Here's the thing about gravity:
It's nothing more than something to describe why things fall down. In order for ANYTHING to move, or have any acceleration, you need a force to act upon it. So when an object experiences ANY change in velocity, there WAS a force that was acts upon it. In the case for gravity that force is MEASURABLE at 9.8 m/s^2 or about 10 newtons.
Now, the disagreement between science and flat earthers is that what is this force dependent on. The rest of the world says "mass" while the flat earthers say buoyancy and density. Here's the problem with the latter explanation....
Density isn't a FORCE. It's a measure of how much "stuff" there is per unit of volume. Density can never be a force. If an object were to be pulled in the direction where an area is less dense (e.g object falling from air), the flat earthers must explain, WHY IS DENSITY ONLY ACTING DOWN. Why doesn't a bowling ball fall in some other direction, if there is less dense air 360 degrees around that ball? Why is density so selective? What's the mechanism behind that?
What I find really funny and ironic is that flat earthers would often complain "how come gravity is so selective while a bowling ball can fall, while a feather or bird floats in the air", while being foolishly ignorant, that there can be a significant amount of force being exerted on the atmosphere. YET, their explanation somehow makes density act ONLY IN ONE DIRECTION! When you ask THEM why density is so selective, they NEVER have an answer!
Other times flat earthers would say "well, its buoyancy...A basket ball floats in water, but a bowling ball sinks. Same with the atmosphere".
This never fails to really crack me up. This explanation is PROOF how flat earthers NEVER look into a scientific concept, without quote mining it first.
The equation for buoyancy is
Fb=p(fl)*V*g
Where
p(fl)=density of the fluid
V=volume of the object
g=force of gravity (9.8 m/s^2)
Yep. YOU CAN'T HAVE BUOYANCY WITHOUT GRAVITY. If you say that the BUOYANT force is the CAUSE of the gravitational force, well then that literally explains NOTHING! Where's the "9.8 m/s^2" coming from?! OF COURSE there's gonna be a buoyant force in the atmosphere because there's a fluid to exert pressure on!
But here's the thing. The mechanism behind buoyancy is that you need to exert a PRESSURE on a fluid, and that fluid will exert an OPPOSITE force (Newton's 3rd law) that we would call buoyancy.
Now, WHERE IS THAT PRESSURE COMING FROM...?
Hint hint....(its from the 9.8m/s^2)
GRAVITY!
Anyone who actually understands buoyancy in the most basic sense of the word, knows that you can't have buoyancy without gravity, because there was never a force to exert the pressure in the first place!
Depending on the shape or DENSITY of the object, the force of buoyancy can be great enough so that the object would float on the fluid. Flat earthers only focus ON THAT PART ("Depending on the shape or DENSITY of the object") BUT NEVER THE FIRST PART (You need to exert a PRESSURE on a fluid). It would be easier, however, just to describe that in math.
And here's a fairly simple example that describes what I'm saying.
The flame of a candle rises due to the buoyant force from the surrounding cooler air. Go in a 0g airplane, and the candle's flame doesn't rise, but it goes in all directions. Showing how you can't have buoyancy without acceleration IN THE FIRST PLACE. There's other examples I can also give, but this seemed to me to be the simplest. And this shouldn't be too surprising when you look at the equation of buoyancy, it INCLUDES the acceleration due to gravity.
So using buoyancy to explain why there's gravitational acceleration is the definition of circular logic.
Thanks for reading. Would love to see alternative theories to gravity (e.g electromagnetism...oooh can't wait to write about that!)