![]() However, so far it doesn’t look like antimatter comes with some form of anti-gravity. Some suggested repulsive (reversed) gravity in relation to antimatter, and even argued that it might be an alternative for concepts such as dark energy and/or dark matter. And, some researchers indeed anticipated that antimatter would behave differently gravitationally than normal matter. It seems not a huge leap to explore the possibility that gravity might also be reversed for antimatter. For example, an electron has negative electric charge while its antiparticle (the positron) has a positive electric charges. The most obvious example of such a charge is the electric charge, which is indeed reversed for antimatter particles. Antimatter particles are very similar to their normal matter counterparts, with the important difference that their charges are reversed. While negative mass is elusive and controversial (as discussed above), antimatter is an accepted phenomenon in physics. ![]() What else can we consider for canceling gravity? A highly unrealistic illustration of a negative mass cheetah chasing a positive mass gazelleĪdapted from Prazis Images/Shutterstock Antimatter probably does not result in anti-gravity So, it seems that on Earth we can forget about any practical form of gravitational cancellation (anti-gravity) by using negative mass. It may not be wise though, to try that with our dear planet Earth! Fortunately we don’t have to worry about that, as it seems utterly impossible to replace half the Earth with negative mass. Current theories assume that when we’d combine an equal amount of positive and negative mass, the negative mass will chase the positive mass! That’s because the positive mass will move away from the negative mass and the negative mass will move towards the positive mass. Negative mass chasing positive massĪnd even if such a replacement were possible, very weird things would start to happen. Only if we’d replace a very significant amount of the Earth’s mass by negative mass, you’d notice an actual effect that one might call gravitational cancellation or anti-gravity. Hence, it wouldn’t neutralize the Earth’s gravity in any meaningful way. However, the negative mass would be very tiny comparing to the total mass of the Earth. It would repel (positive mass) objects to some extent. Let’s assume we have some negative mass on Earth. It’s not impossible that scientists will ever discover something like it, but don’t hold your breath!Īpart from the fact that negative mass is not available, there are other reasons why it’s not a solution for canceling gravity. ![]() Therefore, the possibility to cancel gravity using negative mass remains purely theoretical. However, the problem is that material with negative mass is simply not available, because no one has ever found it. We could call this repulsive force an anti-gravity force. According to the established physical laws something weighing, let’s say -1 kg, would result in a (very tiny) repulsive gravitational force. An anti-gravity force by using negative mass to cancel gravityīy using somewhat of an oversimplification, we can say that negative mass involves something weighing less than 0 kg. In fact, scientists sometimes even refer to it as an example of “exotic matter”. Negative mass? Yes, and it’s as exotic as it sounds. The current best theory of gravity, Einstein’s General Relativity, does actually allow for such an anti-gravity effect. However, the options for such an opposing force are quite limited. We can think of canceling gravity on Earth by means of a reversed gravitational effect, literally an anti-gravitational force that repels instead of attracts. Adapted from Klyaksun/Shutterstock Anti-gravity as cancellation mechanism
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