1
Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: So.. what precisely is Gravity?? Does anyone know?
« on: 08/01/2013 08:04:48 »
Hmmm it would appear that, in fact, no one does really 'how' gravity works. As Phracticality says... we use the term 'field' which is nothing but a mathematical description and yet evan_au talks about fields 'vibrating' which seems to imply a real thing.
It seems 'gravity' and 'field' and 'graviton' etc are terms like 'dark energy' - place holder words almost - which don't have any 'real' meaning at all. I guess the predictive power of a theory is virtually (or perhaps really ;-)) paramount. I guess this is true in much of physics where terms ( in relation to particles) are used such as colour / spin / up / down etc which don't actually mean what you might assume from the normal meaning of the words. Again they are placeholder words for some property that I guess has no analogy to anything we can relate to in a real / meaningful way.
It seems 'gravity' and 'field' and 'graviton' etc are terms like 'dark energy' - place holder words almost - which don't have any 'real' meaning at all. I guess the predictive power of a theory is virtually (or perhaps really ;-)) paramount. I guess this is true in much of physics where terms ( in relation to particles) are used such as colour / spin / up / down etc which don't actually mean what you might assume from the normal meaning of the words. Again they are placeholder words for some property that I guess has no analogy to anything we can relate to in a real / meaningful way.