• Question: Is the moon there when nobody is looking

    Asked by byronlogan12345 to Claire, Kate, Matt, Rob, Sam on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Kate Husband

      Kate Husband answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Yes. If the moon suddenly disappeared we would notice its lack of gravity. For a start if you were standing by the coast and it was high tide the water would suddenly start retreating to its slack level (the level in between high tide and low tide).

    • Photo: Sam Geen

      Sam Geen answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      This is a very philosophical question! Like Kate says, even if you can’t see it its gravity is still there. But philosophers love asking questions like “if a tree falls down in a forest and no-one is around, does it make a noise?”, while scientists say “yes, of course” and get on with what they’re doing.

      That said, when you get really small, quantum effects get weird. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle says that you can’t know the position and speed of a particle at the same time – if you know one with perfect precision, you have no idea about the other! The Moon is a lot bigger than an electron, though, and so has no problem with quantum physics.

    • Photo: Matthew Pankhurst

      Matthew Pankhurst answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      Yes, but it is making faces at us when we aren’t looking 🙂 seriously though, Kate and Sams’ answers are great – Kate says we have other ways of knowing it’s there without looking at it, and Sam says it’s something we are very certain about! I agree!

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