an illusion and one I could not see :blink:

STANDBY FOR ACTION!!!!...

grahami
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

#10

Many (many) years ago when on Teaching Practice in Ayr, we went and parked on the electric brae - and were pleasantly surprised to see the illusion worked. It is caused by the configuration of the hills round about and the shape of the road which gives the appearance to the eye that the road slopes in the opposite direction to that which it does. It's a bit like driving in patchy fog when you see the road a distance ahead rising up almost vertically in foront of you and then realise that you are actually going downhill, not on the level. Happened most frequently on the Mynydd Hiraethog, or on the Yspyty Ifan road over to Ffestiniog.

Grahami

The map is the territory - especially in chain scale.

stuey
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

#11

Interesting point about the Camborne Bounce.

If I remember rightly, the tides affect rocks to a fair old degree also, I think the maximum range was about 6".

It must be one of the most complex things to explain the amount of.....

JohnnearCfon
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

#12

There is a similar anomoly on the Snowdon Mountain Railway, captured in a few photographs, where the line appears to go downhill then uphill whilst you are looking down.

Barney
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

#13

There is one somewhere between the A458 and lake Vyrnwy, cant remember exactly where though!

toadstone
50.2% (Neutral)
Newbie

16 years ago

#14

"Colonel Mustard" wrote:

That you are actually freewheeling uphill, but it is only an illusion and one I could not see :blink:

Very much like the entertainment I witness most Friday and Saturday nights in our village around 1130pm between the Spinners Arms and the Queen's, quite a few manage to freewheel uphill, only to give the impression of staggering backwards downhill. A most comical :lol: And of course its all down to gravity or too much of it.