Ever get the feeling like a big rock is weighing you down?

It’s funny how we rarely think about gravity, even though it’s the only thing keeping us from floating aimlessly in space. How can you remind yourself to think about this mysterious force?

Here’s one trick I’ve noticed. Suppose you’re looking at a photo album, either in your hand or on your laptop computer. Now flip it upside down (it = the album, or your laptop). Your knee-jerk reaction will be that the photos look stupid up-side-down. But convention is arbitrary. There is no preferred reference frame! It is arbitrary to view photos “right-side-up”.  (This also makes me wonder whether you could flip your internal convention about “right-side-up”, if you were strong enough to walk around on your hands all day.)

Looking at photos up-side-down takes your brain out of its comfort zone, and makes you think about gravity! You notice how ridiculous it is that everything is stuck to this big rock.

You can also take the opportunity to imagine people on the opposite side of Earth, who really are up-side-down, compared to you. Speaking of that, here’s a photo from Singapore: