Why knocking is so important.

[Natachan]

I'm a physics nitpicker. It's what I do. Well, that and build bridges and roads. I like bridges.

"Gravity decreases with altitude as one rises above the earth's surface because greater altitude means greater distance from the Earth's center. All other things being equal, an increase in altitude from sea level to 9,000 metres (30,000 ft) causes a weight decrease of about 0.29%. (An additional factor affecting apparent weight is the decrease in air density at altitude, which lessens an object's buoyancy.[8] This would increase a person's apparent weight at an altitude of 9,000 metres by about 0.08%)"

I don't see how this contradicts what I said. The differentials that rule over changes in air density over changes in altitude changes faster than the rate at which the gravitational potential energy curve decreases. I'm not going to address the free fall of astronauts because I'm going to assume everyone has taken a high school physical science course.

Edit: ooh! Found a handy dandy table in my fluid dynamics book! G @ sea level: 9.807. G @ 80,000m: 9.564. Difference of 2.5%. Density at the same places: 1.225 and 0.00001846 kg/m3. Difference of 99.998%. Dynamic viscosity: 1.821E-5 and 1.321E-5. Difference of 27.5%.

"Clearly it was not. and my point stands, that it takes a measure of faith to believe that what one understands as truth/fact is complete."

I've explained the experiment I ran to find the acceleration of gravity. That required no faith. I can measure it, I can observe it, I can retest and verify it. I can have others do the exact same thing and get the same result. That's not faith.