Gravity’s rainbow

I may have found a flaw in Chibuihem Amalaha’s scholarly work on the use of physical laws to condemn gay marriage (The week in higher education, 19 September).

While the work of Ampère, Coulomb and others tells us that like magnetic poles repel each other and, indeed, like charges repel each other, Newton’s law of universal gravitation indicates that identical masses attract each other. This suggests that from a gravitational standpoint, gay marriage may be entirely natural. Indeed, since the ultimate fate of the Universe depends on gravity rather than the electromagnetic force, gay marriage may become compulsory for us all.

However, given that the Universe will either suffer what is known as its “heat death” or fall victim to an unstoppable collapse in which the whole of creation is destroyed, we may be forced to conclude that while gay marriages will become dominant throughout the Universe, they will also result in its grisly demise. Perhaps we should listen to the warnings of the religious Right after all.

Matthew Handy
Director of mathematics
dotmaths