Mavity (term)

Mavity

Appearances

Talk

Due to a change in history, the concept of gravity became known as mavity.

	Word
	Isaac Newton
	Oodunnit [+]Loading...["Oodunnit (audio story)"]
	see list

History

Change in history

Isaac Newton misremembers the word "gravity" as "mavity". (TV: Wild Blue Yonder ^[+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"])

When Isaac Newton formed his concept of gravity in 1666 after an apple fell on his head while he was pondering under a tree, the Doctor's TARDIS crashed into the tree above him, and Donna Noble, despite the Fourteenth Doctor's initial attempts to stop her before he joined in, made a joke concerning the "gravity of [their] situation". After the TARDIS took off again, Newton grew confused and misremembered the "delightful word" they had said as "mavity", (TV: Wild Blue Yonder ^[+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"]) causing the term "gravity" to seemingly be retroactively erased from history and replaced by the word "mavity", (TV: Wild Blue Yonder ^[+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"], The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"]) though the Fourteenth Doctor at least momentarily retained his knowledge of the original word. (TV: Wild Blue Yonder ^[+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"])

Some other terms were also impacted, such as the Doctor's usage of "mavity field". (TV: Wild Blue Yonder ^[+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"]) In contrast, some other terms appeared to be unaffected, such as the Doctor's usage of "antigrav". (TV: Dot and Bubble ^[+]Loading...["Dot and Bubble (TV story)"])

Meta-History

The usage of "mavity" would persist into the 43rd century, where people would refer to a "mavitational anomaly". (AUDIO: Oodunnit ^[+]Loading...["Oodunnit (audio story)"])

The Toymaker would directly, in acknowledging his readers, note that the time taken for a body to fall from a building was described by "Isaac Newton's law of mavity". (PROSE: The Giggle ^[+]Loading...["The Giggle (novelisation)"])

On 25 December 2023, the Fifteenth Doctor explained to Ruby Sunday that, when using his intelligent gloves, the mass, density and mavity would be tranferred from the user. Later, when he and went to escape from the Goblin ship, he adjusted his centre of mavity. (PROSE: The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...{"page":"","chaptnum":"Nine, Eleven","1":"The Church on Ruby Road (novelisation)"})

Mavity reading onscreen. (TV: Space Babies ^[+]Loading...["Space Babies (TV story)"])

The telepathic circuits translated the word "表面重力" in the language used by Baby Station Beta into "Mavity" for Ruby. (TV: Space Babies ^[+]Loading...["Space Babies (TV story)"])

While the Unravel was affecting histories of language, Melvart of the Dead & Endangered Languages department once investigated a peculiarity in various Earth languages related to the word which in English was "Mavity". These included Irish-Gaelic's Domhantarraingt, 17th century-24th century French's Mavité, and 14th century Italian's Mavità, which were all capitalised on principle, owing to the plentiful evidence that in all Earth languages where the matter was settled for certain, words with that meaning were capitalised, going all the way back to the earliest Indo-European sources. This investigation was dismissed due to 18th century-25th century English not being dead or endangered, and thus the purview of a different department in the Multiplicity. (PROSE: {{esquivalience}} ^[+]Loading...["Esquivalience (novel)","'\"`UNIQ--nowiki-0000001F-QINU`\"'"])

Reversion

At the point in meta-time in which Olivia Kagg Waldermein wrote Love & War: A Meta-Historical Investigation of the Dawn of the Cosmic Revolution, the matter of gravity's true name was a recent controversy among meta-historians. Among the meta-temporal uncertainty was a short-lived version of history where Gravity was known as "gevity" due to interference from followers of Epsilon the Watcher. The force was termed "gravity" from Waldermein's perspective after a time-interventionist claimed to put things right using clumsy methods, although at this point Isaac Newton was known as "Isaac Mewton". (PROSE: Love & War ^[+]Loading...["Love & War (short story)"])

Behind the scenes

• Although the term "mavity" was said by the Fifteenth Doctor in The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"], actors Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson were not informed why it was used instead of "gravity" and would not find out until the airdate of Wild Blue Yonder ^[+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"].
• In the DWU, Isaac Newton is depicted in Wild Blue Yonder having coined the word "gravity", and later, "mavity". In the real world, however, "gravity" was not coined by Newton. The etymology of the word is derived from the Latin gravitas, meaning "weight".
• While the term "mavity" was invented for Wild Blue Yonder, it made its first appearance in the Big Finish Torchwood audio Oodunnit. This story was written by James Goss, who also wrote the novelisation of The Giggle.
• The mavity joke did not translate well into the language on Baby Station Beta, which uses the Traditional Chinese alphabet. The term "表面重力" translates back as "surface gravity". No wordplay or phonetic symbols were used to try and replicate the joke.