In his science column for Galaxy Willy Ley used to answer readers’ questions. 

In September 1952 a reader from Brighton, England, wanted to know a little bit more about gravity, and Ley obliged him.

In a forthcoming issue, will you please discuss the force of gravity a little? Many science fiction stories seem to take it for granted that some way of overcoming, it will be found.

Harold P. Pond.
25 Ship Street
Brighton, England

The answer to the second sentence is simple—the authors of these stories either indulged in wishful thinking or else they needed a device for making their plotting easier.

As for the first sentence, I am sorry to report that there is no answer. Or at least not yet.

All we know about gravity is that absolutely nothing can be done to or about it. It does obey the inverse square law, but that is the sum total of our knowledge. And that doesn’t mean anything, for the inverse square law (the intensity is one-fourth at twice the distance, one-ninth at three times the distance, etc.) is merely the geometrical fact that the area of a sphere is proportional to the square of its radius. Hence the inverse square law also applies to light and heat and other phenomena.

Since there is not much “answer” in this case, I feel like adding a little story which is quite significant in several respects. Around the year 1895, a French newspaper carried a long article with a title like “Krupp’s Secret Revealed.” Friedrich Krupp in Essen, already famous as a gun manufacturer, had at about that time astonished professional circles by the size and weight of castings and forgings produced for a number of purposes. The article in that French paper “told for the first time” just how Krupp’s engineers could cope with pieces weighing from twenty tons up.

The secret was a real secret —somewhere in Krupp’s factory there was a gravity-free assembly hall!

The writer of the article could not tell how that hall was made to be gravity-free, but he had spoken to an eyewitness who had described to him how a 12-ton gun barrel was lifted into place on its undercarriage hanging from a loop of bailing wire; and how a casting of the stern of a ship, comprising two propeller housings and the seating for the rudder shaft, had been manipulated by a single workman with a rope. The conclusion was, of course, that France had to learn Krupp’s secret in order to compete with Germany.

Naturally, this article was picked up by other papers and magazines, both French and German. Several Germans felt that their positions were important enough so that they should be invited to see the gravity-free assembly hall.

When Krupp’s replied that there was no such thing, they were annoyed and did not believe it: “Of course, I realize the need for military secrecy, but since I am a personal advisor, to His Grace I strongly feel, etc., etc.”

Krupp’s knew it wasn’t so, but, mostly in self-defense, they started tracking the origin of the story.

It turned out to be absurdly simple.

One night, at a party, Krupp’s feats in casting and forging enormous pieces had been discussed at great length and one of the men present, who happened to be an employee of Krupp’s, had been questioned and questioned, mostly about things he did not know himself. Finally, to end the interminable discussion, he’d revealed the “secret” of the gravity-free assembly hall.

Unfortunately, it was merely a tall tale, but it seems to have had at least one fine literary result—H. C. Wells’s The First Men in the Moon was probably inspired by it. In that story, if you remember, he used a gravity-neutralizing substance for interplanetary flight. He was just the first of many to do so.

But truth often follows science fiction, so we may yet find a way to overcome gravity. It might not look like a good betting proposition, but neither were many achievements of the past few decades.