அதிசய உலக்கையின் உண்மை

A wooden pestle (ulakkai) does not stand upright because of a solar eclipse; it can balance on its flat base on any day of the year. The slight alignment of celestial bodies during an eclipse creates gravitational changes that are far too tiny to lift, support, or balance household objects.

Testing the balancing pestle

Many viral videos claim that a pestle placed in a plate of water with turmeric and kumkum can only stand upright during a solar eclipse and falls down when the eclipse ends. When tested over six continuous days before, during, and after an eclipse, pestles stood upright without trouble every day. The pestles remained standing well into the evening after the eclipse finished, falling only when pushed by gusts of wind. Moving them to a sheltered area out of the wind allowed them to stand undisturbed regardless of whether an eclipse was taking place.

Calculating gravitational forces

• Newton's law of gravitation shows that the force between two masses depends on their sizes and the distance separating them.
• The gravitational force between the Sun and Earth equals about 3.52 times 10 to the power of 22 newtons.
• The gravitational force between the Moon and Earth equals about 2.03 times 10 to the power of 20 newtons.
• When the Sun, Moon, and Earth align during an eclipse, their combined attractive force on Earth becomes 3.54 times 10 to the power of 22 newtons.

Comparing the forces on Earth

Although celestial forces sound enormous, their effect on everyday objects on Earth is extremely small compared to Earth's own downward pull. Taking Earth's pull as 100 percent, the Sun pulls on an object on the surface with only about 0.0603 percent of that force, while the Moon pulls with only about 0.003 percent. During an eclipse, this tiny combined upward pull reduces the weight of a 68-kilogram human by at most 0.1 gram. A pestle loses at most 0.001 gram of its weight, which is far too negligible to change its balance.

Natural orbit variations

Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical path rather than a circle, which means the distance between Earth and the Sun changes continuously. This changing distance alters the gravitational force between them naturally every day throughout the entire year. Since these continuous gravitational variations never cause objects to suddenly stand upright, the minor alignment during a solar eclipse cannot cause a pestle to balance either.