Suspended Disbelief

Newton’s law of gravitation: Any particle of matter in the universe attracts any other with a force varying directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them. In symbols, the magnitude of the attractive force F is equal to G (the gravitational constant, a number the size of which depends on the system of units used and which is a universal constant) multiplied by the product of the masses (m1 and m2) and divided by the square of the distance R: F = G(m1m2)/R2. Isaac Newton put forward the law in 1687 and used it to explain the observed motions of the planets and their moons, which had been reduced to mathematical form by Johannes Kepler early in the 17th century.

The strength of Earth's gravity depends on location. The gravity at the centre of the earth is 9.789 m/s2 while the gravity at the poles is 9.832 m/s2. This means that all the objects on Earth are in a continuous fall towards the earth's centre at a speed of 9.8 metres/second. The moon is 1/4 the size of Earth, so the moon's gravity is much less than the earth's gravity, 83.3% (or 5/6) less to be exact.

As far as I know, Stephen Hawkins has so far not challenged this law, as is his wont to first challenge everything and then retract.

The picture above was taken in 1990, when, as a perennial insomniac, my system full of sleeping pills, I ventured out of my gate with my dog, Sheru, into the marsh opposite it, which bordered on the backwaters of the Adyar River, between MRC Nagar and the Quibble Island cemetery. The time was between 4 and 5 a.m., with hardly any light, the sun undecided as to when and how to rise. I mounted my Nikon F3 on a tripod, opened the shutter, and closed it at the end of between 7 to 9 seconds. I kept the aperture at 22 to cover as much as possible within my depth of field, since there was little visibility. The result astounded me, and was mentioned by all reviewers of the three exhibitions which followed, in Madras, Bangalore and Bombay.

I hope what turned up, voluntarily or because of my befuddled insides, would make scientific as well as aesthetic sense to the viewers.