center of the car, I should be the heaviest body to attract it, and it would accordingly fall to me, whether I were above it or below it, and it would follow me around wherever I went. If there were a whole cart-load of loose pebbles in the car, they would all come clustering about me like a hive of bees. There would be no possible way to escape them, for, wherever I went, they would be obliged to follow. What a glorious time I should have swimming about the car with such a procession after me!"
Our hero was perfectly correct in saying that, now that the earth's attraction no longer influenced the position of objects in the car, they would be free to follow the attraction of other bodies. He was also correct in saying that the attraction of the car itself would be neutralized, since it was practically the same on all sides. Sir Isaac Newton himself demonstrated that if the earth were a hollow shell it would exercise no attraction whatever on bodies in the interior. Hence if people lived inside of it, gravity would no longer exist for them, and they could fly about at will from one point to another.
These facts being admitted, the necessary consequence was that all loose objects in the interior
