michel123456

If we froze time? Good question. What happen indeed when time is frozen? What happen to the 4 interactions? Are there interactions any more? or do everything 'fall apart", (I mean electrons, photons, quarks, etc) or disintegrate? or simply stay the way they are?

So, you say that the underlying geometry is 3D, that the 3D geometry has a result an inverse squared law that is fully showed in a 2D diagram.

(emphasis mine) But the analysis of Kepler's law is 2D. It is stated that :(from wiki) and (or) [img=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kepler_laws_diagram.svg (All quoted from the same wiki article) That is entirely 2D analysis. I don't understand why it must be considered as a 3D by adding a constant. That looks like wishful thinking to me. One could then say it is a 11D geometry by adding other 9 constants out of nowhere.

Potential energy is negative energy?

If the slice is the orbital plane, the 1/r^2 law stands. And it is in this "slice" that Kepler's law is explained in all textbooks. As if Kepler's law was a result of 2D geometry. Of course if you take a random "slice" that does not correspond to any orbit the result will be moot.

I was wondering a lot about your post. I have always seet a Flatland world as a section of our 3D space. But it must not be so. A section must retain the physical laws of the sectioned entity. And you explanation states that gravitation follows a different law in 2D. I am confused.

Why 'few years ago"?

(emphasis mine) that is good for a Nobel Prize, since in his will, Nobel states that: from here.

What do you mean? To exist as a human being, an animal, a plant? Or to exist as the Universe, the stars & galaxies?

Kalosorises Maria.

3 is the number of (equal) parts.

I like that kind of questions. Although it is not a question. It simply means that you must use mathematics with caution and that any operation will have the meaning that you want to put in. And that the correct result of a correct equation will have a lot of wrong meanings and only one correct meaning. (emphasis mine) IIRC mathematical division is always in equal parts.

Now I will make my position harder: Big Tom is a new member. He wants to be recognized as an adult respectable knowledgeable member and not as a young ignorant enthusiast, that is the reason of existence of this thread. The "who is talking" strikes again. I believe that Big Tom is not interested at all by any answer from other members of this Forum. He is making a catalog of other knowledgeable people to whom he may discuss in the near future while making his own place here. That is clever. ----------------------------- (edit) as a support to my allegation, this other thread gives me the impression that Big Tom is also trying to find which member has a PhD. And as further support, the fact that the most intelligent & knowledgeable members have not engaged this thread at all. -------------------------------- Now you shoot.

IMHO anyone, even the most intelligent, can be catched as an "idiot" in some circumstance. What happen is that the most "intelligent" understand the situation quickly and simply shuts his mouth. Frustration arises from non-understanding and go both ways. It may happen that both sides call the other "idiot" because they fail to communicate properly, even when both sides are intelligent and cultivated people. There are examples on this Forum. So it is always dangerous to consider the other as an "idiot', a simple argument can act as a boomerang and you may discover that the idiot was you. I have the feeling that the one who begins such kind of thread in no circumstance will consider himself as an "idiot". I suspect the person feels under the protection of a huge level of education. That is indeed a protection against imbecility but that is not a protection against idiocy.

I have seen incidentally a similar effect in the jar of my electric coffeemaker.

Yes. That's what makes me think that Relativity is a Theory of what is observed, an Observational Theory. (emphasis mine) I think the above emphasized statement is misleading. Even when traveling at 99,9% of SOL (as seen from the spaceship, going away from Earth at 99,9% of SOL), the observer on the spaceship will see light going at SOL. Also the observer on the spaceship may observe his own velocity to another Galaxy as 0,00001 of SOL, because velocity is relative and the other galaxy is also going away from Earth at near SOL velocity. So the gallon of fuel used for acceleration will not help much the change of velocity regarding Earth but will change a lot regarding the other Galaxy. In both cases, the gallon of fuel will have the same effect on the spaceship: the observer on the spaceship will know it is under acceleration because he will feel a force. The force will not change whether the astronaut looks at the Earth or at the other Galaxy. Also the mass of the spaceship will not change. Simply the mass as observed from Earth will be different from the mass as observed from the other galaxy. And if all observers are using Relativity, they will all agree on their measurements after Relativistic transformations.

I don't understand (again) One dimension is a line. 2 points on a line are separated by a distance. The gravity that attracts those 2 points does not fall with the square of the distance in a 1 dimension universe?

And in one dimension then?

So in 2 dimensions you get an inverse distance (not squared) relation. I guess.

Yes. Action at a distance is so bogus that scientists define it through an exchange of particles that travel through space (and time). And as Strange said, action at a distance is ingested at a young age and becomes "intuitive" Although I remember an example that I found most bizarre then. It was when learning "resistance des materiaux" (resistance of materials) in the first year of architecture IIRC. About a I beam Where the professor explained that the up and down plates ( the flanges) take all the strength while the vertical plate (the web) takes almost nothing. In the beam, the important thing is the distance ( the depth) between the 2 up/down plates. Theoretically the web could even disappear, only the distance counts! (which is not entirely accurate because you need to make some contact between the 2 flanges, otherwise the beam falls apart) The fact that the distance was the important thing blew my mind then. But after a while I thought of a simple lever and thought it was exactly the same phenomena. And I swallowed the beam.

agree on almost all but not the "completely crazy". Quite the contrary. The strong force acts like a rope. When you hold your dog with a rope, the distance to your dog (the length of the rope) has no importance. And as much your dog pulls on the rope the more resistance exists. If you replace the rope with a rubber band, you'll see that as much the distance increases as much the force increases too. So it is not "completely crazy", it is similar to a macroscopic experience on how material objects behave. The "completely crazy" stuff is about force reducing with distance (squared). A situation in which the rubber band becomes more and more liquid as long as it extends. IMHO people are not enough surprised.

I must be the only one to find all this mind blowing. What is in the distance that makes a force to drop? (MigL will say ; 'geometry", I guess) Something that an object cannot do because as you said, adding objects elsewhere do not change the force. Something more than adding mass to the object (or to the Earth), because mass is not squared in the formula. You can theoretically add mass at will, the force will never become infinite. But if you reduce distance to zero, then the mathematical result is indeed infinite. And why squared? Intensity of light is radiation. Does gravitation act as a radiation?

I must express myself badly. We say the same thing. "The field simply tells you what the strength of the force is at a point, should a mass be present at that point." Yes. Doesn't that mean that the force arises when a mass is there, and when there is no mass there is no force (that's what I mean by "waisted"). The field strength is always there though. That's what I ment when saying: "At the other points of the field at the same distance, there exist a "potential-force-of-same-reduced-strength" that does nothing when there is nothing there but anyway takes something from the original strength." When you say : Yes. Distance takes away from the force. Anyway, since the force varies with distance, "something" must take something from the force. Otherwise the force would remain constant.

"The field exists at all points" O.K. So, taking only one point of the field, we observe that the magnitude is a function of the distance squared. And if I understand clearly, in laymen terms, the explanation is that the strength of the force is distributed over an area and somehow "waisted". At the other points of the field at the same distance, there exist a "potential-force-of-same-reduced-strength" that does nothing when there is nothing there but anyway takes something from the original strength. Is that it?

Then what was MigL's explanation?