Intoscience

I certainly wouldn't want the job at the moment, that's for sure. Maybe others shied away, who could blame them, this however doesn't mean Boris is an idiot. He could just be a brave person who is happy to face adversity even at his own demise.

How do you know all this about him? Do you know him or any of his peers, family or friends personally? I doubt you become the leader of a political party, then on to be prime minister, without some intellectual attributes. He may not portray himself in a way that is fitting for his position, maybe for a number of reasons. But you cannot judge his integrity and intelligence based on his public appearance or media portrayal. Just saying that's all.

As Swansont states, A point is not a Planck length. A Planck length is the smallest possible measurable distance of space, a point has no physical dimension.

Relativity deals with this. Your relative position, speed and distance determines what information you receive and when. If the separate observers are viewing from different reference frames then they may experience different situations to each other, or the same situation at different times etc... There are no fixed times or points in space for any observer, only what they experience relative to something else. For example; I'm sitting on a moving train reading my book, I'm fixed in position relative to the train and my clock reads a certain time. As we pass a platform a person observes me sitting on the train whizzing by. Relative to that person I'm moving and also our clocks will tick at a slightly different rates (in reality almost negligible since the train will be travelling too slow for our clocks to measure the difference, however lets assume for this analogy the train is travelling fast enough for the clocks to measure the difference) so the observer will experience time slightly differently relatively to me.

Many people, maybe the majority are inherently selfish. The natural instinct for survival evolves into greed and/or gluttony, for some more so than others. Couple this with a "free" society and there you go. The rich oppressing the poor is nothing new though, probably dates all the way back to very ancient times. Probably got worse when monetary systems were introduced over goods trading. All of a sudden it became easier to gain wealth unfairly, illegally... The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, not much has changed really. The question is, how can it be changed?

It gets worse, we pronounce many words dependent on the region, often have unrecognizable slang unique to each region. In some areas you can travel just a few miles either way into different towns to find the dialect very different. Some areas drop the pronunciation of letters from some words and others even drop words from sentences. Then there is the Northern English, the Midlands and the South where there can be many differences with lots of words, sentences and sometimes meaning. All this within an area of around 50,000 sq miles. In the region I live there is a unique slang that is used which is almost its own language. It is however slowly being filtered out as the older generation pass, the younger generation are not using it as profoundly or as often. I remember working with a local elderly fella who was born and lived his entire life in the city centre. He used the traditional regional slang to its full entirety for every conversation, anyone outside the region would not be able to understand a word he was saying, even me myself as a local would have to listen closely and try to discern some of the words he used. I did do some research on the origination of the slang and it turned out that it was a derivative of a language style used by Anglo Saxons.

Unless it hits something and sinks.

I'm sure most political systems are full of corruption. I'm sure there are many politicians in the back pocket of many wealthy people. It's not just the individuals, but also the corporations, companies that boast massive profits where the profits are only filtered down to a select few. There is definitely a moral issue when a company boasting a profit then decides to cut costs by making people redundant. Unfortunately they can afford to pay the top legal people to find loop holes, avoid tax and hide investments. I know of one billionaire, I don't know him personally, but my father does. He started out as a dodgy salesman, dealing in anything, mainly illegal stuff. He approached my father years back to invest in a business deal that was very illegal and corrupt, my father declined. The guy ( I won't mention his name because he is well known) found other people to invest and went on to make his fortune, at the cost of many people's livelihood. He made enough money to be able to hide his corruption and provide himself with indemnity, buy political friendship and security for his business and fortune. I don't think there is a clear answer to how a system can policy against such. iNow stated very nicely in his post and I totally agree with him. Efforts should be focused on how the fortune of the wealthy can be filtered down to the less fortunate in a true and meaningful way. Now, I've written this post I'm just off on my private jet, with my $250,000 bottle of fizz, to view a couple of yachts and villas...

@inbreeding You are now just spouting off and preaching. To suggest you would rather be in Afghanistan than in the west (I assume from this comment that you live in an affluent western country) is an insult to the people who are currently fighting for real freedom and independence, with many innocent people dying in the process. If my assumptions are correct then this is a childish shameful comment to make.

Depending on the size that the sun gets to and the new orbit of the earth? Is the Earth situated in such a position that it could go either way, or is it more likely to get engulfed like Mercury and Venus?

It's not a simple as space warping. There is another thread currently discussing this https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/125700-is-gravity-a-force/page/9/?tab=comments#elControls_1186227_menu

Yes it is a poor analogy as you stated Studiot I think the idea behind this analogy was to try and get people who have no scientific knowledge or education to attempt to conceptualise how gravity works in the GR model. Once you start realising, or rather delving into deeper understanding of GR gravity, it soon becomes apparent that this image analogy is misleading. I guess, since it is a difficult one to imagine, each individual will have their own concept of how to visualise it, some more accurate than others. I try to steer clear of this analogy, using or thinking about it, as it does impose on my conception, even though I know it's inaccurate.

You sound extremely low based on your post. Please seek some support or counselling, it really does help. I can see your frustration, but I think you are being over paranoid. Most of your claims, (though in some minority sectors maybe true) in general are heavily exaggerated at best, and mostly unfounded in reality. Life can be and is unfair at times and so can people also be cruel, at times. But life is a wonderful gift and one that, as a whole, should be cherished. Unfortunately as with all things some people are more fortunate than others, but people find happiness in the simplest of things not the wealth and prosperity they desire. One thing that always reminds me of joy and sadness, is when my son was seriously ill and I attended a children's hospital. Walking down the corridor between wards I passed by a little girl, no older than 12 being pushed in a wheel chair. Her head was bald and she was painfully thin. But her smile lit up the corridor like a little angel from above. I found out later from her parents that she was indeed terminal and that all that was being done to prolong her life was ongoing. It struck me at that moment, she was smiling with joy, yet faced the most horrible of fate. Please find help my friend.

Interesting, thanks for the insight.

This is interesting, how is it so that it is almost exclusively time dilation? My understanding is that objects follow a curved path in space.

I don't take it too personal, some do. I've not used the down vote yet, because I would rather reply with my disagreement, since just voting doesn't really clearly define your feelings. I would only use the down vote if someone posted something vile, or very offensive etc... It seems each forum I attend, people tend to have differences on the interpretation of each option. It can create a stigma. There is one forum that I'm a member of where there are multiple options to express your feelings by vote buttons: like, dislike, agree, winner, funny, optimistic... This seems to work pretty well since people can get an idea of what your feelings are if you have nothing to add, i.e. whether you agree with what is said or whether you just like the post...etc. I find the system on here a little ambiguous, because you are relying on the poster's interpretation of the vote much more so. So for me personally I would prefer more options with clearer intent, so avoiding creating stigmas.

Yes, I always enjoy threads that teach me lots of new things, so thanks folks for your much appreciated inputs! Regarding time, I mentioned earlier in the thread about maybe focussing more on what space-time is, rather than what gravity is, which may yield the answers we are looking for. I think, for me at least, if space time can be curved, warped... then it must "be" something physical in a sense. Or perhaps rather, space itself is physical, since time can be deemed a coordinate much like the 3 dimensions of space. So in my mind it's space that is warped not time, per say. So, the coordinates of time like the other dimensions change due to the warping of space. So, its the physical interaction between mass and space that causes the warping thus producing the gravity. I'm sure I'm way off with this line of thinking, but maybe I can learn from it.

So far this has been a very interesting, informative and often over my head discussion! Some great posts from the resident experts and our honoured guest! Being a Layman (or at best a novice) I have limited understanding of the subjects I enjoy, space-time, gravity and the speed of light. Reading through the posts, the discussion has often diverted off track from the original post. One of the diverts was the semantics of terms and phrases. One which I commented on way back in the discussion as a sort of dismissal. Since then I have come to realise that in fact the importance of the usage, meaning and context of some terms and phrases used have a profound effect on my preconceived understanding. In pondering the original post - "Is gravity a force?" and the phrase so often used - "the force of gravity" I started to consider the meanings behind both. The force of gravity: The interaction between 2 or more objects resulting in a mutual attraction - Newtonian The curvature of space-time - GR (Einstein - preferred model) These 2 descriptions appeared to me to be conflicting. Then I had the idea to split the phrase into 2 terms - gravity & gravity force. Gravity - space-time curvature Gravity force - the interaction between mass, space and time From this I realised that we are dealing with 2 separate, but related entities - cause (gravity force- interaction) and effect (gravity - spacetime curvature) So, based on this premise, going back to the original question - Is gravity a force?, makes no sense, rather the question should be - what is the gravity force? or, to stick with the often used phrase, - what is the force of gravity? WARNING! wild speculation and imagination alert!!! - So considering gravity within this new context, I had no problem imagining a consolidation between GR & QM model's of gravity. In my imagination I consider the "force of gravity" to be a quantifiable interaction between space- time and mass where the interaction is.. , maybe using force carrying particles (gravitons) similar to the other kwon forces within the standard model. In GR the math describes the possibility of singularities forming at the extreme small scales and high densities. In my imagination, at such scales the force carriers become intensely active, however are unable to operate below the Planck scales. Such that this tiny region of space is just too small for force carrying particles to operate in. Therefore the curvature of space-time ("mutual attraction") ceases to operate at Planck distances, resulting in the impossibility of singularities forming. So I can image at the centre of BH's for example an object extremely dense, extremely small but larger than a Planck volume.

This is just semantics, the use of the term force in certain situations is to grant the reader/listener context of the scenario. For example one might say "The force of gravity is nothing more than the curvature of space-time" You may use such a sentence to very simply describe the GR model of gravity to someone learning about gravity. So it is relevant to ascertain what the accepted definition of what a force is, however this may also depend on context and language used, as already been pointed out previously in this thread. Professor Lincoln appears to have a clear understanding and belief of what the "force" of gravity is, be interesting to see his take on how this fits in with the quantum model.

To put it in layman's terms this is my understanding: Newton (Newtonian gravity) - gravity is a force that causes objects of mass to attract each other. Einstein (General relativity) - gravity is not a force but the curvature of space time caused by the presence of mass (also energy but lets keep it simple in this context) where objects follow this curvature resulting the appearance of attraction. Quantum Mechanics (Quantum gravity) - gravity is a force/field where gravitons are exchanged between masses resulting in interaction causing mutual attraction. The Newtonian model works very well for general predictions and suitable for most applications. The GR gravity model has been confirmed to produce more accurate predictions than the Newtonian gravity model, therefore supersedes as the best model of gravity we have. The GR gravity model predicts absurd results when used at the quantum level, predicting things like singularities... The quantum gravity models (hypothesis) solve this issue, however do not (as yet) consolidate with GR which has been verified as the best model of gravity we have. Maybe we are looking at this from the wrong perspective? Maybe focussing on "what gravity is" is not the answer to solving this dilemma. I think learning the nature of "what space-time is" will reveal what gravity is. Please jump in and correct my understanding! this subject is one that is most intriguing to me, and one I want to learn much more about.

Apologies, yes it was a snippet from Wikipedia.

Sorry I must have missed it, the link doesn't work for me sorry. I would be interested in reading it though.

I don't see how a system would work without some form of "punishment", however the definition of punishment would require addressing, to be clear.

This is a very interesting question and much like you Davy-Jones the nature of what gravity is, rather than how it is modelled, is one that I often ponder. Interestingly in QM gravity is modelled as a force; "In theories of quantum gravity, the graviton is the hypothetical quantum of gravity, an elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitational interaction. There is no complete quantum field theory of gravitons due to an outstanding mathematical problem with renormalization in general relativity" So which is it, the curvature of space time or the exchange of particles between masses, or a field in which mass interacts?

I think everyone is selfish to a degree, it's which level of the vary degrees that determines a person's status.