When you try to walk, you glide toward the ceiling of the cabin and
do not stop before your head bumps against it. If you push on the
ceiling, you float back toward the floor. But you cannot tell whether
the floor is above or below, because you have no idea as to which way
is up and which way is down.
As a matter of fact there is no up or down. You discover this quickly
enough when you try to pour a glass of water. You do not know where
to hold the glass or where to hold the pitcher. No matter how you hold
them, the water will not pour--point the top of the pitcher toward the
ceiling, or the floor, or the wall, it makes no difference. Finally
you have to put your hand into the pitcher and pull the water out.
It comes. Not a drop runs between your fingers--which way can it run,
since there is no down? The big lump of water stays right on your
hand. This surprises you so much that you let go of the pitcher. Never
mind; the pitcher stays poised in mid-air. But how are you going
to get a drink? It does not seem reasonable to try to drink a large
_lump_ of water. Yet when you hold the lump to your lips and suck it
you can draw the water into your mouth, and it is as wet as ever; then
you can force it on down to (or rather _toward_) your throat with your
tongue. Still you have left in your hand a big piece of water that
will not flow off. You throw it away, and it sails through the air of
the cabin in a straight line until it splashes against the wall. It
wets the wall as much as water on the earth would, but it does not run
off. It sticks there, like a splash-shaped piece of clear, colorless
gelatin.
Suppose that for the sake of experimenting you have brought an
elephant along on this trip. You can move under him (or over
him--anyway between him and the floor), brace your feet on the floor,
and give him a push. (If he happens to step on your toes while you are
doing this, you do not mind in the least, because he does not weigh
anything, you know.) If you push hard enough to get the elephant
started, he rises slowly toward the ceiling. When he objects on the
way, and struggles and kicks and tries to get back to the floor, it
does not help him at all. His bulky, kicking body floats steadily on
till it crashes into the ceiling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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