Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 51 — page 120: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A simple account of the effect of space travel forces on the human body. The Gravity of the Situation by W. W. BYFORD, B.Sc. Ce is very much a mat- ter of situation; so far, no man has been more than a few miles above the earth’s shell, and he has been only very small distances below its surface. Nevertheless, within his limited experience, gravity has been found to vary within narrow limits. ; The force of gravity at an point is what the physicist calls a resultant force. It is the force which results from the combined attractions of all the matter in the universe for a piece of matter at the spot under consideration. It varies in strength and direc- tion. We have come a long way since the idea of a spheri- cal world was hard to believe because it was obvious that people “on the bottom” would fall off. It is now common knowledge that the force of gravity acts towards the centre of the earth. That idea, how- ever, needs modifying in terms of situation. The force of gravity varies slightly in direc- tion according to one’s posi- tion, even while still earth- bound. A deflection may be caused by the nearness of a mountain. At a point on the coast with deep water to one side and heavy soils to the other, the swing of a pendulum can be used to detect a change in the force of gravity. At high altitudes the strength of the force of gravity is less than that at sea level. In deep mines it is greater than at sea level. Measurable effects are also produced by the counter gravi- tational pull of the moon or the sun upon objects on Earth. The running tides that circle the Earth’s oceans are due to the lessening of the force of gravity at points nearer to the moon. Evidence has been put forward to show that mountains rise and fall daily owing to the gravita- tional pull of the sun, and the changes in position of the mountain are relative to the sun as the Earth rotates. But in addition to these small variations on Earth, 'man has experienced much greater changes in the force of 119 comiclbooks.corn