Wednesday, July 20, 2022

It's All Uphill From Here (Gravity Hill)

A few miles west of Mooresville, Indiana, is Gravity Hill (sometimes called Magnetic Hill). Since horseless carriage days, people have discovered that their motor vehicles, if placed in neutral, will roll uphill by themselves.  At least, so it appears.  Round objects, too, will do the same.

My Library has many digitized newspaper clippings and handouts describing the phenomenon over the years.  There's also a video from an Indianapolis public TV station online.  Check out these links (below):
 

 Click Images to Bigify

Gravity Hill is along Keller Hill Road, which is a really busy highway these days. Drivers race along at around 60 miles per hour (although we didn't officially use radar to clock their speeds, they all exceeded the posted speed limit of 40 m.p.h.). Given that, and the lack of any convenient pull-offs at Gravity Hill, I considered it unsafe to attempt even a photo, let alone allowing a car to roll uphill. Thanks to the Internet, however, there are plenty of videos and photographs.


"Gravity Hill," from Episode #209 of Across Indiana (1991)
(Courtesy of WFYI-Channel 20 Indianapolis)

 
"Gravity Hill" (2009) by Lekshmi Radhakrishnan

"Mooresville, IN Gravity Hill" (2011) by Interesting Ted

 
It's an optical illusion, of course.  You could try it out for yourselves, but, frankly, I think it's too dangerous, what with all the busy traffic careening along the road WAAAAAAAY too fast. I wouldn't recommend it.





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