I've always wanted to...

Friday I accomplished one of my life-long dreams... here's how it all happened:

I stepped into an elevator in the Astronomy building with a bunch of other astronomers. To my surprise and delight there was a bathroom scale in the elevator. I immediately recognized its purpose and exclaimed "I've always wanted to do that! That is so awesome!" My professor said "go for it!" so I jumped on the scale. As the elevator started descending I watched the reading on the scale drop to a certain point, and then return to the original weight. Then, as we approached the bottom floor the reading increased significantly, and then went back to my correct weight again. All of this was caused by the accelerations of the elevator, just FYI. The same reason if you jump at the right time on an elevator it feels weird. The acceleration creates an effective gravitational force which adds to (or detracts) the force of gravity, making you feel like you weigh more (or less). It's awesome. Seriously.