Where in the world will I weigh least?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science, Technology

4.8 • 985 Ratings

🗓️ 28 March 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Host Anand Jagatia tackles gravity - a fundamental force of the universe yet also an everyday mystery that has baffled several listeners. Can you outrun it? Or at least use it to get fitter? If it varies, does that mean that you weigh less, depending on where on earth you stand? And if it’s the force of attraction between any objects with mass, are you technically more attractive after eating a massive cake?

Professor Claudia de Rham from Imperial College London explains the basics of gravity, while we discover the best place on earth to weight ourselves, with Professor Paddy Regan from Surrey University and NPL Fellow in Nuclear and Radiation Science and Metrology.

Anand takes a very fast spin on a special chair to experience extra gravity, thanks to Professor Floris Wuyts from the University of Antwerp, Kings College London and Minister of Science of Asgardia.

And finally, we talk to an expert lined up at the other end of a hypothetical hole through the earth: Professor Richard Easther from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. What would happen if we fell straight through the earth?

CrowdScience finds gravity a force to be reckoned with.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Marnie Chesterton Editor: Cathy Edwards Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano and Jana Bennett-Holesworth Studio Manager: Jackie Margerum and Duncan Hannant Photo: Anand Jagatia experiencing extra g-force

Transcript

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0:00.0	What do Selena Gomez, LeBron James and Martha Stewart all have in common?
0:06.2	Their lives and fortunes are all being discussed in season three of Good Bad Billionaire.
0:10.9	Yes, the podcast exploring the minds, the motives and the money of some of the world's wealthiest individuals is back.
0:16.9	I'm Zing Singh and I'm Simon Jack.
0:18.6	Each week we take a closer look At some of the world's mega rich
0:21.7	And try to decide together
0:23.3	Whether we think they're good, bad
0:25.0	Or just another billionaire
0:26.2	Good Bad Billioner
0:27.4	Listen first on BBC Sounds
0:29.3	Is it totally dark now?
0:32.6	Yes, it's totally dark now
0:33.9	Now you're spinning at 350 degrees per second.
0:40.3	This really does feel like being on some kind of space mission.
0:47.3	Can you do a this is cloud science thing?
0:49.3	Yes.
0:50.3	Hello, this is crowd science from the BBC World Service. I'm Anna and Jagatia and I'm currently experiencing extra gravity. I'm strapped into a chair that is spinning very, very fast in an absolutely pitch dark room. And the reason why I'm spinning so fast in this chair
1:12.1	is because of a listener question, all about gravity.
1:16.8	And I say a listener, but the crowd science inbox is groaning from the weight of messages
1:21.8	about this mysterious force gravity.
1:24.4	So in this episode, we're going to tackle some of them.
1:27.2	We'll be returning a bit later to that spinning chair where I experienced extra G force,
	...

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