Gravity Problem Solved

[Humblemun]

Professor Brian Cox of CERN and TV fame has expressed his concern that a fundamental flaw in our understanding of gravity seems increasingly likely, especially if the forthcoming LHC experimental results turn out to be unexpected. I am convinced that I have found the stumbling block of modern physics:

 

The OBVIOUS reason of how the moon causes the ocean tides is that it pulls on the Earth's inner core, creating a flexure of the lithosphere, rather than acting on the seawater directly itself. Once you have the simple picture in your mind, you'll never go back. You'll never look at the sea the same again.

 

Modern satellite technology has measured the seafloor to rise by about a meter in the presence of the moon. The mountains and sea are also observed to be influenced by the moon's gravitational pull, but NOTHING ELSE i.e. why doesn't it get windier on a high tide? Why isn't dust effected by the moon's gravity?

 

I have a scientific background to substantiate my findings, the culmination of over 25 years work.

 

BSc Astronomy with Computing, former computer modeller for the MoD, Defense Research Agency, Farnborough, UK.

[insane_alien]

everything is affected by the moon. there are tides in the atmosphere(the waves are several tens of kilometers in amplitude) the water itself is also affected as evidenced by the greater than 1m tides in a lot of places.

 

if you can back up your position then do so.

[ajb]

everything is affected by the moon.

 

That is one way of stating the equivalence principle. All matter is equally affected by gravity.

[Humblemun]

My solution for the daily tides is simply better than that of Newton's. The reason that the universal law of gravitation appears to work so well is that the size of the uber-condensed inner core of a planetesimal is proportional to it's overall size.

[insane_alien]

if your solution is simply better then prove it. so far all we have to go on is your word. and i for one do not implicitly trust any random person who claims he has overturned accepted scientific theory.

 

therefore, provide evidence or go away.

[D H]

To the OP:

 

Two pertinent, pithy quotes apply here. "You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts." and "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". You have made some fantastic claims. You had dang well better back them up. Until you do so, this thread will be in the pseudoscience section.

 

 

To everyone else:

 

The Moon of course pulls on the "solid" Earth and on the oceans. The Earth is not truly solid. Most of the Earth is molten rock, so the Earth as a whole does indeed undergo tidal motion. The Earth's relatively thin crust does little to hinder this motion. This wikipedia article on Earth tides provides a good lay overview of the concept.

 

The standard formalism for describing the Earth's (or any other planet's) solid body tides was developed by AEH Love over 100 years ago and is thusly called the "Love number formalism". (I recommend against googling the phrase "Love number" as it results in far too much information.)

 

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (Web site: http://www.iers.org) is *the* definitive source on Earth rotation models and on reference systems used by scientists worldwide. For those of you who want a technical description of the Earth's solid body tides, refer to IERS Technical Note 32. Section 6.1 covers the topic at hand.

 

The solid body tides and ocean tides share the same underlying mechanism, which is the second gradient in the Moon's and the Sun's gravitational potential (a tensor). Another way of putting this is that the gravitational pull toward the Moon (or Sun) is a bit stronger on the side of the Earth facing toward the Moon (or Sun) versus the side facing away from the Moon (or Sun). While the two kinds of tides result from the same mechanism, the responses are quite different. While the Earth's crust does little to hinder the solid tides, the Earth's crust obviously has huge effect on the ocean tides.

[MrGamma]

Maybe... Because different materials have different gravitational potential...

 

Oceanographers Catch First Wave of Gravity Mission's Success"

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2003/103.cfm

 

Originally I thought the increased gravity was due to magma pressure build up near volcanic areas. The iceland hotspot shows evidence of a massive gravity increase.

 

Then... if you look at the mountain ranges you'll see rock compressing as well. So the easy thing to do is to connect pressure to gravity.

 

However... those mountain ranges are metamorphasizing and the magma chambers are filled with mineral rich magmas. I thought it could be a density increase or mass increase but somebody pointed out that's not how physics work with magma chambers. ( hope that was good info I received from them )

 

 

So perhaps if it isn't pressure it's the minerals themselves which create the anomalies.

 

This article interested me because it mentions Nasa's attempt to find better accuracies with gravity measurements.

 

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/06may_lunarranging.htm

 

Perhaps gravity is not a constant but rather associated with the type of matter present... Why should it be if the anomalies follow recognizable patterns...

 

Mars... ( mars gives fairly good indication that more mass equals more gravity as the relief height matches the anomalies fairly well )

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/global/browse/br_PIA02817.jpg

 

Moon... ( the lunar mares are recessed yet they are the youngest surfaces with potentially the most exotic heavy metals and show increased gravity )

http://lunar.arc.nasa.gov/printerready/science/newresults/dopp-ge.html

Edited September 2, 2008 by MrGamma

[D H]

Maybe... Because different materials have different gravitational potential...

And maybe that is because different materials have different densities.

 

You, sir, are far too quick to accept non-scientific (aka crackpot) explanations, quicker yet at jumping to conclusions, and even quicker yet at ignoring confirmatory evidence. I recommend you think twice -- in fact, think many times -- before continuing down this road.

 

You posted links to gravity models of the Earth, the Moon, and Mars. The observed variations in the gravitational potential are fully explained by variations in density rather than something more esoteric. The equivalence principle has been tested to an extraordinarily high degree of accuracy even by physics standards. The best measured physical constant is the fine structure constant [math]\alpha[/math]. The uncertainty in the measured of this constant is 0.7 parts per billion. The uncertainty in the equivalence principle is a few parts per trillion. The equivalence principle is one of the very best tested concepts in physics.

 

The variations in the gravitational potential of the Earth, Moon, and Mars. are many, many orders of magnitude greater than the uncertainties equivalence principle. observed gravitational potential models are much greater than that. In short, the observed variations do not arise to the failure of the equivalence principle. They arise from something much simpler: Different kinds of rock have different densities.

 

This article interested me because it mentions Nasa's attempt to find better accuracies with gravity measurements.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/06may_lunarranging.htm

You have posted this link several times. You seem to miss the point. Physicists really do not like assumptions. They would much prefer a deeper model that at least in part gets rid of the assumptions. Lacking that, they test and test and test the assumptions. This experiment was one such test.

 

You have not posted the results, which are reported in http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/18may_equivalenceprinciple.htm, for example.

Galileo's experiments were only accurate to about 1%, leaving room for doubt, and skeptical physicists have been "testing EP" ever since. The best modern limits, based on, e.g., laser ranging of the Moon to measure how fast it falls around Earth, show that EP holds within a few parts in a trillion (10

¹²

). This is fantastically accurate, yet the possibility remains that the equivalence principle could fail at some more subtle level.

 

"It's a possibility we must investigate," says physicist Clifford Will of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. "Discovering even the slightest difference in how gravity acts on objects of different materials would have enormous implications."

Two things to glean from this article:

1. As far as we know, the equivalence principle is indeed true. Moreover, we know this to an amazingly high level of accuracy.
   
2. That will not stop scientists from probing even further. The equivalence principle is an assumption, not a known fact, after all. Again from the article,
   One test mission, called the Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle (STEP), is being developed by Stanford University and an international team of collaborators. STEP would be able to detect a deviation in the equivalence principle as small as one part in a million trillion (10
   ¹⁸
   ). That's 100,000 times more sensitive than the current best measurement.

[MrGamma]

You, sir, are far too quick to accept non-scientific

 

I didn't accept anything... I simply made a speculation in the speculation section...

 

Physicists really do not like assumptions.

 

I made no assumptions... just an observation... speculation only... If I might add... you are too quick to react... especially at me...

 

If there are other people who think the same thing from different avenues of science... where do you get off calling the idea crackpot?

Edited September 2, 2008 by MrGamma

[D H]

I simply made a speculation in the speculation section.

Whoa there! I suggest you read the speculation policy. "Whatever the case is, this forum is not a home for just any science-related idea you have. It has a few rules. Speculations must be backed up by evidence or some sort of proof."

 

Questioning the status quo is the lifeblood of scientists. Almost all good scientists have a bit of the crackpot in them. Almost all good scientists also learn to temper their crackpot tendencies because the status quo in science tends to have a strong theoretical underpinning and immense amount of confirming evidence. It is usually a good idea to learn those theoretical underpinnings and examine the experimental evidence that supports the status quo.

 

You have posted this link several times. You seem to miss the point. Physicists really do not like assumptions. They would much prefer a deeper model that at least in part gets rid of the assumptions. Lacking that, they test and test and test the assumptions. This experiment was one such test.

I made no assumptions... just an observation... speculation only

You still don't get the point. I guess I need to be extremely explicit. I was not talking about you making assumptions. I was talking about physicists doing so. The equivalence principle is an assumption.

 

All physical theories have some set of axioms on which the theories are based. Axiom is just a high-falutin' term for assumption. Mathematicians are free to invent new mathematics by coming up with a new set of axioms. Physicists are not free to do so. Their axioms must conform with reality. A physical theory whose assumptions do not conform with reality is faulty from the onset.

 

Physicists do not particularly like unwarranted assumptions. Physically invalid assumptions are far, far worse than unwarranted assumptions. Experimentalists poke at a physical theory in two places: They test whether the assumptions are valid and they test whether distinguishing results predicted by the theory do indeed arise. The article you posted and the results that I posted are an example of experimental physicists doing their job. One thing experimentalists love doing more than almost anything else is ripping a hole in the high-falutin' theories of those hoity-toity theoretical physicists. Failing that, they don't mind finding new evidence that indicates that their theoretical brethren are indeed correct.

[MrGamma]

Whoa there! I suggest you read the speculation policy.

 

I was never my intention to misunderstand the meaning behind speculation.

 

http://www.google.ca/search?q=define:speculation

 

You are going to have to forgive me as I am only some guy off the street asking a question. Perhaps it's not a speculation at all as I claim no ownership to the idea as far as the annals of science are concerned.

 

What if different materials effect gravity?

 

I was talking about physicists doing so. The equivalence principle is an assumption.

 

Completely understood. If the axiom is agreed upon prior to the question being asked it is allowed to exist. If the axiom itself is being questioned then you had better not make a speculation without offering a test.

 

A test being an abstract of assumed axioms.

 

Is this how it works? For now I can just assume that all axioms are unquestionable?

 

The maps I provided simply offered proof. They are real measurements. You and everybody else are allowed to test them. Did I say my speculation was correct? No... I am allowed to speculate in the speculation section.

 

If you are going to take the time to call the concept of different materials effecting gravity, crackpot. Then prove it wrong. Preferably with something other than using the axiom in question to provide irrefutable evidence against it.

 

In other words... I don't mind being wrong... I'm here to learn after-all... but I don't like getting beaten up with insults. I suggest you read the Speculation Policy

Edited September 3, 2008 by MrGamma

[D H]

What if different materials effect gravity?

In what way? If the different materials have different masses, yes, then different materials affect gravity. If the different materials are of the same mass, then no, they do not affect gravity as far as we know, and we know this extremely well.

 

Sheesh. Did you read any of my prior posts?

 

Completely understood. ...

Everything you wrote after that indicates that you completely misunderstood what I wrote. Axioms in physics not only can be questioned, questioning them is an essential part of physics. Physical axioms must be tested rigorously. A couple of examples:

• [math]F=ma[/math] is a 300+ year old axiom in classical physics. Physicists to this day come up with novel tests of this axiom.
  
• The speed of light is the same to all observers is a 100+ year old axiom that sits at the heart of special relativity. Scientists test this axiom to this day as well.

 

I am allowed to speculate in the speculation section.

Only to a limited extent. Read the rules. Too much speculating without offering any proof is a recipe for being banned.

 

The maps I provided simply offered proof. They are real measurements.

The maps you provided in post #7 are proof of a known variation in gravity: to wit, "Different materials with different masses exert different gravitational forces." Those maps do not offer any proof of anything but that.

Then prove it wrong.

That is not how science works. It is up to the people making the extraordinary claims to prove their claims are right.

[MrGamma]

That is not how science works. It is up to the people making the extraordinary claims to prove their claims are right.

 

Are you sure... Because I thought all of science was about proving a theory wrong. All theories being innocent until proven guilty.

 

If energy from the stars follow the mass and energy conservation laws. E=mc^2

 

Why does gravity break this law? Shouldn't mass somewhere in the universe be converting itself to this energy? Like the sun will eventually deplete itself and stop emitting light energy. Shouldn't all masses which emit a gravitational force deplete themselves?

 

This is a question not a speculation.

[Phi for All]

That is not how science works. It is up to the people making the extraordinary claims to prove their claims are right.

Are you sure... Because I thought all of science was about proving a theory wrong. All theories being innocent until proven guilty.

Current theories are backed up by lots of predictions, experimental success and relevant data. For a claim which hasn't undergone this process (yet) to usurp the place of an actual theory that works, the claimant must show why it should be so.

 

You need to back up speculations with at least some reason and any supportive evidence you can think of, otherwise the critical answer will always be the same. It shouldn't be hard to see why an established theory gets precedent over an untested idea. Hypotheses work hard to get to the theory level.

 

This isn't about two theories with equal chances of being "innocent".

[D H]

Are you sure... Because I thought all of science was about proving a theory wrong. All theories being innocent until proven guilty.

This is not how science works. Even if it was, you do not have a theory. For that matter, you don't even have a speculation, let alone a conjecture. Let me elaborate.

 

You do not have a theory.

You are using the lay meaning for theory here. Imagine a man discussing some vexing issue with his wife: "Hey honey! I have a theory that might help us solve the problem!" In this context, the word "theory" means little more than "wild-ass guess". That is not the meaning of the word "theory" where science is concerned. In science, only the very best of ideas are designated as scientific theories. Scientific ideas sometimes do indeed start their lives as speculations. After trimming off some of the rough edges and adding some mathematical underpinnings the idea becomes something a bit better than speculation -- it becomes a hypothesis or conjecture.

 

This is not how science works.

The way that science does work is quite simple: The burden of proof in science always falls upon the claimant of a new model. Several things need to happen for a scientific model of some process or event to be designated as a scientific theory. The mathematical underpinnings of the model need to be made very strong throughout. The basis of the model must be shown to be consistent with the reality. The proponent must identify some outcome of the new model that distinguishes it from existing theory. Finally, that predicted outcome must be shown to exist -- and of course be in favor of the new model. Reality is the ultimate judge of a scientific model.

 

If energy from the stars follow the mass and energy conservation laws. E=mc^2

 

Why does gravity break this law?

You have several things wrong here. First off, E=mc² is not a scientific law. It is a derived result. As an aside, do you even know what this statement means? In classical mechanics, gravitation is a conservative force, meaning that it does indeed conserve energy. I suggest we stick with classical physics for now for the simple reason that modern physics is built on top of classical physics.

 

A pair of bodies transforms gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy as the bodies get closer to one another, and kinetic energy into potential energy as they move away from one another.

 

Shouldn't mass somewhere in the universe be converting itself to this energy? Like the sun will eventually deplete itself and stop emitting light energy. Shouldn't all masses which emit a gravitational force deplete themselves?

Actually, they do. However, the radiated energy is typically very, very small because gravitation is the weakest of the four forces. For example, the power radiated by the Earth and Sun as they two orbit their common center of mass is a paltry 313 watts.

[MrGamma]

This is not how science works. Even if it was, you do not have a theory. For that matter, you don't even have a speculation.

 

Okay... well... I just wanted to contribute an idea... I am clearly out of my league... It was not realized going into it... I should have read the question a little better... I've actually been through the ringer a few times today as to why I think wrong...

 

This person says that hydrogen is effected by magnetism. I realize this doesn't exactly touch base with gravity specifically. But perhaps different materials are effected differently by forces. In the form of a question... Are all materials effected differently by forces?

 

If somebody thinks this paper is wrong. It was not my intention. I was only trying to figure out why hydrogen collects at the tops and bottoms of planets and I ruled out gravity ( purely through speculative means ) and I thought it would be of interest to this thread.

 

Magnetic Hydrogen Atoms and Non-Magnetic Molecules

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1085019

 

Shouldn't mass somewhere in the universe be converting itself to this energy? Like the sun will eventually deplete itself and stop emitting light energy. Shouldn't all masses which emit a gravitational force deplete themselves?

 

Actually, they do. However, the radiated energy is typically very, very small because gravitation is the weakest of the four forces. For example, the power radiated by the Earth and Sun as they two orbit their common center of mass is a paltry 313 watts.

 

This is very interesting... thank you... I do trust what you say to be true and I will look into this... I just finished a battle with somebody who told me I was crazy for thinking it might happen.

 

When you say this... you are referring to tidal/kinetic forces? Or comsic ray (proton) mass energy emissions of sorts?

Edited September 4, 2008 by MrGamma