Does your body directly sense a gravitational field?

Question

Does your body directly sense a gravitational field? Compare to what you would feel in free fall.

This is a question from chapter 6 of a physics textbook, please help if you can! Many thanks!

Answer 1

Of course your body directly senses a gravitational field, at least if you think about it. Standing on your feet you feel pressure on the bottoms of your feet because of gravity. Sitting you feel pressure on your rump, etc.,. etc.,. In free fall you'd not feel any of these sensations even though you're still in a gravitational field. In free fall (..orbit..) you and your spacecraft have a certain velocity that's trying to fling you off into space, but at the same time gravity is trying to pull you down. The two forces exactly cancel each other resulting in the free-fall condition.

Answer 2

Not really. The gravational field will cause a mass to accelerate. So the question becomes can our body detect acceleration. Well, in free fall we can not detect it. Thats because everything will be at the same accelaration so there will appear that there is no acceleration or relative velocity at that matter. So, your body does not detect the gravational field directly. The sense of weight and stress on your body is a consequce of the support your body needs to stay upright. Which leads to the source of your support which is the ground you stand on. So the ground supporting you is your indirect indication of weight, hence gravity.

Answer 3

Wow it has been ages since I've thought about physics but my guesstimate is "yes."

Is this textbook question a "yes or no" type of question with no explanation required?