Debunking the Flat Earth Claim: "Electricity Can Move Any Object. Electricity Can Move Salt Water and Gravity Can’t"

Flat Earth proponents sometimes present the argument that electricity, not gravity, is the true force responsible for motion. A specific version of this idea goes:

1. Introducing the Claim

"Electricity can move any object. Electricity can move salt water and gravity can’t."

This claim attempts to replace gravitational theory with electromagnetism, suggesting that gravity is either nonexistent or irrelevant to the behavior of physical systems. While this idea might sound superficially plausible to those unfamiliar with physics, it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of both gravity and electricity.

2. Why This Misunderstanding Exists

The misunderstanding stems from several factors:

Electromagnetism is visually dramatic—electricity produces sparks, powers motors, and visibly moves objects with magnets.
Gravity is subtle—its effects are often less noticeable unless dealing with large masses like planets or falling objects.
Saltwater conducts electricity due to its ions, making it seem "immune" to gravity if only electric motion is observed.
Scientific illiteracy regarding fundamental forces makes people confuse cause and correlation, especially when they observe motion without understanding what's driving it.

This confusion leads to conflating two fundamentally different forces, which operate according to different laws and scales.

3. Gravity vs. Electricity: A Scientific Overview

Property	Gravity	Electricity
Acts on	Mass	Electric charge
Always attractive?	Yes	No (can be attractive or repulsive)
Can cancel out?	No	Yes, via charge neutrality
Strength	Very weak (but accumulates)	Extremely strong (at short ranges)
Range	Infinite	Infinite (but weaker over distance)
Governing law	Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation	Coulomb’s Law / Maxwell’s Equations

Key Insight: Gravity acts on everything with mass, while electricity acts only on objects with net electric charge. Not all objects are electrically charged, but all have mass.

Charged Chase

Red: Positive ions (+)

Blue: Negative ions (–)

Grey: Neutral particles (no charge)

How to Play:

Click and drag on the canvas to create an electric field (yellow circle).
Charged ions accelerate toward or away from the field based on their charge.
Neutral particles remain fixed—demonstrating electricity cannot move them.
Release the mouse to deactivate the field.

Physics Note: Force ~ charge × field strength (F = qE). Only particles with q ≠ 0 feel the force.

4. Can Electricity Move Salt Water?

Yes—but not in the way flat Earthers suggest.

Saltwater contains ions (Na⁺ and Cl⁻), which are charged particles. When an electric field is applied:

Positive ions move toward the negative electrode.
Negative ions move toward the positive electrode.

This motion of charged particles constitutes electric current through the saltwater. This is why saltwater conducts electricity far better than pure water. However, electricity does not move the entire body of water; it moves only the charged particles within it under specific conditions—like in electrolysis cells or desalination processes.

5. Can Gravity Move Salt Water?

Absolutely—gravity moves all mass, and saltwater is no exception.

Examples:

Tides: Caused by gravitational interaction between Earth and the Moon.
Waterfalls and ocean currents: Driven by gravity acting on water masses.
Hydroelectric dams: Convert the gravitational potential energy of water into electricity.

In all these cases, gravity pulls on the mass of the saltwater, regardless of its electrical properties.

6. Which Is Stronger: Gravity or Electricity?

At the atomic level, electricity is vastly stronger:

The electromagnetic force between an electron and proton is about 10³⁶ times stronger than their gravitational attraction.

But gravity dominates at the macroscopic scale for one simple reason:

Electric forces cancel out in neutral matter.
Gravity always attracts and accumulates over mass.

This is why planets form, why stars collapse, and why you don’t float off the Earth—even though atoms are full of electric charges.

7. The Mathematics of Moving Charges with Electricity

The force on a charged particle in an electric field is governed by Coulomb's Law:

$$ F = k \cdot \frac{|q_1 q_2|}{r^2} $$

Where:

$F$ is the force (Newtons),
$q_1, q_2$ are electric charges (Coulombs),
$r$ is the distance between the charges (meters),
$k \approx 8.99 \times 10^9 \, \text{N·m}^2/\text{C}^2$ is Coulomb’s constant.

Alternatively, in an electric field $E$:

$$ F = qE $$

Where:

$q$ is the charge,
$E$ is the electric field strength (V/m).

These equations only apply if the object has net charge.

8. The Mathematics of Gravity Acting on a Mass

Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation:

$$ F = G \cdot \frac{m_1 m_2}{r^2} $$

Where:

$F$ is the gravitational force (Newtons),
$m_1, m_2$ are masses (kg),
$r$ is the distance between their centers (m),
$G = 6.674 \times 10^{-11} \, \text{N·m}^2/\text{kg}^2$ is the gravitational constant.

Even though $G$ is very small, the mass of Earth (≈ 5.97 × 10²⁴ kg) makes the gravitational pull substantial.

And for objects near Earth’s surface, gravity simplifies to:

$$ F = mg $$

Where $g \approx 9.8 \, \text{m/s}^2$ is Earth's gravitational acceleration.

9. Summary

The Flat Earth claim that "electricity can move salt water and gravity can't" is false on multiple levels:

Electricity only acts on charged particles, while gravity acts on all mass.
Saltwater contains charged ions that respond to electric fields, but the bulk motion of water (like tides) is due to gravity.
Both forces are real, but they function under entirely different rules.
The fact that electric forces are stronger does not mean gravity doesn’t exist. Strength and relevance depend on context and scale.
Scientific understanding of forces is based on centuries of validated experiments—from Cavendish’s measurement of gravity to modern particle accelerators verifying electromagnetism.

In conclusion, gravity and electricity are distinct, real, and measurable forces, each with its own domain of dominance. Rejecting one in favor of the other is not science—it's misinformation.