Quote (general_patton @ Jan 12 2011 10:59pm)
good thing the earth isn't a gaussian object, amirite?
It still somewhat applies even though the Earth doesn't have uniform mass density (or at least a mass density with spherical symmetry). Heat and pressure definitely still increase, but the gravity doesn't. There is definitely a point somewhere in the center of the earth where all of earth's gravity counter-acts itself, though that point necessarily moves as the earth's inner core rotates etc. The same idea is used in finding the places around two celestial bodies where the gravity from one exactly counteracts the gravity of the other. These are known as Lagrangian Points. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point
This is just classical mechanics, really. Nothing intuitively bass ackwards about it, as contrasted with QMThis post was edited by bentherdonethat on Jan 12 2011 10:07pm