Quirky Atlanta: Emory’s Mission to Control Gravity

Just steps behind Emory University’s Math & Science building, in a wooded courtyard and surrounded by bird feeders, is a monument dedicated to “What Gravity Is, How It Works, and How It May Be Controlled.” Controlling gravity – that’s a pretty tall order, even for students studying at a prestigious school such as Emory.

The Gravity Monument stands about five feet tall and is made from pink marble. Entrepreneur, economist, engineer, and Babson College founder Roger W. Babson donated the monument to Emory in 1963, along with a $5,000 research grant to the Emory physics department. Babson was passionate about the study of gravity. In 1948, he published the essay “Gravity – Our Enemy Number One,” in which he blames gravity for causing millions of accidents and deaths each year. Babson also founded the Gravity Research Foundation in the hopes of developing a gravity shield (the foundation still exists; however, its mission has moved from blocking gravity to better understanding it).

For more than 30 years, the Gravity Monument stood outside the old Emory University Physics Building. Alumni have shared stories about the monument being the site of casual meetings, practical jokes, and romantic encounters. Then, suddenly, in 1999, Emory moved the stone into storage. It’s unclear exactly why, but one could imagine a clash between the members of the physics department and a large, anti-gravity monument.

Feeling nostalgic, professors and alumni-led a drive to have the Gravity Monument returned to campus. After several years, Emory eventually reinstalled the stone. Today, you can admire the monument in its new home behind the Math & Science Building on Dowman Drive. Former Emory physics chair Robert H. Rohrer, who had a marble bench dedicated him, requested that his namesake bench be installed nearby.