Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: CsManiacDan on 22/04/2004 20:27:12
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Okay now I've got a question that's been bugging me a real long time.
What exactly is gravity?
i mean I know its a force and things that have a mass exert this force (however small) on other objects. but what is is about an objects mass which means other objects are attracted to it.
Be grateful for any contributions folks.
I Love Caesium!!!
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Having had a think about my previous post I've come up with a possible answer!
In Eisteinian Physics, don't objects create a dent in spacetime (or something like that) Which is why things like orbits occur?
Could it be that nearby objects get pulled into this dent, giving the illusion that they are in fact drawn towards the object. This would explain why a bigger object which therefore creates a bigger dent in spacetime exerts a greater gravitational force than smaller objects?
just a thought...
I Love Caesium!!!
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Nasa have prepared a mission to test this theory:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3596499.stmp
We should know the answer in 16 months time!
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This is all true, but it still begs the question. We can't talk sense about gravity without also talking about mass and space, since these are the things we refer to when we say that gravity attacts masses to each other across a space. What is space, and does it exist independent of mass. Can there be mass without space, and can there be space without mass. GR tells us they depend on each other. Mass and space coexist, so mass bends space towards it, and space bends mass away. In our universe, these two cancel, and we are left with flat space, mass and space in balance. When we are near another mass, space is bent towards it, and our normal straight line motion becomes bent. This is gravity, the attraction mass has for space. We are also massive, and bend space around us too. (Sounds like a Dune Navigator, eh. Snort a little worm scat and we're ready to go...).
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Relativity theory ties mass, space and time together. Quantum theory doesn't even inlcude gravity. So, while relativity can describe the effect of gravity, there is no theory of where it comes from or what causes it.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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Well, yes, that's the ...ton methodology of quantum mechanics. There has to be a boson force mediator. Quantum mechanics is actually Newtonian, with a frame of reference required around the whole universe. Relativity requires no such framework.
Does either theory tell us "where it comes from"? I don't think so. At least neither theory tells me where it all comes from. I read in "The Inflationary Universe", by Alan Guth, That the universe was created "ex nilo" (from nothing) by its gravitational binding energy. So the force that expanded the universe (Guth's false vacuum energy) created "mc2" matter from E gravitational binding energy when the phase change occurred from the inflationary universe to the deflationary universe. Okaayyy... That leads us to a flat universe pretty quickly, and is a neat explanation. But that still leaves me wondering where all that came from, especially all the false vacuum energy, and on back to the beginning, before 10-35 seconds.
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I certainly don't know. I agree that neither relativity or QM gives a clue as to what is really happening, just a prediction of the outcome.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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Relativity ties space and time together (space-time) Mass distorts space time (gravity). You can have empty space.... you cannot have mass without space. Mass does not equal space.
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These are just my idle thoughts so please shoot them down at will. [:)] I've thought for a while now that gravity pulls in the direction of the 4th dimension. A simple example being a round planet. The 4th dimension should be perpendicular to our 3 dimensions and if we take a planets surface to be "smooth" then gravity pulls perpendicular to all surfaces. I wonder if gravity is like a magnet under paper moving iron filings around. Mass bends space-time in the direction of the 4th dimension, we try and fall in and like the iron filings we feel the force but cannot move that direction.
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You know when you think about it, you can't say that anyone knows that something will happen every time, for example that a ball will fall to the ground when let go. We have experienced the products of natural laws but we have not experienced the natural laws themselves. You cannot say with certainty that a ball won't simply decide to stay in the air the next time you try to drop it.
Am I dead? Am I alive? I'm both!
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stupid-boy.com%2Fsmilies%2Fkao%2Fotn%2Fcat.gif&hash=e4b91a72c020cc1c5d28487fff5428f1)
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan B
Relativity ties space and time together (space-time) Mass distorts space time (gravity). You can have empty space.... you cannot have mass without space. Mass does not equal space.
Isaac Newton thought space existed independently of mass. If that were true, then there would be an absolute space metric, a fundamental rest position in the universe. Physicists spent years looking for it, without success. Einstein showed us Newton's errors, and proved that mass and space, as well as time are inter-related. Space cannot exist independently of mass, because it makes no sense to talk about empty space. You can make a mathematical abstraction of empty space, but nature doesn't work that way. The universe has always existed as mass filling space. It still does. The very shape of space is determined by the mass it contains. With no mass in it, space becomes an infinitely curved singularity. Our universe contains comfortable, flat space, because it contains just the exact right amount of mass to make it that way. An incredible coinicidence? Not likely, since we are talking about being perfectly in balance to the tune of at least one part in 10 to the 15th power. The universe contains flat space because its gravitational binding energy exactly equals its mass.
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Are you dancing around trying to find the phrase "vacuum energy"?
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Not at all. I don't dance. Vacuum energy is a quantum mechanical concept, and I'm talking general relativity. The twain have not met, yet, in our lexicon. In general relativity, the vacuum energy is zero.
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quote:
Originally posted by Smeggit
These are just my idle thoughts so please shoot them down at will. [:)] I've thought for a while now that gravity pulls in the direction of the 4th dimension. A simple example being a round planet. The 4th dimension should be perpendicular to our 3 dimensions and if we take a planets surface to be "smooth" then gravity pulls perpendicular to all surfaces. I wonder if gravity is like a magnet under paper moving iron filings around. Mass bends space-time in the direction of the 4th dimension, we try and fall in and like the iron filings we feel the force but cannot move that direction.
Smeggit, you have an interesting theory here. If you want to find out just how close to the mark you are, read some on string theory (or M-theory). This system invokes higher dimensions (11 of them) and postulates vibrating strings in these higher dimensions that produce the visible subatomic particles, including the gravitron.
I can recommend the book "The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene as a good non-mathematical introduction to string theory. It also goes over quantum mechanics and relativity to lay the groundwork and treats them very well indeed. There are other books that I have not read. Yet.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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gs: There are some very confusing remarks in your post... What is your scientific background?
"The universe has always existed as mass filling space. It still does. The very shape of space is determined by the mass it contains. With no mass in it, space becomes an infinitely curved singularity. Our universe contains comfortable, flat space, because it contains just the exact right amount of mass to make it that way. "
This doesn't make sense: only a tiny fraction of the universe is matter. The standard model we are using (even more after WMAP) is omega_m~0.3, omega_lambda~0.7
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It shouldn't be confusing, especially if you've been studying WMAP results. They show that space is flat. General relativity tells us that space will have curvature depending upon the mass in it. Where you are, space is curved around the earth; when you throw a ball it curves down to the earth's surface because the mass of the earth has curved space towards it. Look up "gravity probe B" for more information on how the earth curves space in its vicinity.
Cosmologically, the net curvature of the universe is determined by the mass it contains. A universe with more than critical mass (omega >1) has a spherical shape, and straight lines go in circles. With omega < 1, straight lines go in hyperbolas, and at omega = 1, straight lines remain straight.
The makeup of the mass is a real problem for cosmology. There is baryonic mass and electromagnetic energy we all are used to seeing. Then there are the (rest)massless particles, like neutrinos. When physicists add the numbers, they are missing 95% of the universe. There seems to be dark mass, so called because it does not respond to electromagnetic energy, that can be detected by its effect on rotating galaxies and galactic clusters. They are all heavier than they look. That gets us up to about 30% of the total. The remaining is a real mystery, and is the omega-sub-lambda you referred to. Its been dubbed "dark energy", but too little is known about it to give it a good name yet.
Don't think that a 70% error in the present understanding of the mass of the universe is an especially big number. In the beginning, mass and space had to be in balance of 1 part in 10E15 for us to even be here. Small errors then, would have been amplified by time, and now we would either be flung apart, or crunched together long ago. There is a distinct probability that there may be a deficit in mass that results in an open, hyperbolic universe, and space will curve away from us in time to come. But that's not my point.
My point is that space does not now, nor has it ever existed independently of the mass it contains. That was an old Newtonian idea, and even Newton's contemporaries were uncomfortable with it. We now know that mass, space, and time came into existence together, and have coexisted since then, all interacting. Einstein's special theory of relativity combined space and time, then the general theory added mass, and gravity.
You can find some good books on this, if you look. I can recommend "Relativity" by Albert Einstein, as his non-technical publication. For the more mathematically inclined, there is "The Meaning of Relativity", by A. E. There are other good books, too, that explain some of the solutions obtained from Einstein's field equations. A few of them are even good reading.
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One problem with this forum is that you never seem to know the level of the person you are talking to [:D]
I got confused coz you were being a bit too layman to be entirely accurate [:p] I thought maybe you were confusing omega_t with curvature k...
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gsmollin, you still didn't answer the question "What is your scientific background?" I'm just curious and I can tell it is quite strong.
And how about you DanB? What is your background?
You guys are getting in quite deep in this thread and others.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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I have a 1st class honors degree in astrophysics and am currently writing my PhD thesis on
(basically) the cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies....
hurrah for me [:D]
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Hurrah for you indeed! That's great and sounds like great fun! (A lot of work too!)
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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yeah, I'm supposed to submit the stupid thing in october too [:(!] Its all getting a bit boring. One annoying thing is realising you can compress the explaination of 6 months work into one paragraph [:D]
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But there's too much compression to make it worthwhile at the one paragraph level. I say it sounds like fun, but I remember how much work graduate school was (not even PhD level) and how much I really wanted out. Hang in there - it'll be worth it in the end.
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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[:D]
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan B
I have a 1st class honors degree in astrophysics and am currently writing my PhD thesis on
(basically) the cosmological evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies....
hurrah for me [:D]
Okay... and I have a PhD from MIT in cosmology. Alan Guth was my advisor. I am currently teaching at the University of Hawaii.
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Cool...
I don't suppose you are on the CFHT TAC by any chance [:D]
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quote:
Originally posted by gsmollin
Okay... and I have a PhD from MIT in cosmology. Alan Guth was my advisor. I am currently teaching at the University of Hawaii.
Wow! We're getting some real heavyweights in this forum. It's nice to be acquainted with you guys!
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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Isnt gravity like putting a lead ball on a tightly sheeted bed, and the weight at which it pushed down distorts the bed sheet around it. A larger weight would distort the sheet even more, dropping a marbel into this area would be like the moon in orbit. This is where it get slightly out of my league, theres only so much I can learn by 10th grade [8D]
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That's a good analogy OmnipotentOne, but as with most analogies, it can only be carried so far. The sheet is like a two dimensional representation of space-time and the lead ball on the sheet causes it to distort. So far so good, but this setup requires that the lead ball be in a gravity field to make the distortion happen. In relativity, the distortion is caused by the mass of the ball and occurs to the 3 dimensional space-time. The moon tries to roll "down" into the gravity well, but it's movement is always trying to send it flying out and to stay in orbit, they just cancel out.
Some of these other guys can explain it better than I can.
Keep asking questions - that's the best way to learn!
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John - The Eternal Pessimist.
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Can there be mass without taking any space? What about space without taking any mass?
I have read something about massless particles here, what are those like?
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quote:
Originally posted by tweener
Wow! We're getting some real heavyweights in this forum. It's nice to be acquainted with you guys!
But are these heavyweights distorting forum space around themselves? On the other hand, can forum space be said to exist without posts?
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The purpose of humor is to prevent someone from getting too heavy and disappearing into their own private singularity.
David
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Who gave you guys permission to resurrect a thread from 18 months ago? Geez, this topic has been bludgeoned to death. Hey Vince, read my post of 04 May, 2004 to get your answer.
"F = ma, E = mc^2, and you can't push a string."
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if we consider Gravity in a seperated statement with the three another forces ,i think it is not an effect way. It maybe the main reason to explain why we only unify 3 forces in the SM.
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quote:
That's a good analogy OmnipotentOne, but as with most analogies, it can only be carried so far. The sheet is like a two dimensional representation of space-time and the lead ball on the sheet causes it to distort. So far so good, but this setup requires that the lead ball be in a gravity field to make the distortion happen. In relativity, the distortion is caused by the mass of the ball and occurs to the 3 dimensional space-time. The moon tries to roll "down" into the gravity well, but it's movement is always trying to send it flying out and to stay in orbit, they just cancel out.
One detail that might be extremely useful in trying to understand the way gravity works, is to note closely in exactly what way mass distorts space and time. It distorts the measurement of space in the direction of the objects (making rulers shorter that way, but I am not sure in what frame), but more significantly, it changes the way clocks run. General Relativity says that a clock located at a lower elevation runs slower than one at a higher elevation. This is the key to understanding gravitational dynamics. On light, for example, it implies that a ray of light traveling horizontally but below the observer, moves slower than one at his elevation; and that a ray above him travelling horizontally moves faster. (This seems to say that the speed of light is not constant, and that some light can actually travel faster than light. Correct in both cases: I believe that the statement "the speed of light is invariant" applies only to the light in the immediate vicinity of an observer, or to all light seen within an inertial frame, but not necessarily otherwise.) If light below travels slow and light above travels fast, then we have the exact same condition as exists in a piece of glass of non-uniform index of refraction, and the result is that the ray will be bent. Thus, the gravitational deflection of light, which was observed near the sun during an eclipse. Likewise, the non-uniformity of time affects the dynamics of objects. At the quantum level, objects are associated with quantum waves, The relation lambda = h/p shows us that momentum builds when wavelength shortens. Now if we put a standing wave in an environment in which time passes differently in different places, portions of that wave will get out of step with other portions. Taking for example the hydrogen atom in the ground state, all portions of its electron wave are in the same phase at the same time, assuming space and time to be uniform and "flat". If, however, there is a time gradient across the atom, the wave on one side will get ahead of the wave on the other, and as time passes, the amount by which the one side is ahead of the other will increase. The result will be that the wave function will build up striations of nonuniform phase, and that the number of these striations will increase as time passes. In other words, the wave develops an imposed crest-trough structure of ever increasing number of waves within the atom, that is to say, ever decreasing wavelength. But from the wavelength-momentum relationsip just quoted, such a wave is intrinsically propagational, and the shorter the wavelength, the faster it propagates. In other words, as long as the atom remains in the time warp, it undergoes continual acceleration . This is the way gravity works on matter at the quantum level.
Einstein also said that gravity is equivalent to accedleration; i.e., that the effects of gravity are exactly those of an accelerating reference frame. Can we reconcile that statement with the quantum description just given? Yes, if we use the right relativistic transformations to describe observing the same event by an observer freely falling along with the atom being observed, the conclusion is that in his reference frame, time is not distorted but is uniform (at least within his near vicinity), and to him there appears to be no acceleration of the atom.
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Electrons are bound to nucleons in an atom with the electro-weak force, not gravity. However, the analogy is apt, since electro-weak and gravity are both inverse-square laws. A. E. himself used analogies between electromagnetics and gravitation in general relaitivity.
The variance of the speed of light with gravitation is well established, and at cosmic distances, it also allows faster-than light travel. However, these super-luminal velocities are observed at great distances, never in a local reference frame, where special relativity tells us c in vacuo is invariant. The super-luminal recessional velocities observed in distant galaxies are part of gravitational velocity shifts, but occur in a subtle manner, unlike the gravitational redshift that can be measured in an elevator shaft. We are observing them through space curved by gravity. They are not Doppler shifts. They are expanding space.
"F = ma, E = mc^2, and you can't push a string."