• intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Another fun property of the inverse square law is that an infinite sheet of mass produces a gravitational field that is equally strong no matter how far you are from it.

    It applies to any form of flux, like sound amplitude or light intensity.

    This is why when you’re sitting on top of Mount Sanitas, you can hear traffic sounds at seemingly full volume. It’s just all the traffic of Boulder, which is roughly like an infinite sheet below you.

    This is despite being unable to hear any given car more than a couple blocks away.

    It’s also why if Superman flies over manhattan at night, he’s lit from underneath with an amount of light similar to someone who’s 10 feet from a skyscraper.