What does defying gravity mean?
1 Answer
Tends to be more of a cultural expression than one of physics - any act that appears to defy what we understand about gravity.
Explanation:
Some cultural examples might be: high wire trapeze artists who appear to "defy gravity" or magicians how appear to "defy gravity" by floating someone in mid-air unsupported. In all of these cases, there is no gravity defying, but a reasonable explanation that is consistent with what we know about gravity. For example, magicians will always use some form of wires or supports to create the illusion of the person floating, but they aren't.
The Earth appears to "defy the gravitational attraction of the sun" but again, this is not true as the reason the Earth does this is that, for some complex physics reasons, our initial momentum given to the Earth when the solar system formed, is enough to keep us in orbit around the sun - appearing to defy gravity!
