I think that I read too as being about 25% longer oo sound than in to. And because of that, it is processed as a completely separate word in my head. I never just read over a misuse of to. And it bugs me just how much I’m seeing it now.
Physics teacher: “The electrical force that repels the bottom of your foot from the surface of the earth is greater than the gravitational attraction between the entire earth and yourself”.
Me: 😲
Edit: I guess it’s more correct to say “equal to”, rather than “greater” since you’re static.
If it weren’t true you would be experiencing a net acceleration due to the imbalance in the forces acting on you.
What’s really interesting is figuring out WHY mechanistically it’s true. I had to rethink the whole thing this morning, because it really is pretty nuts how much weaker gravity is than the electrostatic force.
Gravity wants to make the atoms touch and the subatomic particles touch too. ESF says nuh uh and pushes them apart, so atoms are >99% empty space. If the forces flipped the Earth would contract into a spheroid much smaller than the moon.
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