everything that was falling would stop falling for one second. everything else would remain mostly unaffected

We'd be ****ed. That's all you need to know.

Not much. Everything would just keep moving in the same direction until gravity kicks in again. Some mass-spring systems would feel some trouble, but I doubt it would be too serious.

All the satellites would be disturbed. in order to stay equisomethingdon'trememberthename, they have to move really quick in a really high altitude, and a one second without gravity would make them probably leave their orbits much, much quicker than planned, meaning that the world's communication is going back a few decades.

also, consider the same thing about the moon leaving his orbit around earth.

Yes, but for one second? that would only cause eccentricity and/or SMA (orbit size) to increase by a very slight amount

i worked out the math. everyone would suddenly find themselves 3 centimeters up in the air, and the earth would be shifted 3 millimeters farther from the sun.
http://i.imgur.com/5XHBqdr.png

judging:

yimmy7: incorrect, a falling object would continue falling, only with lack of acceleration 2/10

jazz: interesting idea, but no elaboration 2/10

jellsprout: essentially correct but little elaboration 5/10

shos: interesting idea, and one i had entertained, but incorrect. a person would notice a 3 centimeter difference and a satellite considerably less due to larger orbital period (GSO satellites are frequently tens of meters off from their ideal locations). 4/10

darvince: is that an entry 3/10

jellsprout go.

It is only one second. With gravity failing, there is only the centrifugal force pulling it away. I don't what this exact force is, but at least we know that it is less than the acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2 we experience here on the surface. In 1 second this acceleration is roughly constant, so we can use that the displacement z is equal to 0.5 * g * t^2, which would be 4.9 m. So even at the very most these satellites would go 5 meters further away from Earth, or 17 light-nanoseconds. For scientific measurements which require GPS this will be a bit of a problem, but should still be easy to work around, for regular purposes that is not noticeable at all.

The only thing I would worry about are things that require gravity for their equilibrium position. Take for example a chamber under heavy pressure being stopped only by a mass on top. If gravity is removed, only the pressure from below will remain, which will now be strong enough to lift up the mass. With one second all these systems will not be able to move anything further than 5 meter, but that could still be a big problem.

There are also a few more philosophical questions. For example, it could be possible that all inertial forces are a result of surrounding mass. Otherwise you get problems that there is one preferred state of reference for the entire galaxy, which is a bit in contradiction with GR.
Speaking of which, if there is no gravity, is there still GR? In if there is no GR, would there still be Electrodynamics?
Of all the forces, gravity is the one we understand least. So it is pretty difficult to say what will happen if it is removed. There is simply to much unknown of how it interacts with the other branches of physics.
The only thing here is that 1 second is a fairly short timescale on macroscopic scales. Any changes will probably be relatively small, so all the discrepancies will only be local and have no serious consequences. But even this is not that certain.

Anyway:
What will the world be like in 50 years?

different

technology: the technological singularity has happened, minus the robot takeover, and technology accelerates. quantum supercomputing is commonplace, but the average person does not have a quantum computer laptop. transportation has mostly switched over to efficient magnetic vehicles similar to the maglev. biological immortality has been achieved, and mind uploading is in its infancy. scientists have successfully unified the forces and reconciled GR with QFT, and the universe is shown to be a numerical simulation. a futuristic internet envelops nearly every aspect of existence, instead of images and videos, thoughts are slowly becoming the new medium of information.

everyday life: learning can be achieved by uploading knowledge through the mind, although it isn't as straitforwards as just pressing a button. instead of robots becoming smarter than humans, the humans are themselves augumented with technology that enhances their intellect. all laborious jobs like agriculture and cargo handling are taken over by automations, most people in industrialized nations take up a job as philosophers, scientists, and other academic occupations. many fear venturing from the safety of their homes because they may be killed (biological immortality is not the same as invincibility).

politics: the US declines in power, and china/india become competing superpowers with China turning into a democracy. However, the US retains it's sizable nuclear arsenal. civil war erupts in north korea. african and the middle east sort their s*** out with applied international pressure. Most african governments become less corrupt, and the quality of life is almost as high as that of industrialized nations. soverign boundaries in europe are replaced totally by the european union, which acts as a single country. overall, international relations and globalization increases dramatically.

world issues: the environmental crisis solves itself slowly and gradually, the planet is still recovering. There was no sudden change event that spurred this environmental fix, governments acting in self interest resolved the issue. many cities, miami included, dissapear as a result of climate change. the world population is at twelve billion, but decreasing in most if not all nations and overpopulation is not an issue. genetically modified supercrops solve world hunger, although there is a lot of opposition at first. The uproar against NSA spying has mostly died out, every actions made by an individual is monitored by the governments. At first, the information was used only to catch terrorists, then criminals. It remains to be seen whether the technology will be abused.

links to some of the references i made above:

existing:
gm foods: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_crops
surveillance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_surveillance

known to exist:
quantum computing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer
fusion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
european supercountry: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/3264499/European-countries-to-merge-into-West-European-Republic-Lord-Tebbit-says.html

probably exists:
technological singularity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
biological immortality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality
mind uploading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading
universe as a numerical simulation: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847

void of any living human. full of radioactive waste. super hot.

I dont understand

what could you not possibly understand about
"What will the world be like in 50 years?"

?

It looks like grade 12 honors science

i don't know of any school that teaches futurology. my school offers AP physics B (general motion, friction, fluids, em, etc) , AP physics C (focused on EM mostly), AP Biology, AP Chemistry, and AP environmental science, none of which have anything to do with the prompt. no, this is mostly speculation.

and

what does 12 grade science have to do with your understanding.

What is this conversation about...?

Judging:
Binary>Shos>Yimmy
Binary makes a lot of valid points. While I don't necessarily agree with all of them (for example, I am very skeptical about biological immortality or the universe being a simulation), he has put a lot of thought into this. I don't really see how anyone could disagree with this.

the odds for a nuclear war in the next 50 years is just so nonzero...

can't think of a question so anyone can start a round.

Sifting through a bunch of old topics, I think this one has potential.

Alright guys, what would the world be like if Livio was elected President of the United States?

since you said was i have to insist that you are referring to the past

I'd reckon there'd be at least a few large differences in the law, considering that he is currently 24, and the be the president you have to be 35. However, I'll simply go with the simplest assumption, being that the only major difference from before Livio was president is that you don't have to be >35.

It's hard to say what his term would look like, as we can't really assume that he'd treat the US much like the Interguild and I don't really have much else to go on, but I'll try.

I'm fairly certain he doesn't have the greatest communication skills, so I doubt he'd be super well liked by the US at large, at least during his term. However, (afaik) when he sees complaints here on the IG he generally tries to correct them (at least before he ditched us here at the IG) so he'd probably do some presidentish things maybe

I doubt he'd be getting into any wars or anything so I'd imagine the differences to the world outside the US wouldn't be changed very much and what might change is fairly unpredictable.

if i really cared i could do more but idek why ive already wasted so much time on this so bye. inb4 some dumb joke beats this

He would promise a lot of things (on Twitter) and constantly fail to do them. I have a feeling that he would also redirect all national arts funding into video games, because who cares about anything else, like poetry. I don't think he pays a lot of attention to the world outside the United States, so he might somehow manage to make it even more isolationist than it already is, lol. I can't imagine that he'd hold up well in front of seasoned politicians like Putin and Xi Jinping, so he'd probably get the US expelled from the G20 for passing out at the conference table. He'd announce the withdrawal of all American troops stationed overseas, and stop threatening to go nuclear on North Korea, simply because he can't be bothered to deal with them, but the troops would never be brought back to the US, because his announcement would never reach further than his twin brother Haily, who would also be his chief national advisor. Haily would be forced to start cutting his hair in the same style as Livio, so that he can fill in for him during public appearances.

eta: If Livio ever decided to run for president, you can basically expect that every single post on the Interguild will be scrutinized. Meticulously.

Yimmy - Too serious, but pretty well done at least: 6.5/10
Aych Bee - Too salty, but also not bad 6/10

I give the nod to Yimmy

lol, i think this is the first time that the word salty, in the slang sense, has been used on the interguild

Avast, ye salty dog!

Sorry to dissapoint, but I used it to describe Flash Marsh in this post