Gravity

In the spirit of "things could be very different than you imagine" (mentioned by Noung), there's an idea that springs to mind when one considers that not only are we in an expanding universe, but that the expansion is accelerating.

Those of you who have watched popular television science shows have seen the rubber sheet demonstration. I have seen these shows, and while I am impressed with them, there is always one aspect that has nagged me immensely. The balls only create dents in the rubber sheet because they are being pulled by Earth's gravity. A two-dimensional illustration of gravity, but it depends on a three-dimensional gravity to be effective.

The lastest scientific thinking that I've heard about rumors that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. If that is so, this acceleration can take the place of the Earth's gravity in the rubber sheet experiment. Balls will cause a dent in the rubber sheet, not by being gravitationally attracted to something, but by simply having inertia to work against the motion of the accelerating rubber sheet. The experiment will show the same results if the sheet is accelerating upwards as if it's stationary within a gravitational field.

Another demonstration that's shown in popular science magazines is the idea that our universe may be like a balloon that's expanding - thus, things in the universe are mutually moving away from one another without all moving away from a particular point in the universe. These two ideas can now be linked - the rubber balloon is expanding at an accelerating rate, with masses denting spacetime simply by the inertia they have. Locally the rubber-sheet model holds, and this links the inertial property of mass with the gravitational property. In that case, all the dents are pointing inwards, and massive objects are in fact closer to the centre of the universe than less massive objects or empty space.

Taking this idea to outlandish extremes... what if the acceleration of the universe were to change? Gravity would be affected. What if it has been changing? Gravity isn't what it used to be. If there is a big crunch, then there will be a point where spacetime is shrinking but the massive objects will still be moving outward. Will there be oscillation? Will it be damped? Will it be underdamped, overdamped, or critically damped?

Yes, I've probably been thinking far too much about this fanciful idea. For one thing, I've heard it said that gravitational fields cannot be expressed as scalar fields (which would probably be the case if this idea were true), they can only be expressed as tensor fields (of higher rank). But, the idea tickles the imagination.

Track Listing:
1. All For You   4:14
2. Do You Like It?   3:58
3. Somewhere Out There   4:11
4. Innocent   3:42
5. Made of Steel   3:41
6. Not Enough   4:33
7. Sell My Soul   4:20
8. Sorry   3:18
9. Bring Back the Sun   5:11
10. A Story About a Girl   4:18

Total Run Time: 41:26

Overview:
This is a very good album, although I feel it's a little too short. Then again, I'm a big Our Lady Peace fan--it could have been three hours long and I'd still want more. YMMV.

Gravity has a much different feel from their other albums. I'm not sure if this is because of the addition of Steve Mazur, Our Lady Peace's new guitarist, or if this was just something they had to do, but it sounds great. The album as a whole is much heavier than their previous releases--they've always been reasonably hard rock, but Gravity takes it to a new level. A friend commented, "They sound like a Canadian Staind!"

Track Analysis:
Listening to the intro of the first song, All For You, it's easy to tell where one could draw that comparison. A slowish, dreamy, very soothing synthesizer melody takes up the first :23. It sounds like the making for a slower, Are You Sad?-esque song... and then the guitars crash in. And then the double-bass rolls on the drum kit start up. Now it sounds almost like nü-metal, and if it wasn't for Raine Maida's familar voice you wouldn't have any idea who was playing. Our Lady Peace definitely chose the right song to begin their album with: All For You lets the listener know that the days of Clumsy and Thief are over and shows just how versatile a band they can be.

Do You Like It? follows up All For You very nicely. Although there has always been a hint (or perhaps a bit more than that, in some cases) of angst and self-hatred in Maida's lyrics, Do You Like It? shows this much clearer than I've ever seen from him in any of his other songs. The words

   //~...I hate myself for begging
         I hate myself for staying
         I hate myself for listening to you...~\\

The third track is also the first single from the album, Somewhere Out There. A slower, somewhat lighter song (although still nothing like Life, the first single from Spiritual Machines), "Somewhere Out There" was a good choice for the radio. It's a song about an ex-lover who has gone away and Maida wants her back (//~...I miss your purple hair/I miss the way you taste...~\\). Orchestral strings (I believe I hear a violin and a viola, but I play trombone, what the hell do I know?) are mixed in with the guitar parts to create a very beautiful and melodic piece of music. Another keeper.

One of my favorite songs on Gravity is Innocent. It tells the story of two people who could really be anyone in the world--Johnny and Tina--as well as Maida himself, and how they all wish things were better in the world. It again tells about people who seem to hate themselves, as is apparent in Tina's verse:

   //~...Every calorie is a war
         While she wishes she was a dancer
         And that she'd never heard of cancer
         She wishes God would giver her some answers
         And make her feel beautiful...~\\

The first song I'm not a huge fan of is Made of Steel. It's not a bad song by any stretch of the imagination, surely, and lyrically it's very good, but musically... again, it's not horrible, but certainly no where near as good as the first four tracks, in my humble opinion. Three stars our of five, in other words.

Track six, Not Enough, is a slower, pretty depressing song. Comparisons can be made between it and 4AM, but that's probably a bad idea because 4AM is awesome and it makes Not Enough seem much worse than it actually is. It would be one of the poorer tracks on the album if not for the very heavy bridge (//~...it's not enough...~\\ with a ostinato distorted guitar line underneath it), but it still ranks about as high as Made of Steel.

Sell My Soul is much like the previous two songs, unfortunately, as far as quality is concerned. Maybe it's just that the first four songs were so mindbogglingly awesome that it's hard to follow up on, but I think this is one of my least favorite songs on Gravity. Others may tell you differently, but it comes down to my node, my editorial.

Luckily, Sorry kicks ass. Yay! I'm beginning to realize that I like Our Lady Peace's upbeat stuff better than their slower songs as a general rule. There are exceptions, of course, but Sorry is an upbeat song with, while not a totally upbeat lyric, not a thoroughly depressing one either. A very nice song that's refreshing to hear after a rather disappointing stretch of mediocrity.

Bring Back the Sun is kinda dreamy: it almost makes me wish I knew how to dance so I could softshoe around my basement. Although not a terrific song either, for some reason I like this better than tracks five through seven. Probably about a 3.5 out of 5.

The album closes out with A Story About a Girl. This song starts off sounding uninteresting but winds up being very good towards the end. All I really have to say her is stick with it. It's a very good choice to close out the album with; if nothing else, Gravity is organized very well.

Concluding Thoughts:
Fans of Our Lady Peace should definitely appreciate the new sound the Canadians bring to the table with their latest release. Definitely go out and buy this one.

Oh, and I'll node the lyrics to the tracks later, assuming no one beats me to it. In the meantime, if you just can't wait, they are listed in the liner notes and most likely can be found at www.ourladypeace.com

This is quite a helpful way to memorise the history of theories of gravity, and is astonishingly accurate for a limerick.

A Brief History of Gravity

It filled Gallileo with mirth
To watch his two rocks fall to Earth.
He gladly proclaimed,
"Their rates are the same,
And quite independent of girth!"

Then Newton announced in due course
His own law of gravity's force:
"It goes, I declare,
As the inverted square
Of the distance from object to source."

But remarkably, Einstein's equation
Succeeds to describe gravitation
As spacetime that's curved,
And it's this that will serve
As the planets' unique motivation.

Yet the end of the story's not written;
By a new way of thinking we're smitten.
We twist and we turn,
Attempting to learn
The Superstring Theory of Witten!

(Written by Bruce Elliott, published by The American Physical Society, reproduced with permission)

In the first rays of the sun that glide over the frozen fields
we find a certain nostalgia
for the things we are taught to want,
the things we will never have.

And coming with the sunrise, the in and out of our frosted breath
is the realisation that there are no more true stories.
Even though we feel the cold of the delicate snowflakes
on our upturned faces
we feel no more laughter. No more tears.

There is nothing left here, so now we turn away.
How long can we believe that "We make our own destinies"?
There are no more true stories.
All that we have left are the tragedies we weave for ourselves;
always cast away, always returning.
Drawn back to us by our own personal gravity.

g r a v i t y

Newton once said, "gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion." He understood that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For all of his restrained brilliance Newton was incapable of offering even a twinkle of vision into the chaotic realm of the human heart. Isaac wasn't alone in his revelation; the frosty realm of hard science systematically ignores the mayhem of feelings that classify our being. I find it interesting that we can characterize the guiding theorems of the very cosmos but be short of understanding the world within. I may subsist in the corporeal world, but I exist in the territory of the self. And that hallowed world appears to be far more intangible then the stellar fireballs that smolder quietly in the coastal sky.

I can't help but think that maybe Newton's theory has some equivalent in the uneven landscape of my heart. Gravity has no power in that noiseless province, but there are other forces laboring to bend all motion and events. The recollection of a sun lit sky where a girl in love fights back tears as her plane takes flight carries the raw power of a thousand suns - its tidal strength tethering a ribbon of my being to that sun-drenched day.

When slumber conceals consciousness, time expands according to the desires of the heart. And for a golden moment I am back there speeding under a translucent sun, sea spray gently falling upon my face.

I am with much respect

Honored Readers

Your most humble and most obedient Servant

E. Haulfield.

Oh, Gravity!

What attractive force is this that pulled down

An apple onto Newton’s sleeping head;

The same that grabs on ev’ry other noun?

Oh gravity! Without you we’d be dead:

Flung into space by spinning of Gaia—

Yet you’re such a weak fundamental force;

O’er come by less than holy messiah

A balloon’s static is sufficient source.

Fantastic finding that all things plummet

Downward acceleration, nothing sparèd

From deep ocean to valley to summit

Nine point eight meters per second squarèd.

The universe is bound by gravity:

Expansion slowed at constant rate of G.

Grav"i*ty (?), n.; pl. Gravities (#). [L. gravitas, fr. gravis heavy; cf. F. gravit'e. See Grave, a., Grief.]

1.

The state of having weight; heaviness; as, the gravity of lead.

2.

Sobriety of character or demeanor.

Shak.

3.

Importance, significance, dignity, etc; hence, seriousness; enormity; as, the gravity of an offense.

They derive an importance from . . . the gravity of the place where they were uttered. Burke.

4. Physics

The tendency of a mass of matter toward a center of attraction; esp., the tendency of a body toward the center of the earth; terrestrial gravitation.

5. Mus.

Lowness of tone; -- opposed to acuteness.

Center of gravity See under Center. -- Gravity battery, See Battery, n., 4. -- Specific gravity, the ratio of the weight of a body to the weight of an equal volume of some other body taken as the standard or unit. This standard is usually water for solids and liquids, and air for gases. Thus, 19, the specific gravity of gold, expresses the fact that, bulk for bulk, gold is nineteen times as heavy as water.

© Webster 1913.