The surprisingly large effect of your tiny gravitational pull

The surprisingly large effect of your tiny gravitational pull

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Shots In The Quark
434 Video Views·Jan 9, 2026  #physics #gravity #statisticalmechanics

Surely your gravitational field is way too small to ever affect anything... right?

Watch the video to find out how your mere presence can totally change the course of events around you!
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In this video we discuss the problem that called for the invention of one of the most important branches of physics - Statistical Mechanics.

By considering the effect of a tiny gravitational field on the collisions of snooker balls, we show that it's impossible to keep track of all the collisions of particles in a system like a gas. This sensitivity to initial conditions motivated an entirely different approach to physics, one more suitable for working with systems involving huge numbers of particles.
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References: This video is based on the calculation presented in Alexander Schekochihin's lecture notes on Statistical Mechanics on page 7: https://www-thphys.physics.ox.ac.uk/people/AlexanderSchekochihin/A1/2014/A1LectureNotes.pdf
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Shots In The Quark is a physics channel run by me (cosmology PhD student Matt Davies). My aim is to explain some of the most advanced, cutting-edge ideas in theoretical physics and philosophy of physics in a way that's accessible to everyone.

Explore my channel @shotsinthequark to find more videos where I take a deep-dive into topics from Relativity and Cosmology to Quantum Mechanics and Particle Physics.
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Consider exploring some of our other videos, like this one on why there is no such thing as "the present" in Relativity:
Does the Present Exist? | The Relativity of Simultaneity - https://youtu.be/7lPfhAESWQs
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#physics #gravity #statisticalmechanics
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