Why is gravity called gravity? Why not newton-vity or something else like leroy jenkins-vity?

Comments

• WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  'Cause people are lazy, and gravity is easier to say. /s

  Per Wikipedia,

  In physics, gravity (from Latin gravitas ‘weight’)

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  • TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Thread over

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    • slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Its a patnou question, so they can always be answered by a quick ddg search.

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  • Archimedes@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    In American English it’s Gravytas

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• betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Sometimes I think this place needs a rule about doing at least one search with any engine before posting.

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• theywilleatthestars@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Why not mavity?

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  • Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Goodness, thank you, I thought I was going insane. Why does everybody else spell it weird? Is this some Mandela effect?

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• nocturne@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Gravity? Oh! You mean mavity.

  Image Image Image

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• someguy3@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If it was called Newtonity someone would ask why not Gravity.

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• palordrolap@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  OP, let me introduce you to Wiktionary, where you can look up all sorts of words, "gravity" included.

  It can be a little shaky around the fringes (obscure words; rare or slang usages) and with languages not closely related to English, but it's an excellent resource for when you want to know why a word is the way it is. Or at least to find out that we don't know for sure where some words come from. Gravity isn't one of those, though.

  You may also like to know that there is a metric physical unit named after Newton, so his name does get used in gravity-related concepts. At time of writing, the Wikipedia article for the Gravity of Earth mentions the unit in the first couple of paragraphs.

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• CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Grabity? Cause it grabs you/stuff

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• Fleppensteijn@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Something serious can be heavy, grave -> gravity. Vity is not a word. Newtonian force would be a good name if it wasn’t already something else.

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• anistorian@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I guess because gravity meant something like “weighty” in a behavioural sense. So that objects having gravity, would have the meaning of the “weightyness” of something.

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