If anyone here is 'enlightened' on the subject please share. Or, if you're ignorant like me, and you just want to share your opinion, go ahead and do that too.
Full Version: What is gravity?
Unexplained Mysteries Discussion Forums > Unexplained Mysteries > Metaphysics, Psychology & Psychic Phenomena
I was just wondering what gravity was, is it an energy field? Why does it bend space? How is it related to time?
If anyone here is 'enlightened' on the subject please share. Or, if you're ignorant like me, and you just want to share your opinion, go ahead and do that too.
If anyone here is 'enlightened' on the subject please share. Or, if you're ignorant like me, and you just want to share your opinion, go ahead and do that too.
It keeps our feet on the floor,how I dont know.
I think the earths spinning creates a downward force towards its center?
I was pondering yesterday why the moons space buggies didnt bounce and half float like the astronoughts whilst walking,if the buggy hits a rock surely it would float about in space for a bit before falling again?
(im a bit fik 2
)
I think the earths spinning creates a downward force towards its center?
I was pondering yesterday why the moons space buggies didnt bounce and half float like the astronoughts whilst walking,if the buggy hits a rock surely it would float about in space for a bit before falling again?
(im a bit fik 2
)
^^ Well to my knowledge the moon has gravity, although not a lot it is still there.
Edit: Misread what you had written, I am has probably go it.
Edit: Misread what you had written, I am has probably go it.
The buggy was probably alot heavier than those astronauts, and so it wasn't affected as much.
Are there any physicist out there that could tell me the answer to my question?
Are there any physicist out there that could tell me the answer to my question?
Aside from the fundamental concept of gravity, the mathmatics is over my head. I had to take calculus twice and barely scraped by. Gravity is not fully understood.
My understanding from Astronomy is that gravity is built into every particle of matter. It's effects are felt proportional to the distance of the center of gravity. It dissipates at the formula of the Inverse Square (i.e. twice the distance away; 1/4 the gravitiational effect, 4 times the distance away; 1/16 the gravitational effect).
General Relativity does a good job of describing gravity although I have never been able to fully wrap my brain around the concept.
here is what wikipedia has to say:
As I said, a lot of the mathmatics goes over my head, but thankfully gravity works rather well.
My understanding from Astronomy is that gravity is built into every particle of matter. It's effects are felt proportional to the distance of the center of gravity. It dissipates at the formula of the Inverse Square (i.e. twice the distance away; 1/4 the gravitiational effect, 4 times the distance away; 1/16 the gravitational effect).
General Relativity does a good job of describing gravity although I have never been able to fully wrap my brain around the concept.
here is what wikipedia has to say:
QUOTE
Gravity is the force of attraction between massive particles. Weight is determined by the mass of an object and its location in a gravitational field. While a great deal is known about the properties of gravity, the ultimate cause of the gravitational force remains an open question. General relativity is the most successful theory of gravitation to date. It postulates that mass and energy curve space-time, resulting in the phenomenon known as gravity. The effect of the bending of spacetime is often misunderstood as most people seem to prefer to think of a falling object as accelerating when the facts do not support that assumption. Skydivers do not feel any acceleration (other than from wind resistance).
Gravity is acceleration. means that (if the mass is unvarying) there must be a force that causes a mass to accelerate. For a rocket ship, that is the rocket engine. For the earth, it is the compression of the mass between something on the surface of the earth and the earth's center of mass. The acceleration is in relation to spacetime in that the weight one feels is one's resistance to deviating from one's path in spacetime. The same holds true in the rocket ship except that a rocket engine supplies the force to accelerate an occupant from his spacetime path. There is no difference between the weight he feels because of gravity or the rocket.
Newton's law of universal gravitation states the following:
Every object in the Universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers of mass for the two objects. This force is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the centers of mass of the two objects.
Given that the force is along the line through the two point masses, the law can be stated symbolically as follows.
where:
F is the magnitude of the (repulsive) gravitational force between two objects
G is the gravitational constant, that is approximately : G = 6.67 × 10−11 N m2 kg-2
m1 is the mass of first object
m2 is the mass of second object
r is the distance between two points
It can be seen that this repulsive force F is always negative, and this means that the net attractive force is positive. The minus sign is used to hold the same value meaning as in the Coulomb's Law, where a positive force as result means repulsion between two charges.
Thus gravity is proportional to the mass of each object, but has an inverse square relationship with the distance between the centres of each mass.
Strictly speaking, this law applies only to point-like objects. If the objects have spatial extent, the force has to be calculated by integrating the force (in vector form, see below) over the extents of the two bodies. It can be shown that for an object with a spherically-symmetric distribution of mass, the integral gives the same gravitational attraction on masses outside it as if the object were a point mass.1
This law of universal gravitation was originally formulated by Isaac Newton in his work, the Principia Mathematica (1687).
Professor William Whewell of Cambridge University, author of History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) stated:
The law of gravitation is indisputably and incomparably the greatest scientific discovery ever made, whether we look at the advance which it involved, the extent of the truth disclosed, or the fundamental and satisfactory nature of this truth. [In A Treasury of Science ed. Harlow Shapley et al, Harper & Bros. NY: 1946]
It's important to understand that while Newton was able to formulate his law of gravity in his monumental work, he was deeply uncomfortable with the notion of "action at a distance" which his equations implied. He never, in his words, "assigned the cause of this power". In all other cases, he used the phenomenon of motion to explain the origin of various forces acting on bodies, but in the case of gravity, he was unable to experimentally identify the motion that produces the force of gravity. Moreover, he refused to even offer a hypothesis as to the cause of this force on grounds that to do so was contrary to sound science.
He lamented the fact that "philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain" for the source of the gravitational force, as he was convinced "by many reasons" that there were "causes hitherto unknown" that were fundamental to all the "phenomena of nature". These fundamental phenomena are still under investigation and, though hypotheses abound, the definitive answer is yet to be found. While it is true that Einstein's hypotheses are successful in explaining the effects of gravitational forces more precisely than Newton's in certain cases, he too never assigned the cause of this power, in his theories. It is said that in Einstein's equations, "matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move", but this new idea, completely foreign to the world of Newton, does not enable Einstein to assign the "cause of this power" to curve space any more than the Law of Universal Gravitation enabled Newton to assign its cause. In Newton's own words:
I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other; which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain.
If science is eventually able to discover the cause of the gravitational force, Newton's wish could eventually be fulfilled as well.
It should be noted that here, the word "cause" is not being used in the same sense as "cause and effect" or "the defendant caused the victim to die". Rather, when Newton uses the word "cause," he (apparently) is referring to an "explanation". In other words, a phrase like "Newtonian gravity is the cause of planetary motion" means simply that Newtonian gravity explains the motion of the planets. See Causality and Causality (physics).
Einstein's theory of gravitation answered the problems with Newton's theory noted above. In a revolutionary move, his theory of general relativity (1915) stated that the presence of mass, energy, and momentum causes spacetime to become curved. Because of this curvature, the paths that objects in inertial motion follow can "deviate" or change direction over time. This deviation appears to us as an acceleration towards massive objects, which Newton characterized as being gravity. In general relativity however, this acceleration or free fall is actually inertial motion. So objects in a gravitational field appear to fall at the same rate due to their being in inertial motion while the observer is the one being accelerated. (This identification of free fall and inertia is known as the Equivalence principle.)
The relationship between the presence of mass/energy/momentum and the curvature of spacetime is given by the Einstein field equations. The actual shapes of spacetime are described by solutions of the Einstein field equations. In particular, the Schwarzschild solution (1916) describes the gravitational field around a spherically symmetric massive object. The geodesics of the Schwarzschild solution describe the observed behavior of objects being acted on gravitationally, including the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury and the bending of light as it passes the Sun.
Arthur Eddington found observational evidence for the bending of light passing the Sun as predicted by general relativity in 1919. Subsequent observations have confirmed Eddington's results, and observations of a pulsar which is occulted by the Sun every year have permitted this confirmation to be done to a high degree of accuracy. There have also in the years since 1919 been numerous other tests of general relativity, all of which have confirmed Einstein's theory.
[edit]
Units of measurement and variations in gravity
The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer project (GOCE) will measure high-accuracy gravity gradients and provide a global model of the Earth's gravity field and of the geoid. (ESA image)Gravitational phenomena are measured in various units, depending on the purpose. The gravitational constant is measured in newtons times metre squared per kilogram squared. Gravitational acceleration, and acceleration in general, is measured in metres per second squared or in non-SI units such as galileos, gees, or feet per second squared.
The acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface is approximately 9.81 m/s2, more precise values depending on the location. A standard value of the Earth's gravitational acceleration has been adopted, called gn. When the typical range of interesting values is from zero to tens of metres per second squared, as in aircraft, acceleration is often stated in multiples of gn. When used as a measurement unit, the standard acceleration is often called "gee", as g can be mistaken for g, the gram symbol. For other purposes, measurements in millimetres or micrometres per second squared (mm/s² or µm/s²) or in multiples of milligals or milligalileos (1 mGal = 1/1000 Gal), a non-SI unit still common in some fields such as geophysics. A related unit is the eotvos, which is a cgs unit of the gravitational gradient.
Mountains and other geological features cause subtle variations in the Earth's gravitational field; the magnitude of the variation per unit distance is measured in inverse seconds squared or in eotvoses.
Typical variations with time are 2 µm/s² (0.2 mGal) during a day, due to the tides, i.e. the gravity due to the Moon and the Sun.
A larger variation in the effect of gravity occurs when we move from the equator to the poles. The effective force of gravity decreases as the distance from the equator decreases, due to the rotation of the Earth, and the resulting centrifugal force and flattening of the Earth. The centrifugal force causes an effective force 'up' which effectively counteracts gravity, while the flattening of the Earth causes the poles to be closer to the center of mass of the Earth. It is also related to the fact that the Earth's density changes from the surface of the planet to its centre.
The sea-level gravitational acceleration is 9.780 m/s² at the equator and 9.832 m/s² at the poles, so an object will exert about 0.5% more force due to gravity at sea level at the poles than at sea level at the equator [1].
Gravity is acceleration. means that (if the mass is unvarying) there must be a force that causes a mass to accelerate. For a rocket ship, that is the rocket engine. For the earth, it is the compression of the mass between something on the surface of the earth and the earth's center of mass. The acceleration is in relation to spacetime in that the weight one feels is one's resistance to deviating from one's path in spacetime. The same holds true in the rocket ship except that a rocket engine supplies the force to accelerate an occupant from his spacetime path. There is no difference between the weight he feels because of gravity or the rocket.
Newton's law of universal gravitation states the following:
Every object in the Universe attracts every other object with a force directed along the line of centers of mass for the two objects. This force is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation between the centers of mass of the two objects.
Given that the force is along the line through the two point masses, the law can be stated symbolically as follows.
where:
F is the magnitude of the (repulsive) gravitational force between two objects
G is the gravitational constant, that is approximately : G = 6.67 × 10−11 N m2 kg-2
m1 is the mass of first object
m2 is the mass of second object
r is the distance between two points
It can be seen that this repulsive force F is always negative, and this means that the net attractive force is positive. The minus sign is used to hold the same value meaning as in the Coulomb's Law, where a positive force as result means repulsion between two charges.
Thus gravity is proportional to the mass of each object, but has an inverse square relationship with the distance between the centres of each mass.
Strictly speaking, this law applies only to point-like objects. If the objects have spatial extent, the force has to be calculated by integrating the force (in vector form, see below) over the extents of the two bodies. It can be shown that for an object with a spherically-symmetric distribution of mass, the integral gives the same gravitational attraction on masses outside it as if the object were a point mass.1
This law of universal gravitation was originally formulated by Isaac Newton in his work, the Principia Mathematica (1687).
Professor William Whewell of Cambridge University, author of History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) stated:
The law of gravitation is indisputably and incomparably the greatest scientific discovery ever made, whether we look at the advance which it involved, the extent of the truth disclosed, or the fundamental and satisfactory nature of this truth. [In A Treasury of Science ed. Harlow Shapley et al, Harper & Bros. NY: 1946]
It's important to understand that while Newton was able to formulate his law of gravity in his monumental work, he was deeply uncomfortable with the notion of "action at a distance" which his equations implied. He never, in his words, "assigned the cause of this power". In all other cases, he used the phenomenon of motion to explain the origin of various forces acting on bodies, but in the case of gravity, he was unable to experimentally identify the motion that produces the force of gravity. Moreover, he refused to even offer a hypothesis as to the cause of this force on grounds that to do so was contrary to sound science.
He lamented the fact that "philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain" for the source of the gravitational force, as he was convinced "by many reasons" that there were "causes hitherto unknown" that were fundamental to all the "phenomena of nature". These fundamental phenomena are still under investigation and, though hypotheses abound, the definitive answer is yet to be found. While it is true that Einstein's hypotheses are successful in explaining the effects of gravitational forces more precisely than Newton's in certain cases, he too never assigned the cause of this power, in his theories. It is said that in Einstein's equations, "matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move", but this new idea, completely foreign to the world of Newton, does not enable Einstein to assign the "cause of this power" to curve space any more than the Law of Universal Gravitation enabled Newton to assign its cause. In Newton's own words:
I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other; which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain.
If science is eventually able to discover the cause of the gravitational force, Newton's wish could eventually be fulfilled as well.
It should be noted that here, the word "cause" is not being used in the same sense as "cause and effect" or "the defendant caused the victim to die". Rather, when Newton uses the word "cause," he (apparently) is referring to an "explanation". In other words, a phrase like "Newtonian gravity is the cause of planetary motion" means simply that Newtonian gravity explains the motion of the planets. See Causality and Causality (physics).
Einstein's theory of gravitation answered the problems with Newton's theory noted above. In a revolutionary move, his theory of general relativity (1915) stated that the presence of mass, energy, and momentum causes spacetime to become curved. Because of this curvature, the paths that objects in inertial motion follow can "deviate" or change direction over time. This deviation appears to us as an acceleration towards massive objects, which Newton characterized as being gravity. In general relativity however, this acceleration or free fall is actually inertial motion. So objects in a gravitational field appear to fall at the same rate due to their being in inertial motion while the observer is the one being accelerated. (This identification of free fall and inertia is known as the Equivalence principle.)
The relationship between the presence of mass/energy/momentum and the curvature of spacetime is given by the Einstein field equations. The actual shapes of spacetime are described by solutions of the Einstein field equations. In particular, the Schwarzschild solution (1916) describes the gravitational field around a spherically symmetric massive object. The geodesics of the Schwarzschild solution describe the observed behavior of objects being acted on gravitationally, including the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury and the bending of light as it passes the Sun.
Arthur Eddington found observational evidence for the bending of light passing the Sun as predicted by general relativity in 1919. Subsequent observations have confirmed Eddington's results, and observations of a pulsar which is occulted by the Sun every year have permitted this confirmation to be done to a high degree of accuracy. There have also in the years since 1919 been numerous other tests of general relativity, all of which have confirmed Einstein's theory.
[edit]
Units of measurement and variations in gravity
The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer project (GOCE) will measure high-accuracy gravity gradients and provide a global model of the Earth's gravity field and of the geoid. (ESA image)Gravitational phenomena are measured in various units, depending on the purpose. The gravitational constant is measured in newtons times metre squared per kilogram squared. Gravitational acceleration, and acceleration in general, is measured in metres per second squared or in non-SI units such as galileos, gees, or feet per second squared.
The acceleration due to gravity at the Earth's surface is approximately 9.81 m/s2, more precise values depending on the location. A standard value of the Earth's gravitational acceleration has been adopted, called gn. When the typical range of interesting values is from zero to tens of metres per second squared, as in aircraft, acceleration is often stated in multiples of gn. When used as a measurement unit, the standard acceleration is often called "gee", as g can be mistaken for g, the gram symbol. For other purposes, measurements in millimetres or micrometres per second squared (mm/s² or µm/s²) or in multiples of milligals or milligalileos (1 mGal = 1/1000 Gal), a non-SI unit still common in some fields such as geophysics. A related unit is the eotvos, which is a cgs unit of the gravitational gradient.
Mountains and other geological features cause subtle variations in the Earth's gravitational field; the magnitude of the variation per unit distance is measured in inverse seconds squared or in eotvoses.
Typical variations with time are 2 µm/s² (0.2 mGal) during a day, due to the tides, i.e. the gravity due to the Moon and the Sun.
A larger variation in the effect of gravity occurs when we move from the equator to the poles. The effective force of gravity decreases as the distance from the equator decreases, due to the rotation of the Earth, and the resulting centrifugal force and flattening of the Earth. The centrifugal force causes an effective force 'up' which effectively counteracts gravity, while the flattening of the Earth causes the poles to be closer to the center of mass of the Earth. It is also related to the fact that the Earth's density changes from the surface of the planet to its centre.
The sea-level gravitational acceleration is 9.780 m/s² at the equator and 9.832 m/s² at the poles, so an object will exert about 0.5% more force due to gravity at sea level at the poles than at sea level at the equator [1].
As I said, a lot of the mathmatics goes over my head, but thankfully gravity works rather well.
Scientists dont really have the "answer" to what exactly gravity "is". But they do know how it works: Objects with mass bend space-time so objects within its grip stay on it or orbit it. It's like being on a trampaline(space-time) and if you(mass) sit on it and it bends the space-time into a curve, so that any object that is near you while on the trampaline will go along the space-times bending curves to the mass you have put forth. Hence why the earth goes around the sun.
^^^^ Thats the earth, that will show you why the moon orbits us, because it moves along the curve caused from the mass of the earth warping space-time.
^^^^ Thats the earth, that will show you why the moon orbits us, because it moves along the curve caused from the mass of the earth warping space-time.
As Fluffybunny mentioned, gravity is not yet fully understood. Einstein's relativity tends to explain rather well how it works by curving space-time, gives refined (compared to Newtonian) formulae for accurately predicting gravitational effects on macro scales but fails when applied to the quantum world. The above '2D' type picture QuantumE posted is an approximate representation of the space-time curvature 'caused' by mass however one must realise that it is only an analogy (trampoline/rubber-sheet). To get a more accurate 'visualisation' you have to imagine this effect equally no matter how you slice through the earth. Don't know if I explained that well.
Quantum Mechanics is currently trying to explain gravity using sub-branches such as Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) - I'm afraid I can't help you much more with this as it is very complex. String Theory (soon to be a failure IMHO) tries to explain it by adding extra spacial dimensions to our already '3D' interpretation but there are no predictions and no observables that can be tested with current technology. AND many crackpots out there try to explain gravity with EXOTIC/convoluted theories that barely (if at all) classify as a scientific method. The Standard (Particle) Model hypothesises and predicts a 'graviton' particle that mediates gravitation but this hypothetical particle still hasn't been detected and IMO never will. This particle is a fallacy and I have recently shown that an eclipse should have some adverse effects on gravity (on earth) if gravity is in fact mediated by particles.
However, it is now understood that it is not mass per se that causes gravity but ENERGY itself. Since mass is concentrated energy one can see how this got all mixed up.
But don't despair, even though no one can give you a complete and conclusive answer on the subject does not mean that the answer isn't there. The answer is so elegant and so simple that it will leave you stunned and physicists will wish they could crawl under a rock. I am serious, there seems to be a 'universal' shift in thinking evident by the number of people that come to this and other forums asking similar questions that pertain to gravity. Even though they are similar questions the thinking is 'evolving'.
GUARDIAN
Quantum Mechanics is currently trying to explain gravity using sub-branches such as Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) - I'm afraid I can't help you much more with this as it is very complex. String Theory (soon to be a failure IMHO) tries to explain it by adding extra spacial dimensions to our already '3D' interpretation but there are no predictions and no observables that can be tested with current technology. AND many crackpots out there try to explain gravity with EXOTIC/convoluted theories that barely (if at all) classify as a scientific method. The Standard (Particle) Model hypothesises and predicts a 'graviton' particle that mediates gravitation but this hypothetical particle still hasn't been detected and IMO never will. This particle is a fallacy and I have recently shown that an eclipse should have some adverse effects on gravity (on earth) if gravity is in fact mediated by particles.
However, it is now understood that it is not mass per se that causes gravity but ENERGY itself. Since mass is concentrated energy one can see how this got all mixed up.
But don't despair, even though no one can give you a complete and conclusive answer on the subject does not mean that the answer isn't there. The answer is so elegant and so simple that it will leave you stunned and physicists will wish they could crawl under a rock. I am serious, there seems to be a 'universal' shift in thinking evident by the number of people that come to this and other forums asking similar questions that pertain to gravity. Even though they are similar questions the thinking is 'evolving'.
GUARDIAN
QUOTE(I am @ Dec 18 2005, 12:22 PM) [snapback]981291[/snapback]
I was just wondering what gravity was, is it an energy field? Why does it bend space? How is it related to time?
If anyone here is 'enlightened' on the subject please share. Or, if you're ignorant like me, and you just want to share your opinion, go ahead and do that too.
Now you will see and read why I am so happy. I joined this forum just to be able to tell you this. Go to my blog read more. Abad Unification Theory: The Key to Understanding the Universe
For the past thirty years, I have formulated a theory of the universe that unifies almost all the theories of physical science but have not found the time and medium to publish it. The Blog is now the medium and now is the time. I intend to explain my unifying theory of the basis of matter, and eventually comment on gravity (how Newton got it in reverse), black holes, time, creation of matter, common denominator between gravity, electricity, lightning, fire, etc.
This blog will start with the explanation of what I believe is the basic building block of the universe. Noticed that I did not say basic building block of "nature" since even nature itself, I believe, is just a manifestation of the basic building blocks that I am about to explain.
I am not a scientist nor a mathematician. I am just an ordinary bloh with a fertile imagination and an extra-ordinary mind for seeing patterns.
From various observations of nature, I noticed that the common denominator (of those I have a theory) of the universe - or the basic building block of the universe is the common playground marble! I am being facetious here but humor me and read some of the chapters and you may also come into the same conclusion.
Have you ever seen the toy composed of several strunged steel balls? You pull one and let go and it sends out one ball the other end; you pull two and two are bounced out the other way, etc., etc... What if the whole universe is made up of nothing - without natural laws. Suppose the big bang theory sent out a whole bunch of marbles, all going at the speed of light. Without gravity or friction, these marbles will forever be moving at the speed of light and all going in all directions, bumping into one another and expanding as they move back and forth.
I do not know what material or what size the marbles are but they are like marbles or like the steel balls I mentioned before. Going back to the toy steel balls - if you pull one ball each at both ends of the aligned balls, nothing happens. The balls stopped on their tracks, so to speak. Now think about my expanding and bouncing marbles. When this effect happens to a group of marbles and some are stopped on their tracks (not moving, per se, but still full of the speed of light - explanation comes later), matter (mass) is created.
The process which one matter is squeezed to another is what we call gravity (Newton got it in reverse). The way the matter changes is what we call "time". The squeezed matter may become so densed and it may be called a "black hole". When the marbles get un-squeezed (or escapes), the manifestation is what we call "energy". The energy may be called fire, electricity, lightning, etc. The whole expanding universe is temporary (I do not know when the edge of the universe can be reached - maybe never ending) but the totality, expansion, and the interaction of the marbles create our natural laws - our universe.
Nito, have you taken into account the possible Higgs particle, and the resulting Boson field?
This sounds much like what you are describing, the unexplained creation of matter.
This sounds much like what you are describing, the unexplained creation of matter.
Pison, sorry if this covers what you mentioned I was in the middle of saying something similar when my internet crashed so here it goes...
Nito, you are close (with your marbles) yet so far away
Sorry to be a burden, but to put things into perspective based on your 'theory' you have to account for ALL the particles, properties and interactions thus far uncovered and 'mapped' out in the Standard (Particle) Model. That is, leptons, baryons, bosons, spin (fractional and integral), charge, mass + all the forces. When you can show the world how ALL of this comes about from your 'fundamental building block' then people will turn heads, until then all you have is speculation and not a theory. BTW, it would be good if you could predict some new particles that may be observed with the new accelerator/collider that is being built.
This comment is not meant in a bad way, perhaps you have already done the above but I couldn't find anything on your blog that would explain the ST. Perhaps you can point me in the right direction. You are probably not the first one to think of marbles. There would have been a prominent physicist (perhaps Bohr) that would have gone down your path of thinking before but due to all the complexity that this 'building block' must create, those thoughts (and perhaps wrongfully - I don't know) would have been quickly abandoned.
Some things to consider Nito, can you explain what mass is? How light is a massless particle? Polarisation of light? .....and what space is? (afterall, it is a fundamental part of the universe - without it, nothing would exist).
I'll let you ponder over those....
Cheers
Nito, you are close (with your marbles) yet so far away
Sorry to be a burden, but to put things into perspective based on your 'theory' you have to account for ALL the particles, properties and interactions thus far uncovered and 'mapped' out in the Standard (Particle) Model. That is, leptons, baryons, bosons, spin (fractional and integral), charge, mass + all the forces. When you can show the world how ALL of this comes about from your 'fundamental building block' then people will turn heads, until then all you have is speculation and not a theory. BTW, it would be good if you could predict some new particles that may be observed with the new accelerator/collider that is being built.This comment is not meant in a bad way, perhaps you have already done the above but I couldn't find anything on your blog that would explain the ST. Perhaps you can point me in the right direction. You are probably not the first one to think of marbles. There would have been a prominent physicist (perhaps Bohr) that would have gone down your path of thinking before but due to all the complexity that this 'building block' must create, those thoughts (and perhaps wrongfully - I don't know) would have been quickly abandoned.
Some things to consider Nito, can you explain what mass is? How light is a massless particle? Polarisation of light? .....and what space is? (afterall, it is a fundamental part of the universe - without it, nothing would exist).
I'll let you ponder over those....
Cheers
QUOTE(ai_guardian @ Dec 19 2005, 03:48 AM) [snapback]981890[/snapback]
Pison, sorry if this covers what you mentioned I was in the middle of saying something similar when my internet crashed so here it goes...
No problem. I saw you posting, then came back in to read what you were writing, and noticed that you were here no longer.
I agree with you that all the [bases] must be covered to form the "unified theory of everything". What Nito is proposing is very well thought out, and he has a great perspective on the universe.
However, I believe that the universe will not "crunch", or collapse, upon itself only to begin again new. We are just now able to detect X-rays coming out of blackholes, inferring that this could be where all the "dark matter" is coming from, blackholes fueling the ever expanding universe (in theory) by stretching matter into X-rays (fact).
Pison, did you find something on the referenced blog (Nito's) that I haven't?
I find he has pasted some info about the St. Model that seems to come from the 'particle adventure' site but I could not find any real detail on his theory (unless it is still coming). Just some very vague ideas of how things 'may' work. I don't know, maybe I have missed something.
I find he has pasted some info about the St. Model that seems to come from the 'particle adventure' site but I could not find any real detail on his theory (unless it is still coming). Just some very vague ideas of how things 'may' work. I don't know, maybe I have missed something.
Hmmm...I am probably missing something as well. The main thing I read that was different is that he (Nito) is saying that Newton was not correct when saying that gravity is a "pulling", or attracting, force. He is saying that gravity is more of a "pushing" force.
BTW, ai_guardian, I like the gold atom in your avatar. Well, what was once a gold atom.
BTW, ai_guardian, I like the gold atom in your avatar. Well, what was once a gold atom.
QUOTE(Pison @ Dec 19 2005, 06:35 PM) [snapback]982195[/snapback]
BTW, ai_guardian, I like the gold atom in your avatar. Well, what was once a gold atom.
With regard to Nito's blog, I see the St. Model info which (obviously) is correct since it has been pulled from a credible site but I don't see how that is relevant to the marble model since it draws no correlation to it. I read the pushing vs pulling interpretation but again no explanation why that is so. I might be just under-the-weather today.
QUOTE(ai_guardian @ Dec 19 2005, 04:39 AM) [snapback]982259[/snapback]
...thank you Pison. Well actually, I may stand corrected, but I think it may be the result of a high speed collision of 2 (or more) gold ions. I'm just pedantic, forgive.
With regard to Nito's blog, I see the St. Model info which (obviously) is correct since it has been pulled from a credible site but I don't see how that is relevant to the marble model since it draws no correlation to it. I read the pushing vs pulling interpretation but again no explanation why that is so. I might be just under-the-weather today.
Yeah, you are all correct. My blog is still underway or under construction. I intended to pull theories that I come accross and somehow comment on it in relation to my own theory. I am actually trying to see if my observation of the universe is wrong but all I see is it is still holds water.
Like - gravity - which seems to be the only force that cannot be unified with the rest. If you change Newton's belief of gravity as an attraction - to something like a compression of "unidentified" objects, then I believe Newton's gravity can be unified with the rest.
If you imagine the universe comprised of objects contnuously banging at its other (speed of light) and matter being created when two of these objects collide and cancel each other's movement. When matter is created, although the movement stops, the potential energy or speed of movement is still there waiting to be released. Imagine these twin stationary objects joining up with others - worlds, suns, galaxies are created.
What is gravity then? This is the force of the objects crunching all the created matter together - a pushing force, rather than a pulling force. If you really think about it - how can something pull without something pushing it? Am I the only one thinking of this, this simple?
What is fire then? Imagine a wood made up of these created matter with all the stored energy waiting to be released. When energy is released gradually - where the matter disapears and becomes objects again - that process is what we call fire.
What is time then? Can we go back in time or for that matter to the future? The answer is yes but you have to imagine that the past, the present and the future is but a snapshot of the objects at any given time. If somebody can arrange them to make up the past or future - it can happen but the past, present and future cannot co-exist in the same space.
What is electricity then? Simple, just like gravity, it is the matter created but being forced to move around by the banging objects.
What are radio waves, etc.? If you really think about it - how can we send messages accross great distances if those banging objects are not there? These banging objects are the ones that create those "waves" so that we can communicate.
If you are still lost and cannot grasp my theory - just imagine my universe as our world with the atmosphere pressure as the objects. Still not get it - maybe others can pick up explain further?
QUOTE(Pison @ Dec 18 2005, 09:46 PM) [snapback]981887[/snapback]
Nito, have you taken into account the possible Higgs particle, and the resulting Boson field?
This sounds much like what you are describing, the unexplained creation of matter.
Sorry, Pison, I am not a scientist. You just went over my head. Can you post a link so I can read more on what you are referring to?
QUOTE(Fluffybunny @ Dec 18 2005, 01:14 PM) [snapback]981350[/snapback]
This law of universal gravitation was originally formulated by Isaac Newton in his work, the Principia Mathematica (1687).
Professor William Whewell of Cambridge University, author of History of the Inductive Sciences (1837) stated:
The law of gravitation is indisputably and incomparably the greatest scientific discovery ever made, whether we look at the advance which it involved, the extent of the truth disclosed, or the fundamental and satisfactory nature of this truth. [In A Treasury of Science ed. Harlow Shapley et al, Harper & Bros. NY: 1946]
It's important to understand that while Newton was able to formulate his law of gravity in his monumental work, he was deeply uncomfortable with the notion of "action at a distance" which his equations implied. He never, in his words, "assigned the cause of this power". In all other cases, he used the phenomenon of motion to explain the origin of various forces acting on bodies, but in the case of gravity, he was unable to experimentally identify the motion that produces the force of gravity. Moreover, he refused to even offer a hypothesis as to the cause of this force on grounds that to do so was contrary to sound science.
He lamented the fact that "philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain" for the source of the gravitational force, as he was convinced "by many reasons" that there were "causes hitherto unknown" that were fundamental to all the "phenomena of nature". These fundamental phenomena are still under investigation and, though hypotheses abound, the definitive answer is yet to be found. While it is true that Einstein's hypotheses are successful in explaining the effects of gravitational forces more precisely than Newton's in certain cases, he too never assigned the cause of this power, in his theories. It is said that in Einstein's equations, "matter tells space how to curve, and space tells matter how to move", but this new idea, completely foreign to the world of Newton, does not enable Einstein to assign the "cause of this power" to curve space any more than the Law of Universal Gravitation enabled Newton to assign its cause. In Newton's own words:
I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other; which forces being unknown, philosophers have hitherto attempted the search of nature in vain.
If science is eventually able to discover the cause of the gravitational force, Newton's wish could eventually be fulfilled as well.
I guess I can consider myself as a philosopher since I can only imagine the "cause" but not explain it - same as Newton and Einstein.
QUOTE(Nito @ Dec 19 2005, 05:17 PM) [snapback]982552[/snapback]
Sorry, Pison, I am not a scientist. You just went over my head. Can you post a link so I can read more on what you are referring to?
Sorry. I tend to do that.
http://www.exploratorium.edu/origins/cern/ideas/higgs.html
QUOTE
Scientists at CERN, as well as at Fermilab in Illinois, are hoping to find what they call the "Higgs boson." Higgs, they believe, is a particle, or set of particles, that might give others mass.
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/
Most Recent News:
(Nov. 14, 2005)
http://bulletin.cern.ch/eng/articles.php?b...se=art#Article1
QUOTE
The LHC is gradually taking shape. While the major operation of lowering the magnets into the tunnel continues, many of the machine's other components are gradually being installed and commissioned. On 13 October, the power supply to one sector of the accelerator was successfully tested over a period of 24 hours. This was the first time that all the power converters for the supply of electricity to one eighth of the machine had been operated together in situ.....
*
This may be of some interest to you, Nito:
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~chenry/
QUOTE(ai_guardian @ Dec 19 2005, 10:39 AM) [snapback]982259[/snapback]
...thank you Pison. Well actually, I may stand corrected, but I think it may be the result of a high speed collision of 2 (or more) gold ions. I'm just pedantic, forgive.
No, you are right. Unless that gold atom spontaneously exploded.
QUOTE(I am @ Dec 18 2005, 05:22 PM) [snapback]981291[/snapback]
I was just wondering what gravity was, is it an energy field? Why does it bend space? How is it related to time?
If anyone here is 'enlightened' on the subject please share. Or, if you're ignorant like me, and you just want to share your opinion, go ahead and do that too.
Hello,
Gravity is not an energy field, rather it is a bi-product of matter being in space. If there was no matter there would be no gravity.
imagine a piece of rubber stretched to four corners. initially the surface would be flat, without dimension. Place a marble at the centre, this would cause the surface of the rubber to dip, this dip would be noticable everywhere on the sheet, take the marble off and replace it with a bigger & heavier marble, the dip would increase. Now, if you left the marble at the centre and took another marble and place it at the edge of the rubber and let it go it would roll straight toward the marble at the centre. This natural tendancy to move toward the centre is gravity, caused by the bending of space(rubber sheet). Now imagine that there are no corners to sheet. where the marble bends the sheet, the bending is local to where the marble is, but its effects stretch out to everyother point in space.
A black hole is where the mass stretching the sheet has become so extreme the sheet stretches to infinity, anything approaching the area of the sheet where the black hole is will fall towards the centre and there is nothing that can be done to move back up the sheet, a one way ticket to nowhere.
Orbits are caused by the rotation of curved space. Its hard to simulate it but its effects with a rubber sheet, but it can be imagined quite easily. The sun bends the sheet, whilst it is bending the sheet it is rotating. The earth sits on its part of the sheet also bending it. now as the sun rotates the bending sheet it pulls all that it bends, so the earth sitting in its dip rotates. imagine also the moon sitting in its dip of the sheet, as the earth spins and pulls the sheet so the moon rotates.
To see the curvature of space between the sun and the earth you can draw it quite easily. 1) Draw a small circle at the centre of a piece of square paper to represent the sun.
2) Draw a big circle reaching to about an inch from the outer edge of the paper. on that circle draw a little circle to represent the earth.
3) Now draw a straight line between the centre of the sun and the centre of the earth.
4) Now divide the line approx. 8 times(1 division per minute of the suns light travelling towards earth), and mark each division.
5) Now draw a little circle (say an eight of the way round the big circle, and mark the 8 divisions between that earth(circle) and the first earth(circle)) to represent where the earth would be in 8 minutes time along the big circle.
6) Now draw a line from the first division away from the sun to the first division away from the earth. Then do it from the second to the second, third to third and so on. Eventually you will see that the there is a curve. This is extremely exaggerated so that you can see that there is a curve, if you drew it using the correct scaling, it would appear to be a straight line between the sun and the earth. this is due to the vast distance between the sun and the earth. Einstein proved that space was curved during a solar eclipse.
Your question, how is related to time? Well time itself can be interpreted in many ways. You could consider time to be relative to speed. I think of time as motion, distance and speed. for instance. it took me 1 hour to walk into town the other day, yet it took me only 4minutes when i moved faster in my car. it took me 20mins on my bike. the distance was always the same.
so its all relative to speed. If it do not move at all then i along with everything else on the planet move through time at the same speed. relativity is all these interactions that occur between all things. einstein proved that everything on earth moved at a constant rate but the further away you got from the earth the slower you would move through time. he proved it using an atomic clock.
The theory goes that the centre of a record on a record player rotates at the same rate as the outer edge of the record, but since the distance the outer edge has to travel is that much greater, hence the increase in time, and there is the slowdown. it is not measureable on a record player, so dont bother.
Here is something for you to do that can seperate you from the entire universe and put you in a little space that is your own. This can be quite addictive, but should not be done to excess. If you have a chair that spins, make room so you can spin freely, and place the chair close enough that you can grab hold of something every now and again to keep you spinning. Once you start to spin you may feel a little dizzy, this soon passes. look towards the floor and it appears that you are motionless and it is everything else that is moving around you. the entire planet seems to be seperate from you and spins underneath your feet at quite a speed. its all an illusion. im in the process of making a table to sit on that will spin at a constant rate, you really do feel after a while that you are seperated from the earth. I tried this on the beach approaching dusk. It was amazing, once your spinning and your ears settle you can look around at the world spinning around you, you can see shooting stars in a way youve never seen them.
p.s. if you think my ideas are crazy you might be right...there just what i beleive. but what makes sense to one person can appear gibberish to another...
hope you enjoy the read...
DEJAVUDEJAVE, although you've pretty much got your analogy of gravity right there's one thing that I must correct so that people reading here don't get the wrong idea. This pertains to your understanding why planets and other bodies orbit larger bodies (eg. sun). To say that the orbitting body (eg. earth) is being 'dragged' (that's what I understood you to be saying) by the gravitational field of the larger body (ie. sun) is not really correct. The reason the earth is orbitting is because it has quite some speed behind it that stops it from spiralling towards the sun. This speed may have initially been caused by the gravitational pull of the sun as it 'trapped' the earth in its field. The orbits (and elliptical paths - yes they're elliptical) of bodies around larger ones is determined by its initial velocity before it gets trapped by the gravitational field. In the case of the earth, it formed from dust clouds (way back when) in the solar system, clumped together and as it did its mass was sufficient to be pulled towards the sun. However it would not have been heading directly for it but would have done something like a sling-shot fly-by and subsequently settling into a the orbit we see today.
Cheers
Cheers
The gravity of the Earth:
(red is higher, blue is lower)
The sun:
Does that shape in the sun look familar to anyone?
(red is higher, blue is lower)
The sun:
QUOTE
April 22, 2003: Three years ago, something weird happened to the Sun.
Normally, our star, like Earth itself, has a north and a south magnetic pole. But for nearly a month beginning in March 2000, the Sun's south magnetic pole faded, and a north pole emerged to take its place. The Sun had two north poles.
"It sounds impossible, but it's true," says space physicist Pete Riley of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in San Diego. "In fact, it's a fairly normal side-effect of the solar cycle." Every 11 years around solar maximum, the Sun's magnetic field goes haywire as the Sun's underlying magnetic dynamo reorganizes itself. The March 2000 event was simply a part of that upheaval.
Normally, our star, like Earth itself, has a north and a south magnetic pole. But for nearly a month beginning in March 2000, the Sun's south magnetic pole faded, and a north pole emerged to take its place. The Sun had two north poles.
"It sounds impossible, but it's true," says space physicist Pete Riley of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in San Diego. "In fact, it's a fairly normal side-effect of the solar cycle." Every 11 years around solar maximum, the Sun's magnetic field goes haywire as the Sun's underlying magnetic dynamo reorganizes itself. The March 2000 event was simply a part of that upheaval.
Does that shape in the sun look familar to anyone?
QUOTE(ai_guardian @ Dec 21 2005, 03:20 AM) [snapback]985267[/snapback]
DEJAVUDEJAVE, although you've pretty much got your analogy of gravity right there's one thing that I must correct so that people reading here don't get the wrong idea. This pertains to your understanding why planets and other bodies orbit larger bodies (eg. sun). To say that the orbitting body (eg. earth) is being 'dragged' (that's what I understood you to be saying) by the gravitational field of the larger body (ie. sun) is not really correct. The reason the earth is orbitting is because it has quite some speed behind it that stops it from spiralling towards the sun. This speed may have initially been caused by the gravitational pull of the sun as it 'trapped' the earth in its field. The orbits (and elliptical paths - yes they're elliptical) of bodies around larger ones is determined by its initial velocity before it gets trapped by the gravitational field. In the case of the earth, it formed from dust clouds (way back when) in the solar system, clumped together and as it did its mass was sufficient to be pulled towards the sun. However it would not have been heading directly for it but would have done something like a sling-shot fly-by and subsequently settling into a the orbit we see today.
Cheers
Hi there,
I wrote the entry in quite a hurry and didnt explain properly the nature of orbits. I know the orbits are elliptical, i used the description circle, because it is easier to draw with a protractor. i should have said ellipse, but for the drawing either would suffice.
i have done a simple demonstration to exlain to my little nephew whos incredibly curious about the nature of the planets and there orbits. it was quite easy to set up.
A large round bowl of water allowed to settle undisturbed of any vibration.
a ping pong ball fixed firmly to a shaft, which is connected to tiny motor from a toy racing car. this is suspended firmly using a frame directly over the centre of the bowl and the ping pong ball is placed half in the water, directly in the centre.
using a variable potentiometer the power to the motor can be reduced to slow the spin down. initially the motor is switched off and the water allowed to settle.
i took another pingpong ball and drilled a hole in it, i then filled it with enough water so that it would submerge half in the water. i did this in a different bowl of water as not to disturb the water allready settling. once i got the right amount of water inside i took the pingpong ball and placed it very carefully half way between the edge of the bowl and the centre pingpong. i left it to settle again.
i then sprinkled very tiny plastic pellets onto the surface of the water to simulate space dust and debris. i left it to settle overnight.
the next day i carefully approaced the table and it was dead calm. i switched the motor on at the lowest power setting and the pingpong ball at the centre rotated without wobbling, as it did this the particles closest to pingpong started to follow the rotation of the ball, and as time passed this reached out over the surface of the water and eventually started to make the other pingpong ball start to move in a circular orbit around the centre. It was quite hypnotic to watch. I wish i had used an elliptical shaped bowl, but i didnt have one. im still on the lookout for one, it would be interesting to see the differences. This is where i came up with the dragging effect.
I imagined that the surface of the bowl of water was like that of a galaxy or solar system. The heavy spinning object at the centre dragging the space around it twirling it. a simple demonstration can be done on a table cloth. take a pencil and place it at the centre and push down and twist, all the table cloth in everydirection is pulled toward the centre. However in reality, it is much more complicated than that. I am still intrigued and i enjoy puzzling over it, and all the other mysteries of space, time.
I have one question id like you to have a go at... If the earth's orbit decays a miniscule part every year and the earth has been here forever and a day, why has it not yet been absorbed by the sun.
Could it be that another planet in orbit around the sun pulls it back that miniscule part.
write back soon. kind regards.
That's an excellent little experiment DEJAVUDEJAVE, kudos to you.
What you have found is that there is a very very small drag and IIRC that is what Einstein confirmed with the calculation of perihelion of Mars (or was it Mercury). But this drag is very tiny as compared to the real dynamics of orbitals as I have described. The reason your ping pong balls are displaying it more prominently is because of the nature (& density) of water as compared to space-time curvature (gravitational waves). The orbitals are similar to a space shuttle orbiting the earth. The space shuttle has some phenomenal speeds behind it so it doesn't spiral back into the earth - and that is one of the reasons re-entry is so difficult, IMO (ie. friction with the atmosphere and the high speed of the shuttle). I may stand corrected about the perihelion interpretation though.
Cheers
What you have found is that there is a very very small drag and IIRC that is what Einstein confirmed with the calculation of perihelion of Mars (or was it Mercury). But this drag is very tiny as compared to the real dynamics of orbitals as I have described. The reason your ping pong balls are displaying it more prominently is because of the nature (& density) of water as compared to space-time curvature (gravitational waves). The orbitals are similar to a space shuttle orbiting the earth. The space shuttle has some phenomenal speeds behind it so it doesn't spiral back into the earth - and that is one of the reasons re-entry is so difficult, IMO (ie. friction with the atmosphere and the high speed of the shuttle). I may stand corrected about the perihelion interpretation though.
QUOTE(DEJAVUDEJAVE)
I have one question id like you to have a go at... If the earth's orbit decays a miniscule part every year and the earth has been here forever and a day, why has it not yet been absorbed by the sun.
Could it be that another planet in orbit around the sun pulls it back that miniscule part.
write back soon. kind regards.
I'd be very much speculating on this because I don't really know if & how much earth loses of its orbit per year. I'll research it because I am really interested to see what this value is. If there is such a loss in orbit it may very well be due to other planets further out in their orbitals 'tugging' on earth. Researching....Could it be that another planet in orbit around the sun pulls it back that miniscule part.
write back soon. kind regards.
Cheers
QUOTE(ai_guardian @ Dec 23 2005, 02:05 AM) [snapback]988776[/snapback]
That's an excellent little experiment DEJAVUDEJAVE, kudos to you.
What you have found is that there is a very very small drag and IIRC that is what Einstein confirmed with the calculation of perihelion of Mars (or was it Mercury). But this drag is very tiny as compared to the real dynamics of orbitals as I have described. The reason your ping pong balls are displaying it more prominently is because of the nature (& density) of water as compared to space-time curvature (gravitational waves). The orbitals are similar to a space shuttle orbiting the earth. The space shuttle has some phenomenal speeds behind it so it doesn't spiral back into the earth - and that is one of the reasons re-entry is so difficult, IMO (ie. friction with the atmosphere and the high speed of the shuttle). I may stand corrected about the perihelion interpretation though.
I'd be very much speculating on this because I don't really know if & how much earth loses of its orbit per year. I'll research it because I am really interested to see what this value is. If there is such a loss in orbit it may very well be due to other planets further out in their orbitals 'tugging' on earth. Researching....
Cheers
Hi again,
Im in the process of trying that experiment again, but this time im using a much bigger bowl, about 10feet in diameter. Ive used the orbit of pluto as the circumference of the bowl. Its made of thin non-distortable perspex so i can see through the sides and is easy to shape. I have used more pinpgong balls to represent the planets and a larger ball to represent the sun. each pingpong ball is submerged with a clearance between the surface of the water and the top of the ball of around 2-3millimeters. what im hoping is that the drag effect will still reach out across the entire diameter of the bowl. It might dissapate like a fractal. If it does reach out and the other ping pong balls start moving it would be interesting to see if they affect each other. I know there is some attraction between them.
I had a bowl of still water with a sheet of cardboard over the top with two holes cut out. There was a clearance between cardboard and the water of about 5millimeters. The holes were bigger than the two plastic bottle tops i had by 5millimeters. I could quite happily place one bottle top upside down gently on the surface of the water and get it to rest in the hole not touching the sides of the cardboard, yet, when i added the other bottle top to the other hole, they immediately pulled toward each other and touched the cardboard exactly opposite each other. this attraction i believe is caused by the surface tension of the water being distorted by the bottle top, this effect reaches out of the surface of the water, on its own it affects nothing, except the side of the bowl. but when the other bottle top is in place the affect can be seen. facinating.
Moving on to another subject... i was wanting to see if i could capture light forever.. i think ive found a solution to it but i cant afford what im about to propose.
As you know the speed of light is approx.186,000miles per second. If i had a mechanism for perfectly aligning and sealing the ends of fibre optic cables within say a milli-second of them being appart, i could in theory send a pulse of light into the cable, which would have to be minimum length of say 250,000 miles in length, and then seal the cable before the light escaped a fraction of a second later. that pulse of light would travel forever along the path of the cable. if the cable was tightly wound into a coil, it would be possible in a darkend room to see the pulse of light wizzing round the coil. I believe this is possible, but i will never be able to prove it. let us know what you think. cheers
DEJAVUDEJAVE, the light 'trapping' experiment is a very ambitious one. I can guarantee you it will not work as you expect it to. Sorry to dissapoint but even fibre optic cable has loss associated with it that is why there are 'amplifiers' (not sure exactly what they're called maybe signal-boosters) every so often in the network to compensate for these losses. However if you could somehow manage to trap this light in the cable (the end-stoppers would have to be 100% reflective and again without loss) the act of seeing the light would mean that it is dissipating from the cable. You will be seeing the photons that were in the cable and considering the speed of light these would dissipate rather quickly. However if you do trap the light you should not be seeing it.
Funnily enough, on another (purely scientific) forum I've tracked a discussion where a guy wanted to trap light in a can. That sort of experiment was deemed to have a success rate of 0.
So, with that said, good luck but just prepare yourself that it may not work.
Cheers
Funnily enough, on another (purely scientific) forum I've tracked a discussion where a guy wanted to trap light in a can. That sort of experiment was deemed to have a success rate of 0.
So, with that said, good luck but just prepare yourself that it may not work.
Cheers
QUOTE(ai_guardian @ Dec 23 2005, 04:45 AM) [snapback]989016[/snapback]
DEJAVUDEJAVE, the light 'trapping' experiment is a very ambitious one. I can guarantee you it will not work as you expect it to. Sorry to dissapoint but even fibre optic cable has loss associated with it that is why there are 'amplifiers' (not sure exactly what they're called maybe signal-boosters) every so often in the network to compensate for these losses. However if you could somehow manage to trap this light in the cable (the end-stoppers would have to be 100% reflective and again without loss) the act of seeing the light would mean that it is dissipating from the cable. You will be seeing the photons that were in the cable and considering the speed of light these would dissipate rather quickly. However if you do trap the light you should not be seeing it.
Funnily enough, on another (purely scientific) forum I've tracked a discussion where a guy wanted to trap light in a can. That sort of experiment was deemed to have a success rate of 0.
So, with that said, good luck but just prepare yourself that it may not work.
Cheers
I know, i didnt really think that one out very well did i. It was an idea i had many years ago when i was a student.
Moving on to another subject regarding the pyramids. Another idea i had when i was a student. I imagined i am standing at the base of the pyramid looking up in awe of the achievement, overwhelmed by the scale of the project. i was wondering if they had hot air balloons 4000years ago. i have yet to find a reference to it, but if they did have them and enough of them, i believe they could quite easily have lifted the blocks with ease. i have ready many books on the pyramids but not one reference to elevation using balloons. Is it feasible...like to know what you think. kind regards from wales, united kingdom
QUOTE(DEJAVUDEJAVE @ Dec 23 2005, 05:06 AM) [snapback]989053[/snapback]
I know, i didnt really think that one out very well did i. It was an idea i had many years ago when i was a student.
Moving on to another subject regarding the pyramids. Another idea i had when i was a student. I imagined i am standing at the base of the pyramid looking up in awe of the achievement, overwhelmed by the scale of the project. i was wondering if they had hot air balloons 4000years ago. i have yet to find a reference to it, but if they did have them and enough of them, i believe they could quite easily have lifted the blocks with ease. i have ready many books on the pyramids but not one reference to elevation using balloons. Is it feasible...like to know what you think. kind regards from wales, united kingdom
My second post here and both dealing with gravity, this is not what I expected but: There is a well thought out theory of gravity, describing what gravity is not how it works as Newton did. This is aether theory. In fact, aether theory is a Unified Field Theory but, of course, that doesn't describe all of the universe.
I first found these ideas in a publication called Electric Spacecraft Journal. This was a real geek mag of electronic engineer types discussing alternate ideas. I thought they were crazy when some described gravity as a "push". Years later I read a book by Dr. Hans Neiper explaining how alleged free energy devices work. He went through each device and explained it according to aether theory. Each device was actually the same but Dr. Neiper was a patient guy so about 1/2 through it, a light went on in my head and I have never looked back.
The basics are that an energy field envelops the universe. This field is primary physics, secondary physics being what we call physics. This field is aether energy. It's pressure upon matter is like being underwater so it is pushing from all sides. "Down" is the spot of thickest matter since matter can absorb aether energy. This means the earth and all heavenly bodies are always getting larger. As aether hits the earth, secondary breaking radiations result which are x-rays, gamma, alpha, heat, etc. As I say, some energy is directly absorbed and becomes new matter. Gravity is simply this aether energy pressure on matter. Magnets and magnetic fields are a sort of cheating gateway for aether and why they are used in free energy devices. Yes, there are working free energy devices and the government has some. I would ask anybody who doubts this to google Hans Coler Device and then go to the British Intelligence Objectives Subcomittee Report on the subject which was declassified in 1978. Captain Coler claimed his device worked on "Raumenergie" or space energy which is another name for aether as is the current buz name Zero Point Energy.
I am a moron so it took me ten years and a lot of work to understand this and I don't understand everything. I won't blame you for calling me crazy as this is what I would have said myself 12 years ago.
QUOTE(Dr. Solar Wolff @ Dec 23 2005, 10:20 PM) [snapback]990630[/snapback]
My second post here and both dealing with gravity, this is not what I expected but: There is a well thought out theory of gravity, describing what gravity is not how it works as Newton did. This is aether theory. In fact, aether theory is a Unified Field Theory but, of course, that doesn't describe all of the universe.
I first found these ideas in a publication called Electric Spacecraft Journal. This was a real geek mag of electronic engineer types discussing alternate ideas. I thought they were crazy when some described gravity as a "push". Years later I read a book by Dr. Hans Neiper explaining how alleged free energy devices work. He went through each device and explained it according to aether theory. Each device was actually the same but Dr. Neiper was a patient guy so about 1/2 through it, a light went on in my head and I have never looked back.
The basics are that an energy field envelops the universe. This field is primary physics, secondary physics being what we call physics. This field is aether energy. It's pressure upon matter is like being underwater so it is pushing from all sides. "Down" is the spot of thickest matter since matter can absorb aether energy. This means the earth and all heavenly bodies are always getting larger. As aether hits the earth, secondary breaking radiations result which are x-rays, gamma, alpha, heat, etc. As I say, some energy is directly absorbed and becomes new matter. Gravity is simply this aether energy pressure on matter. Magnets and magnetic fields are a sort of cheating gateway for aether and why they are used in free energy devices. Yes, there are working free energy devices and the government has some. I would ask anybody who doubts this to google Hans Coler Device and then go to the British Intelligence Objectives Subcomittee Report on the subject which was declassified in 1978. Captain Coler claimed his device worked on "Raumenergie" or space energy which is another name for aether as is the current buz name Zero Point Energy.
I am a moron so it took me ten years and a lot of work to understand this and I don't understand everything. I won't blame you for calling me crazy as this is what I would have said myself 12 years ago.
This is exactly what I am talking about. In addition, this push theory can actually be a unification theory. Imagine the steel balls banging at its other. When two collide and cancel each other motions, mass is created but the energy (matter in motion will always be in motion) is just stored and can be realeased like fire, a nuclear explosion, etc.
What about surface tension and refraction at the edge of the energy field that envelops the universe?
Is there something trying to crack the shell?
Is there something trying to crack the shell?
QUOTE(Pison @ Dec 24 2005, 06:02 AM) [snapback]991278[/snapback]
What about surface tension and refraction at the edge of the energy field that envelops the universe?
Is there something trying to crack the shell?
My theory is based on the universe composed of forever expanding moving "steel balls" objects. The big bang (GOD? I have no theory predating God.) started all the expansion. Matter is created when any two balls clumped (equal opposing motion). Clumped matters can also clumped into bigger things, creating the mass in the universe (planets, suns, black holes, etc.). Gravity is a manifestation of the clumping. When they unclump (other objects hitting them creating a deterioration as opposed to creation of matter), the process can manifest into heat, light, fire, electricity, lightning, nuclear explosion, etc. All these manipulations of matter into various forms is what we perceive as time. This universe, our universe of balls is temporary because the totality thins at its edges (if there is one - I cannot think farther than this).
QUOTE(Nito @ Dec 24 2005, 03:59 AM) [snapback]990682[/snapback]
This is exactly what I am talking about. In addition, this push theory can actually be a unification theory. Imagine the steel balls banging at its other. When two collide and cancel each other motions, mass is created but the energy (matter in motion will always be in motion) is just stored and can be realeased like fire, a nuclear explosion, etc.
im amazed at how much schizophrenic thinking there is going on in this forum. there are those who have clearly got an understanding, and there are those who are clutching at straws. but there must be a balance in the universe, so they even themselves out, i guess...
Well... here is a different angle... A universe in a complete equilibrium state is fillled with nothing and the space-time is flat. Our universe is filled with energy, it is seething with it and wherever it is present, the space-time curves.
So, if the space-time is the fabric of the universe (assuming that the universe does not extend forever, but instead extends to border other universes), and if there was a hypothetical universe which was perfectly flat, then this universe would be as large as it could be. When you bend a piece of paper, the paper takes up less 2-d area then it would if it were flat.
Matter travels along space-time. Matter does not dictate where space-time is, space-time is everywhere.
I imagine the 'multi-verse' as a never ending flat universe which has been permeated with big-bangs... some small, some large.
The existance of these big bangs must be from the collision of one multi-verse with another multi-verse.
Some force (the primary mover?) is holding all the matter inside our universe. Matters existance in this universe is naturally opposed by space-time... if there were nothing holding it in then I think that it would all fly out, as if space-time was a trampoline... is it possible that gravity is a result of this inconsistency between space-time and energy? Is matter a result of friction between these multi-verses as they collide? Could it be that the bending of space-time is a result of friction between matter and time?
There are different orders of magnitude with regards to energy distribution in the universe. These orders are so: empty space, lepton fields, baryonic matter. Each nucleus is covered in leptons (which I would say are just trapped photons), each atom is composed of baryons (quarks), and empty-space is said to be filled with every particle that ever existed, constantly being created and destroyed... empty space is constantly at equilibrium. I believe that gravity could be caused by a fundamental inconsistency between these levels, the density of energy in the nucleus of an atom is far more then the density of energy just outside the atom in the orbitals of the electron, and even far more denser then 'empty space' ... although, we know empty space is filled with energy fields also, this could prove to be miniscule in magnitude... The potential difference between the concentration of energy in specific locations could be what results in the curvature of space-time... I should probably see if I can come up with some formulas or something....
So, if the space-time is the fabric of the universe (assuming that the universe does not extend forever, but instead extends to border other universes), and if there was a hypothetical universe which was perfectly flat, then this universe would be as large as it could be. When you bend a piece of paper, the paper takes up less 2-d area then it would if it were flat.
Matter travels along space-time. Matter does not dictate where space-time is, space-time is everywhere.
I imagine the 'multi-verse' as a never ending flat universe which has been permeated with big-bangs... some small, some large.
The existance of these big bangs must be from the collision of one multi-verse with another multi-verse.
Some force (the primary mover?) is holding all the matter inside our universe. Matters existance in this universe is naturally opposed by space-time... if there were nothing holding it in then I think that it would all fly out, as if space-time was a trampoline... is it possible that gravity is a result of this inconsistency between space-time and energy? Is matter a result of friction between these multi-verses as they collide? Could it be that the bending of space-time is a result of friction between matter and time?
There are different orders of magnitude with regards to energy distribution in the universe. These orders are so: empty space, lepton fields, baryonic matter. Each nucleus is covered in leptons (which I would say are just trapped photons), each atom is composed of baryons (quarks), and empty-space is said to be filled with every particle that ever existed, constantly being created and destroyed... empty space is constantly at equilibrium. I believe that gravity could be caused by a fundamental inconsistency between these levels, the density of energy in the nucleus of an atom is far more then the density of energy just outside the atom in the orbitals of the electron, and even far more denser then 'empty space' ... although, we know empty space is filled with energy fields also, this could prove to be miniscule in magnitude... The potential difference between the concentration of energy in specific locations could be what results in the curvature of space-time... I should probably see if I can come up with some formulas or something....
"I was just wondering what gravity was, is it an energy field? Why does it bend space? How is it related to time? "
In inverse order, perhaps 'time-space' was the initial condition during the earliest micro-seconds of the Universe, up to about 10^-32 seconds. The Standard Model does not include it, but most adherents to the BB theory are satisfied that a period of superluminal inflation took place to de-couple the nascent forces present in the earliest fraction of time, giving rise to the four forces we know today- strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity.
What I refer to is Allan Guth's theory of exponential expansion that followed the BB, and prevented a cooling and contraction leading to a closed Universe and a black hole on a cosmic scale. At that time, it is conjectured that gravity became repulsive, exhibiting a positive pressure to the otherwise, and now, low pressure vacuum.
As I understand it, space, not being restricted by the non-gravity forces, attained its dimensions almost instantaneously. It did so through repulsive gravity- a gravity that bent and forged space outward. After about 10^-32 s, the gravitional wave energies cooled. Their energy was conserved in some means, perhaps it was resonated somewhat into what we call cold dark matter.
"Exotic" CDM makes up about 15-25% of the mass of the Universe.
Large amounts of ionized hydrogen, somewhat undetectable, account for the other
10-15% of intergalactic bulk. The "Exotic" CDM interacts with gravity alone (mostly). It turned into the 400 lb. gorilla, of matter. There is so much of it, that it formed the "ribs"
of the Universe, and its affinity for gravitational interaction attracted the primal hydrogen and helium, like dew on a spider web.
The giant clouds of ionized gas cooled, and H2, molecular hydrogen very efficiently radiated away the heat. That same pristene gas developed instabilities as it clumped around CDM nodes. In places, cores of concentrated gas collapsed under their own gravity. The surrounding shell of gas later followed, on the order of several thousand years.
The gravitational collapse, deeper into the gravitational wells of CDM cosmic nodes, was nonsymetrical, leading to angular momentum. Swirling mini-halos resulted, wherein numerous stars could form. Each core accreated more hydrogen, around its dense proto-star gravitational well. << @ >>.
Those Population III stars, lasted some 2 million years if they were super-massive. The 150-250 solar mass stars fused some metals out of H, and that cooled them at some point, to where the photons arising from inside, were fewer. Positive pressure began to drop, and gravity took over. During the collapse, more elements were fused, but the core density, and gravity, was so intense that neutrinos and gamma rays were unable to escape even at the nuclear reaction level. This led to intense heat that released a supernova, with no black hole resulting. Overcoming gravity, the stellar elements rushed out into the surrounding gas clouds at supersonic speeds. The shockwaves led to more unstable core collapses, and so forth.
All this occured around the gravitational concentration areas of Cold Dark Matter. Maybe between 200-300 years ABB, the first progenitor stars dominated the stellar scene, but brown and red dwarfs also formed. The mixing of metals, dust, and molecules led to denser material, and so the Population II stars were smaller, with few getting more than 130 solar masses ever again. Pop II stars formed in the early galaxy halos, and had some minor enrichment of metals. Those are like the old white dwarfs, etc., that surround the Milky Way.
As gravitational angular momentum pulled galaxies together, in the CDM gravity wells, Population I stars were formed inside galaxies. Supernovae inside the galaxies furthur enriched metallicity, making carbon, silica, iron, nickle, oxygen and nitrogen, etc., available for planet forming. Core collapse events still generated stars, but inside larger galaxies, the new elements accreted from nearby dusty areas, making planet material.
So, gravity was, and is a force to be reckoned with. Possibly, beginning as inflationary anti-gravity due to a condition of time-space properties. Those properties became inversed into spacetime as we know it, and gravity energy was conserved, perhaps, into CDM.
CDM clumped gas clouds, massive progenitor pair instabilty stars that went supernova instead of BH, more stars and finally galaxies.
That said, about 4-5 billion years ago, the expansion cooled to the point that gravity began to limit the outward movement of galaxies, more than it ever had since it became a force of attraction, 10^-32 seconds ABB. The Universe resumed expanding when large scale gravity was damped by dark energy, a force less powerful than the early energy of inflaltion. The Universe was unable to close its geometry into an inward curve. Dark energy, like the early positive pressure, anti-gravity of the nascent universe, began expanding space and its effect multiplies slowly into an acceleration.
Dark energy is not so much near galaxies, or cold dark matter halos, but seems to be most effective at "growing space", in deep intergalactic vacuum regions. It acts as a negative pressure. And, it makes up 75% of all energy. Gravity formed galaxy clusters, and galaxies and stars and planets, which all have about 30-100 billion years before they are beyond lightspeed distance. Then, after one septillion years, protons may finally decay.
No problem, though. A new theory calls for a multi-verse, whose bulks collide at the nearly planck scale (about 1 wavelength of light), perhaps every trillion years. Gravity is "asymptotic", and inhabits a region between the bulk, or branes. That means they are attracted by gravity, nearly collide, bounce back, and generate new matter through conserved energy. The asymptotic gravity gets stronger with distance seperation, and every 10^12 years, the attraction between the branes repeats. Gravity weakens as they approach each other, and perfect timing leads to new, but not so violent, Big Bang scenarios.
So what else about gravity, besides its metric personality?
It seems so weak at the planck scale, that the basic unit of planck mass, which is
(hc/2pG)^1/2 (where h is Planck's constant, c is lightspeed, and G is the gravitational constant in Newton's universal gravitation and Einstein's GR) is hardly affected.
Since G is (6.67 × 10-11 N m2/kg2), this enhances the Planck mass to a sizeable
22 micrograms of inertial or gravitational mass. That scale responds to quark energy, as energetic "gluons" exhibit asymptotic attraction power, holding the interiors of atoms together.
The mass of something like a proton has around 1.22 × 1028 eV of inertial energy.
And, protons are bound by the strong, gluon force, to neutrons. The electron is a basic particle, without gluon inner action. It is attracted to the atom by electric charge and angular momentum.Together, the nucleus and electron shell respond to stimuli, and can decay through radioactivity. Other than that, could they utilize gravity?
I mentioned a possible multi-verse, and how at small dimensions, gravity may actually become stronger. But, when G grows larger, the Planck mass drops, and less energy may be required to produce gravitational effects. But, to be so specific at that dimension, and measure its energies will require experiments and inferences from large particle accelerators. So far, any serious warping of space, and collapsing the horizon of protons to the Swartzschild radius has not happened. If it does, hot mini-black holes, even if they are of the order of a lesser planck mass unit, less than 22 micrograms by current theory, they will quickly evaporate. They won't have enough mass to avoid fast "Hawking radiation" dissipation.
It is impossible, by today's standards, to get 10^16 to 10^22 TeV focused in particle accelerators. That energy would overcome the planck mass. High energy cosmic ray particles slam into the earth's atmosphere, but do not implode matter. We know because of the cascade of secondary particles, called Cherenkof light showers, results when high energy cosmic rays, (some He ions carry up to to 800 TeV) slam into atmoshpheric nuclei. They also slam into the Moon, which has no atmosphere. No gravitational implosions there, apparently. But, they carry great force, from supernovae. Could any atomic force include gravity?
If particles had force lines, which produced a force field, which surrounded mass and massless entities, then everything could move along such fields. The current-sheet of the Sun conducts charged particles away, and while expansive, it does guide a great deal of material for a large distance. Perhaps matter and energy have some analog to that, all the way down to sub-atomic scale. How to reckon that with General Relativity and metric field topolgies?
Perhaps gravity induces a tension on space manifolds, at the quantum level, at or below the planck mass scale. Perhaps, some of the so-called gravity well effects and gravity lensing of light around galactic clusters (as seen in deep-field studies) could be explained by density changes in space, around massive bodies. For instance, lightcones from distant quasars whose positions are behind galaxies, nonetheless have been known to send their signals around the galaxies, and refract toward a straight line, once again. Light bends around a gravity well pathway- almost.
If the lightwaves experienced vector course corrections through dark matter halos, where space manifold tension and its resulting field lines led to acceleration in that direction, then the light would gain energy going into the field (blueshift/shorten) and conserve away an equal amout upon leaving. Thus, both dark matter force lines in a denser space, and some degree of metric lensing of space itself (GR) may occur. And yes, its only a passing idea!
Another matter is why would light blueshift going into a denser space/gravity well, and redshift upon exiting? Perhaps the field lines of "force X" react like typical re-connection events. Those are found on the surface of the sun, and in plasma generating experiments. The opening, and subsequent collapse of electromagnetic fields releases a lot of energy. It leads to solar flares and coronal mass ejections, for one.
What I am saying, is if EM energy, or any particles or mass encounters a larger mass, they will vector through the larger force field, producing a space force-field gap. The spreading of the field induces a polarity, which generates energy upon snapping back- adding thrust or acceleration, and blue shifting in the case of massless light waves. Leaving/climbing out of the density region produces opposite effects. For instance, a cosmic ray would begin ploughing out of the outer envelope, after traversing in, and close to the Earth.
Like a fish, going upstream and giving back the energy it gained on the "downleg". It all evens out, if escape velocity is maintained.
Exiting the vicinity, the passing body would be moving upwind, into and finally beyond the outer envelope of the larger mass object's field of influence. All energy would basically be conserved. Except that deep in intergalactic space, light is redshifted by dark energy, as the Universe is stretched outward.
In inverse order, perhaps 'time-space' was the initial condition during the earliest micro-seconds of the Universe, up to about 10^-32 seconds. The Standard Model does not include it, but most adherents to the BB theory are satisfied that a period of superluminal inflation took place to de-couple the nascent forces present in the earliest fraction of time, giving rise to the four forces we know today- strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity.
What I refer to is Allan Guth's theory of exponential expansion that followed the BB, and prevented a cooling and contraction leading to a closed Universe and a black hole on a cosmic scale. At that time, it is conjectured that gravity became repulsive, exhibiting a positive pressure to the otherwise, and now, low pressure vacuum.
As I understand it, space, not being restricted by the non-gravity forces, attained its dimensions almost instantaneously. It did so through repulsive gravity- a gravity that bent and forged space outward. After about 10^-32 s, the gravitional wave energies cooled. Their energy was conserved in some means, perhaps it was resonated somewhat into what we call cold dark matter.
"Exotic" CDM makes up about 15-25% of the mass of the Universe.
Large amounts of ionized hydrogen, somewhat undetectable, account for the other
10-15% of intergalactic bulk. The "Exotic" CDM interacts with gravity alone (mostly). It turned into the 400 lb. gorilla, of matter. There is so much of it, that it formed the "ribs"
of the Universe, and its affinity for gravitational interaction attracted the primal hydrogen and helium, like dew on a spider web.
The giant clouds of ionized gas cooled, and H2, molecular hydrogen very efficiently radiated away the heat. That same pristene gas developed instabilities as it clumped around CDM nodes. In places, cores of concentrated gas collapsed under their own gravity. The surrounding shell of gas later followed, on the order of several thousand years.
The gravitational collapse, deeper into the gravitational wells of CDM cosmic nodes, was nonsymetrical, leading to angular momentum. Swirling mini-halos resulted, wherein numerous stars could form. Each core accreated more hydrogen, around its dense proto-star gravitational well. << @ >>.
Those Population III stars, lasted some 2 million years if they were super-massive. The 150-250 solar mass stars fused some metals out of H, and that cooled them at some point, to where the photons arising from inside, were fewer. Positive pressure began to drop, and gravity took over. During the collapse, more elements were fused, but the core density, and gravity, was so intense that neutrinos and gamma rays were unable to escape even at the nuclear reaction level. This led to intense heat that released a supernova, with no black hole resulting. Overcoming gravity, the stellar elements rushed out into the surrounding gas clouds at supersonic speeds. The shockwaves led to more unstable core collapses, and so forth.
All this occured around the gravitational concentration areas of Cold Dark Matter. Maybe between 200-300 years ABB, the first progenitor stars dominated the stellar scene, but brown and red dwarfs also formed. The mixing of metals, dust, and molecules led to denser material, and so the Population II stars were smaller, with few getting more than 130 solar masses ever again. Pop II stars formed in the early galaxy halos, and had some minor enrichment of metals. Those are like the old white dwarfs, etc., that surround the Milky Way.
As gravitational angular momentum pulled galaxies together, in the CDM gravity wells, Population I stars were formed inside galaxies. Supernovae inside the galaxies furthur enriched metallicity, making carbon, silica, iron, nickle, oxygen and nitrogen, etc., available for planet forming. Core collapse events still generated stars, but inside larger galaxies, the new elements accreted from nearby dusty areas, making planet material.
So, gravity was, and is a force to be reckoned with. Possibly, beginning as inflationary anti-gravity due to a condition of time-space properties. Those properties became inversed into spacetime as we know it, and gravity energy was conserved, perhaps, into CDM.
CDM clumped gas clouds, massive progenitor pair instabilty stars that went supernova instead of BH, more stars and finally galaxies.
That said, about 4-5 billion years ago, the expansion cooled to the point that gravity began to limit the outward movement of galaxies, more than it ever had since it became a force of attraction, 10^-32 seconds ABB. The Universe resumed expanding when large scale gravity was damped by dark energy, a force less powerful than the early energy of inflaltion. The Universe was unable to close its geometry into an inward curve. Dark energy, like the early positive pressure, anti-gravity of the nascent universe, began expanding space and its effect multiplies slowly into an acceleration.
Dark energy is not so much near galaxies, or cold dark matter halos, but seems to be most effective at "growing space", in deep intergalactic vacuum regions. It acts as a negative pressure. And, it makes up 75% of all energy. Gravity formed galaxy clusters, and galaxies and stars and planets, which all have about 30-100 billion years before they are beyond lightspeed distance. Then, after one septillion years, protons may finally decay.
No problem, though. A new theory calls for a multi-verse, whose bulks collide at the nearly planck scale (about 1 wavelength of light), perhaps every trillion years. Gravity is "asymptotic", and inhabits a region between the bulk, or branes. That means they are attracted by gravity, nearly collide, bounce back, and generate new matter through conserved energy. The asymptotic gravity gets stronger with distance seperation, and every 10^12 years, the attraction between the branes repeats. Gravity weakens as they approach each other, and perfect timing leads to new, but not so violent, Big Bang scenarios.
So what else about gravity, besides its metric personality?
It seems so weak at the planck scale, that the basic unit of planck mass, which is
(hc/2pG)^1/2 (where h is Planck's constant, c is lightspeed, and G is the gravitational constant in Newton's universal gravitation and Einstein's GR) is hardly affected.
Since G is (6.67 × 10-11 N m2/kg2), this enhances the Planck mass to a sizeable
22 micrograms of inertial or gravitational mass. That scale responds to quark energy, as energetic "gluons" exhibit asymptotic attraction power, holding the interiors of atoms together.
The mass of something like a proton has around 1.22 × 1028 eV of inertial energy.
And, protons are bound by the strong, gluon force, to neutrons. The electron is a basic particle, without gluon inner action. It is attracted to the atom by electric charge and angular momentum.Together, the nucleus and electron shell respond to stimuli, and can decay through radioactivity. Other than that, could they utilize gravity?
I mentioned a possible multi-verse, and how at small dimensions, gravity may actually become stronger. But, when G grows larger, the Planck mass drops, and less energy may be required to produce gravitational effects. But, to be so specific at that dimension, and measure its energies will require experiments and inferences from large particle accelerators. So far, any serious warping of space, and collapsing the horizon of protons to the Swartzschild radius has not happened. If it does, hot mini-black holes, even if they are of the order of a lesser planck mass unit, less than 22 micrograms by current theory, they will quickly evaporate. They won't have enough mass to avoid fast "Hawking radiation" dissipation.
It is impossible, by today's standards, to get 10^16 to 10^22 TeV focused in particle accelerators. That energy would overcome the planck mass. High energy cosmic ray particles slam into the earth's atmosphere, but do not implode matter. We know because of the cascade of secondary particles, called Cherenkof light showers, results when high energy cosmic rays, (some He ions carry up to to 800 TeV) slam into atmoshpheric nuclei. They also slam into the Moon, which has no atmosphere. No gravitational implosions there, apparently. But, they carry great force, from supernovae. Could any atomic force include gravity?
If particles had force lines, which produced a force field, which surrounded mass and massless entities, then everything could move along such fields. The current-sheet of the Sun conducts charged particles away, and while expansive, it does guide a great deal of material for a large distance. Perhaps matter and energy have some analog to that, all the way down to sub-atomic scale. How to reckon that with General Relativity and metric field topolgies?
Perhaps gravity induces a tension on space manifolds, at the quantum level, at or below the planck mass scale. Perhaps, some of the so-called gravity well effects and gravity lensing of light around galactic clusters (as seen in deep-field studies) could be explained by density changes in space, around massive bodies. For instance, lightcones from distant quasars whose positions are behind galaxies, nonetheless have been known to send their signals around the galaxies, and refract toward a straight line, once again. Light bends around a gravity well pathway- almost.
If the lightwaves experienced vector course corrections through dark matter halos, where space manifold tension and its resulting field lines led to acceleration in that direction, then the light would gain energy going into the field (blueshift/shorten) and conserve away an equal amout upon leaving. Thus, both dark matter force lines in a denser space, and some degree of metric lensing of space itself (GR) may occur. And yes, its only a passing idea!
Another matter is why would light blueshift going into a denser space/gravity well, and redshift upon exiting? Perhaps the field lines of "force X" react like typical re-connection events. Those are found on the surface of the sun, and in plasma generating experiments. The opening, and subsequent collapse of electromagnetic fields releases a lot of energy. It leads to solar flares and coronal mass ejections, for one.
What I am saying, is if EM energy, or any particles or mass encounters a larger mass, they will vector through the larger force field, producing a space force-field gap. The spreading of the field induces a polarity, which generates energy upon snapping back- adding thrust or acceleration, and blue shifting in the case of massless light waves. Leaving/climbing out of the density region produces opposite effects. For instance, a cosmic ray would begin ploughing out of the outer envelope, after traversing in, and close to the Earth.
Like a fish, going upstream and giving back the energy it gained on the "downleg". It all evens out, if escape velocity is maintained.
Exiting the vicinity, the passing body would be moving upwind, into and finally beyond the outer envelope of the larger mass object's field of influence. All energy would basically be conserved. Except that deep in intergalactic space, light is redshifted by dark energy, as the Universe is stretched outward.
magnetar: Are you saying that gravity is an energy field? or not really a field in itself, but a result of an interaction between energy fields which occur as natural EM fields around atoms?
The one thing I want to learn about right now in physics more than anything is force fields, how are they generated, what particles cause them (leptons only?) how do they interact and what causes them to be different? Could we create a force field that would attract metals and not non-metals? AKA tractor beam!? or could we create force-fields that can affect the properties of atoms, switching around protons and neutrons, AKA The Hutchienson effect?
The one thing I want to learn about right now in physics more than anything is force fields, how are they generated, what particles cause them (leptons only?) how do they interact and what causes them to be different? Could we create a force field that would attract metals and not non-metals? AKA tractor beam!? or could we create force-fields that can affect the properties of atoms, switching around protons and neutrons, AKA The Hutchienson effect?
QUOTE(I am @ Dec 18 2005, 11:22 AM) [snapback]981291[/snapback]
I was just wondering what gravity was, is it an energy field? Why does it bend space? How is it related to time?
If anyone here is 'enlightened' on the subject please share. Or, if you're ignorant like me, and you just want to share your opinion, go ahead and do that too.
Interesting question. We know that mass warps the geodesics of space-time. However, there is more to it than that. When a photon flies by a large mass it feels no force; it just follows the geodesics. Isn't gravity a force? Then we need at least two objects, each of them having mass. If they are not too large or too close or too far away, this force is proportional to the inverse square of the distance between them.
Here's a question for you. What is mass? And why does it bend the geodesics? And where does it come from? The top dogs in the field apparently think objects have no inherent mass, and only acquire it from the so-far unseen Higgs Boson. I don't believe in the Higgs Boson, or in any virtual particles, because virtual particles (which arise from applying Heisenberg's uncertainty rules to the vacuum) give an infinite energy to the vacuum. That would make the universe collapse or explode long before the very thought could crawl across my synapses. Most people just believe whatever physicists say. Well, I say, a thing which is logically impossible is also physically impossible. And all theories past 1905 (they are fine) incorporate logical impossibilities, such as the wave-particle paradox, singularities, and the reductio ad absurdem of the infinite vacuum energy. Me, I just stick to simple things, simple theories, and obvious data. For instance, I can easily prove that anti-matter has anti-gravity. This is an experiment which is impossible to do in the laboratory, but we see lots of evidence for it in astronomy. There is a fountain of positrons coming out of the north pole of the old quasar at the center of our galaxy. This is easily explained if anti-matter has anti-gravity. As objects pick up enormous kinetic energy falling into the thing, they will split off particle / anti-particle pairs. One is pulled further into the abyss, while the other is accelerated outta there like a rocket! That is why quasars today are so much smaller than they were 10 billion years ago. They evaporate. This is not the same as Hawking's pair creation on the event horizon.
Aren't you glad you asked?~~~Cebrakon
Magnetar, that was a great post. You have obviously thought about this a lot, and spent a lot of time studying the subject.
One little dinky point. I know the physicists assume the Big Bang, but in truth, all we know is that the observable universe was in a very dense and hot state 13.7 billion years ago. Hot and dense enough, briefly, to cause some nuclear reactions, and George Gamow calculated the relative proportions of H, He, He3, deuterium and an isotope of lithium. And this all checks out. What we should not assume is that we know anything that happened before that point. If a Big Bang is a singularity, that is a logical impossibility.~~~Cebrakon
QUOTE(ai_guardian @ Dec 18 2005, 09:14 PM) [snapback]981506[/snapback]
As Fluffybunny mentioned, gravity is not yet fully understood. Einstein's relativity tends to explain rather well how it works by curving space-time, gives refined (compared to Newtonian) formulae for accurately predicting gravitational effects on macro scales but fails when applied to the quantum world. The above '2D' type picture QuantumE posted is an approximate representation of the space-time curvature 'caused' by mass however one must realise that it is only an analogy (trampoline/rubber-sheet). To get a more accurate 'visualisation' you have to imagine this effect equally no matter how you slice through the earth. Don't know if I explained that well.
Quantum Mechanics is currently trying to explain gravity using sub-branches such as Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) - I'm afraid I can't help you much more with this as it is very complex. String Theory (soon to be a failure IMHO) tries to explain it by adding extra spacial dimensions to our already '3D' interpretation but there are no predictions and no observables that can be tested with current technology. AND many crackpots out there try to explain gravity with EXOTIC/convoluted theories that barely (if at all) classify as a scientific method. The Standard (Particle) Model hypothesises and predicts a 'graviton' particle that mediates gravitation but this hypothetical particle still hasn't been detected and IMO never will. This particle is a fallacy and I have recently shown that an eclipse should have some adverse effects on gravity (on earth) if gravity is in fact mediated by particles.
However, it is now understood that it is not mass per se that causes gravity but ENERGY itself. Since mass is concentrated energy one can see how this got all mixed up.
But don't despair, even though no one can give you a complete and conclusive answer on the subject does not mean that the answer isn't there. The answer is so elegant and so simple that it will leave you stunned and physicists will wish they could crawl under a rock. I am serious, there seems to be a 'universal' shift in thinking evident by the number of people that come to this and other forums asking similar questions that pertain to gravity. Even though they are similar questions the thinking is 'evolving'.
GUARDIAN
Damn................. how does your head not explode after absorbing all that?
QUOTE(Cebrakon @ Dec 28 2005, 08:20 AM) [snapback]994893[/snapback]
Interesting question. We know that mass warps the geodesics of space-time. However, there is more to it than that. When a photon flies by a large mass it feels no force; it just follows the geodesics. Isn't gravity a force? Then we need at least two objects, each of them having mass. If they are not too large or too close or too far away, this force is proportional to the inverse square of the distance between them.QUOTE(Cebrakon @ Dec 28 2005, 08:20 AM) [snapback]994893[/snapback]
Here's a question for you. What is mass? And why does it bend the geodesics? And where does it come from? The top dogs in the field apparently think objects have no inherent mass, and only acquire it from the so-far unseen Higgs Boson. I don't believe in the Higgs Boson, or in any virtual particles, because virtual particles (which arise from applying Heisenberg's uncertainty rules to the vacuum) give an infinite energy to the vacuum. That would make the universe collapse or explode long before the very thought could crawl across my synapses.QUOTE(Cebrakon @ Dec 28 2005, 08:20 AM) [snapback]994893[/snapback]
Most people just believe whatever physicists say. Well, I say, a thing which is logically impossible is also physically impossible. And all theories past 1905 (they are fine) incorporate logical impossibilities, such as the wave-particle paradox, singularities, and the reductio ad absurdem of the infinite vacuum energy.Cheers
[quote name='I am' date='Dec 18 2005, 11:22 AM' post='981291']
Why does it bend space?
it doesnt bend space necessarily, that is just a theory. it is one of the final frontiers of understanding physics and is being worked on non-stop be the top scientists around the world. the bending space theory does not make sense to me. as an analogy lets pretend a trampoline is the solar system and a bowling ball is the sun. when the bowling ball is placed in the middle of the tramp, any other spherical objects will rotate around it. my question is, what will happed if you go beneath the trampoline? how will the downward bend of space affect something below it? also, logically it doesnt make sense to bend "space" since "space" really isnt anything but a very thinly spread layer of minute particles. you cant bend that.
also i have an interesting thought that has annoyed me for quite some time. what would happen if you built a tunnel all the way to the center of the earth, and then continued it to the other side so that you had a 10 foot hole in diamter that extended completley through the earth. what would happen if you jumped into it ( we are disregarding the fact that you will be burned to death by the high temps.)? would you go all the way through? of course not because once you reached just one millimeter past the exact center of the earth, wouldnt gravity pull you down the other way? in the case how would you ever get out? and while im at it, would you be able to just float if you stayed in the exact middle of the earth?
crazy stuff
Why does it bend space?
it doesnt bend space necessarily, that is just a theory. it is one of the final frontiers of understanding physics and is being worked on non-stop be the top scientists around the world. the bending space theory does not make sense to me. as an analogy lets pretend a trampoline is the solar system and a bowling ball is the sun. when the bowling ball is placed in the middle of the tramp, any other spherical objects will rotate around it. my question is, what will happed if you go beneath the trampoline? how will the downward bend of space affect something below it? also, logically it doesnt make sense to bend "space" since "space" really isnt anything but a very thinly spread layer of minute particles. you cant bend that.
also i have an interesting thought that has annoyed me for quite some time. what would happen if you built a tunnel all the way to the center of the earth, and then continued it to the other side so that you had a 10 foot hole in diamter that extended completley through the earth. what would happen if you jumped into it ( we are disregarding the fact that you will be burned to death by the high temps.)? would you go all the way through? of course not because once you reached just one millimeter past the exact center of the earth, wouldnt gravity pull you down the other way? in the case how would you ever get out? and while im at it, would you be able to just float if you stayed in the exact middle of the earth?
crazy stuff
[quote name='Nito' date='Dec 19 2005, 10:12 AM' post='982546']
What is gravity then? This is the force of the objects crunching all the created matter together - a pushing force, rather than a pulling force. If you really think about it - how can something pull without something pushing it? Am I the only one thinking of this, this simple?
i hate to dismantle your theory
but saying that gravity is a force is much like telling someone that fire is hot if you were asked what fire is... gravity isnt even necissarily a force, but even if it is, calling it a "pushing force" does not do us any good sorry
What is gravity then? This is the force of the objects crunching all the created matter together - a pushing force, rather than a pulling force. If you really think about it - how can something pull without something pushing it? Am I the only one thinking of this, this simple?
i hate to dismantle your theory
but saying that gravity is a force is much like telling someone that fire is hot if you were asked what fire is... gravity isnt even necissarily a force, but even if it is, calling it a "pushing force" does not do us any good sorry
Scientists find gravity profoundly puzzling. It doesn't fit the otherwise consistent story of the nature of matter and its forces that physicists have uncovered, dubbed the "standard model." Without a clear understanding of how gravity fits into this picture - or, more likely, revises it - physicists say it would be extraordinarily difficult to explain the workings of the universe at its most fundamental level.
So far, gravity has thwarted physicists' hopes to show that nature's four basic forces are manifestations of one force that dominated the early universe.
The puzzles have grown sufficiently troubling - and the technology to measure gravity's effects has become so sensitive - that researchers are now spending hundreds of millions of dollars on experiments to probe this weakest of nature's basic forces. Gravity research is hot - encompassing everything from NASA's recently launched Gravity Probe B satellite and tabletop experiments in labs worldwide to gravity-wave detectors and a new generation of particle accelerators.
"It's an exciting time," says Eric Adelberger, a physicist at the University of Washington, noting the ferment among theorists to come up with fresh explanations for gravity.
To be sure, most people are clear enough on the concept of gravity to avoid walking under a piano as it's hoisted to an upstairs apartment. Aerospace engineers have a sufficient grasp of gravity to safely land robotic rovers on Mars or to use gravity as a fuel- saving "slingshot" to reach planets.
But each time scientists have taken a deeper look at gravity, they've uncovered new facets. Initially, these facets can appear to be merely subtle curiosities, but they can have profound technological implications. The Global Positioning Satellite system, for instance, would lose its widely touted accuracy by more than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) a day if the system failed to adjust for effects Albert Einstein predicted in his theories of special and general relativity, says Clifford Will, physicist at Washington University in St. Louis.
General relativity showed that gravity was not really a force that two objects exert on each other, as Sir Isaac Newton described it. Instead gravity resulted from the presence of a mass, such as a planet, warping space and time around it, much as a bowling ball distorts the surface of a trampoline. Already in orbit around Earth, Gravity Probe B is preparing to measure this and related effects.
Among other things, this new view of mass distorting time as well as space implied that the farther you move a clock from Earth, the faster it will tick compared with an identical clock on the surface. Experiments later showed this to be true.
Yet for all the progress in understanding it, "gravity is the least well-known of the fundamental forces in physics," says Thomas Murphy, a physicist at the University of California in San Diego. These forces also include electromagnetism; the strong force, which binds particles in an atom's nucleus; and the weak force, which governs radioactive decay.
Among the conundrums: On small scales, why is gravity so weak compared with the other forces? Gravity will draw a needle to a table, yet even a small electromagnet will yank the pin back up and hold it against gravity's pull.
On large scales, the universe threw humanity's understanding of gravity for a loop when astronomers discovered that the universe's expansion rate was accelerating, not decelerating, as theories had suggested it should be doing. It's as though gravity suddenly became much weaker once the universe grew to a certain size.
Each of the other forces and the subatomic particles associated with them are described by quantum physics, yet gravity seems to have defied a similar description.
Many researchers hold that finding a quantum description of gravity is the only hope physicists have to show that these four basic forces are low-energy manifestations of one unified force that is thought to have prevailed at the earliest moments of the universe's birth.
Physicists have shown that electromagnetism and the weak force were a single force at one time. They say there is every reason to expect that evidence will show that this "electroweak" force and the strong force were once a single force. That evidence is expected to come from a new generation of particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider under construction at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) outside Geneva.
But gravity seems to operate by different rules. It's as though gravity "has seemingly nothing to do with everything else we know about physics," Dr. Murphy says. "There's this fundamental clash between quantum mechanics and gravity, and any naive attempts to unite the two end in a theoretical catastrophe."
Even some of general relativity's predicted effects, such as the existence of cosmic "gravity waves," have yet to be directly detected. These waves are held to ripple across space and time when two extremely massive objects, such as black holes, orbit one another. In principle, gravity waves might also open a window on the earliest moments of the universe, allowing astronomers to see further back in time than they can using radio waves, light, or any other form of electromagnetic radiation.
For many physicists, unifying gravity with the other forces of nature will require string theory. This idea posits that elementary particles are not pointlike, as they are widely held to be. Instead, they exist as one-dimensional strings. Add a dash of quantum mechanics, and interesting things begin to happen. Among them, researchers say: A hypothesized particle associated with gravity - the graviton - takes on the right properties without the shortcomings that gravitons in other quantum-based gravity theories encounter.
But for string theory to work, the universe needs 10 or 11 dimensions instead of the four that humans perceive. Where are the extra dimensions? Perhaps they are so compact they can't be seen.
As a whole, the idea is still a bit too vague to test it fully, says Steven Carlip, a physicist at the University of California at Davis. "Nobody understands string theory well enough to derive observational consequences," he says. But, he adds, the theory has inspired a range of simpler spin-off ideas that could be tested.
For example, Harvard University physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed and colleagues have argued that gravity's apparent weakness may be an illusion - that gravity is as strong as the other three forces, but it is the only force that easily moves from one dimension to the next. Thus, we see weak gravity only because it can "leak" into these other dimensions. This has led to experiments to see if at increasingly small distances - corresponding to the hypothesized size of the extra dimensions - gravity's properties change. Theories suggest these dimensions range in size from 10 microns (one-seventh the thickness of a human hair) to about 1 millimeter.
Dr. Adelberger and his colleagues have been checking to see if there's any change in the rate at which gravity weakens with distance at ever-smaller separations. So far, the Adelberger team has conducted experiments with a tiny, precisely machined pendulum that indicates nothing much changes, at least down to 150 microns. The next step is to push the experiment to smaller distances.
Murphy, on the other hand, is working on an experiment to bounce lasers off reflectors left on the moon by Apollo astronauts, to check for subtle changes in a basic physical "constant" known as the gravitational constant. String theory suggests that this and other figures humans have identified as "fixed" actually change over time scales approaching or exceeding the age of the observable universe.
Other evidence for gravity "leaks" may come from particle-physics experiments. Perversely, gravity is so weak that it would take a particle accelerator vastly more powerful than scientists could devise to reveal the graviton. But if gravity truly is a stronger force than it's perceived, the graviton might appear in a new generation of particle-physics experiments.
So far, gravity has thwarted physicists' hopes to show that nature's four basic forces are manifestations of one force that dominated the early universe.
The puzzles have grown sufficiently troubling - and the technology to measure gravity's effects has become so sensitive - that researchers are now spending hundreds of millions of dollars on experiments to probe this weakest of nature's basic forces. Gravity research is hot - encompassing everything from NASA's recently launched Gravity Probe B satellite and tabletop experiments in labs worldwide to gravity-wave detectors and a new generation of particle accelerators.
"It's an exciting time," says Eric Adelberger, a physicist at the University of Washington, noting the ferment among theorists to come up with fresh explanations for gravity.
To be sure, most people are clear enough on the concept of gravity to avoid walking under a piano as it's hoisted to an upstairs apartment. Aerospace engineers have a sufficient grasp of gravity to safely land robotic rovers on Mars or to use gravity as a fuel- saving "slingshot" to reach planets.
But each time scientists have taken a deeper look at gravity, they've uncovered new facets. Initially, these facets can appear to be merely subtle curiosities, but they can have profound technological implications. The Global Positioning Satellite system, for instance, would lose its widely touted accuracy by more than 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) a day if the system failed to adjust for effects Albert Einstein predicted in his theories of special and general relativity, says Clifford Will, physicist at Washington University in St. Louis.
General relativity showed that gravity was not really a force that two objects exert on each other, as Sir Isaac Newton described it. Instead gravity resulted from the presence of a mass, such as a planet, warping space and time around it, much as a bowling ball distorts the surface of a trampoline. Already in orbit around Earth, Gravity Probe B is preparing to measure this and related effects.
Among other things, this new view of mass distorting time as well as space implied that the farther you move a clock from Earth, the faster it will tick compared with an identical clock on the surface. Experiments later showed this to be true.
Yet for all the progress in understanding it, "gravity is the least well-known of the fundamental forces in physics," says Thomas Murphy, a physicist at the University of California in San Diego. These forces also include electromagnetism; the strong force, which binds particles in an atom's nucleus; and the weak force, which governs radioactive decay.
Among the conundrums: On small scales, why is gravity so weak compared with the other forces? Gravity will draw a needle to a table, yet even a small electromagnet will yank the pin back up and hold it against gravity's pull.
On large scales, the universe threw humanity's understanding of gravity for a loop when astronomers discovered that the universe's expansion rate was accelerating, not decelerating, as theories had suggested it should be doing. It's as though gravity suddenly became much weaker once the universe grew to a certain size.
Each of the other forces and the subatomic particles associated with them are described by quantum physics, yet gravity seems to have defied a similar description.
Many researchers hold that finding a quantum description of gravity is the only hope physicists have to show that these four basic forces are low-energy manifestations of one unified force that is thought to have prevailed at the earliest moments of the universe's birth.
Physicists have shown that electromagnetism and the weak force were a single force at one time. They say there is every reason to expect that evidence will show that this "electroweak" force and the strong force were once a single force. That evidence is expected to come from a new generation of particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider under construction at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) outside Geneva.
But gravity seems to operate by different rules. It's as though gravity "has seemingly nothing to do with everything else we know about physics," Dr. Murphy says. "There's this fundamental clash between quantum mechanics and gravity, and any naive attempts to unite the two end in a theoretical catastrophe."
Even some of general relativity's predicted effects, such as the existence of cosmic "gravity waves," have yet to be directly detected. These waves are held to ripple across space and time when two extremely massive objects, such as black holes, orbit one another. In principle, gravity waves might also open a window on the earliest moments of the universe, allowing astronomers to see further back in time than they can using radio waves, light, or any other form of electromagnetic radiation.
For many physicists, unifying gravity with the other forces of nature will require string theory. This idea posits that elementary particles are not pointlike, as they are widely held to be. Instead, they exist as one-dimensional strings. Add a dash of quantum mechanics, and interesting things begin to happen. Among them, researchers say: A hypothesized particle associated with gravity - the graviton - takes on the right properties without the shortcomings that gravitons in other quantum-based gravity theories encounter.
But for string theory to work, the universe needs 10 or 11 dimensions instead of the four that humans perceive. Where are the extra dimensions? Perhaps they are so compact they can't be seen.
As a whole, the idea is still a bit too vague to test it fully, says Steven Carlip, a physicist at the University of California at Davis. "Nobody understands string theory well enough to derive observational consequences," he says. But, he adds, the theory has inspired a range of simpler spin-off ideas that could be tested.
For example, Harvard University physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed and colleagues have argued that gravity's apparent weakness may be an illusion - that gravity is as strong as the other three forces, but it is the only force that easily moves from one dimension to the next. Thus, we see weak gravity only because it can "leak" into these other dimensions. This has led to experiments to see if at increasingly small distances - corresponding to the hypothesized size of the extra dimensions - gravity's properties change. Theories suggest these dimensions range in size from 10 microns (one-seventh the thickness of a human hair) to about 1 millimeter.
Dr. Adelberger and his colleagues have been checking to see if there's any change in the rate at which gravity weakens with distance at ever-smaller separations. So far, the Adelberger team has conducted experiments with a tiny, precisely machined pendulum that indicates nothing much changes, at least down to 150 microns. The next step is to push the experiment to smaller distances.
Murphy, on the other hand, is working on an experiment to bounce lasers off reflectors left on the moon by Apollo astronauts, to check for subtle changes in a basic physical "constant" known as the gravitational constant. String theory suggests that this and other figures humans have identified as "fixed" actually change over time scales approaching or exceeding the age of the observable universe.
Other evidence for gravity "leaks" may come from particle-physics experiments. Perversely, gravity is so weak that it would take a particle accelerator vastly more powerful than scientists could devise to reveal the graviton. But if gravity truly is a stronger force than it's perceived, the graviton might appear in a new generation of particle-physics experiments.
QUOTE
This is exactly what I am talking about. In addition, this push theory can actually be a unification theory. Imagine the steel balls banging at its other. When two collide and cancel each other motions, mass is created but the energy (matter in motion will always be in motion) is just stored and can be realeased like fire, a nuclear explosion, etc.
My theory is similar. In my theory, its not steel balls banging at each other. Its little, green, omnipresent knomes. When two knomes bang into each other, they get angry. When they're angry, they have an urge to grab the nearest object and pull it in a certain direction towards candy canes. When they let go of the object in order to grab the candy cane, they create nuclear explosions.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.