You mention up/down, but what about the planetary orbits?
Is the experiment confined to just earth?
The problem with "just earth" "proofs" are that the attraction between the earth and any object is always way greater than the attraction between two other objects. Thus leading to the fundamental experiments needing to be between the earth and something.
A better experiment would be done in a zero gravity environment, such as ISS. There two masses could be placed at a distance, but the mass of the ISS and people would influence any experiment unless the masses were larger than the ISS, which is kinda hard to get up there.
There is an interesting experiment that hypothesizes gravity isn't caused by mass, but by magnetic forces, and to prove it, they took a whole bunch of round magnets and formed a large clump. This magnetic ball did not have a north or south, and any other magnet was attracted to the center of the ball, and never repelled, no matter what pole faced the mass. This setup used the very strong magnet balls, so the forces were still considerably larger than gravity would be.
Yes, this experiment needs to be confined to earth. Otherwise we won't be able to replicate it.
I don't trust NASA. Or any authority figures, really.
If gravity were actually magnetism, wouldn't non-ferrous objects float away?
I don't know how they phrased it, but "given a big enough magnet, everything can be magnetic" or something.
Of course that magnet would be earth sized.... probably not an experiment that can be done.
The best experiment would be to get two large masses - probably a beach ball sized lead ball - weighing a ton or so each. Not too big as to be unwieldy, but big enough to have some impact on each other.
Have one held in place by a large hanging wire on the top, and then also just barely kept off of center by a load cell, that measures force on it. Have the load cell hold the weight maybe 1 degree off vertical, pulling away from from the other mass.
The second mass have on a some sort of mechanism that can effect a sudden withdrawal from the first ball, something like a huge spring, say 10 meters long.
The experiment would be to measure the force on the first ball with the load cell as the second ball is moved in closer and closer.
If gravity were a thing, then the force would change as the second ball got closer. Suppose there was a reading change at the 5cm mark.
Now use the spring to retract the second mass essentially instantaneously away from the first mass, and watch the corresponding force on the first mass.
Given a big enough mass, with a fast enough withdrawal time, there should be some sort of effect on the two masses.
Doing the experiment in a vacuum would eliminate any effects of air currents, etc.
But yeah, gravity experiments inside earth's gravity are very hard.
Almost sounds like the Cavendish experiment.
If the moon pulls on the tides, does it pull on anything else?
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