Does Gravity Result from a Boson or Curvature?

[metacogitans]

ahem... anyways,

 

If asked the question (in the context of black holes and gravity),

 

How can you equate "curvature" and "force".

Well... how can you?? How could you..

 

Blackholes are traditionally described as 'spacetime curvature so drastic not even light can escape it'; that's where the idea of black holes came from, before gravitons were even proposed

 

Gravitons, as bosons, are violating some rules (don't worry, I'm confident new rules will be invented as placeholder 'exceptions' to previous rules) such as bosons passing through other bosons typically (I'm not an expert, but google told me gluons interact with each other by some mechanism, so maybe some bosons do interact with each other *shrug*). If gravity has a force carrier, light should be passing right through it, not getting stuck someplace because of it.

 

So which is it, bosons or curvature? Even if its both, the contradictions remain. For example, if it were both bosons and curvature, wouldn't the trajectory of subsequent gravitational bosons be offset by the curvature? If photons are offset by it, gravitons should as well presumably.

Edited March 26, 2016 by metacogitans

[Strange]

Well... how can you?? How could you..

 

You can't because they are different things. Not even apples and oranges. More like apples and the frequency of the colour orange.

 

Can you equate force and taste? Or curvature and hunger?

 

 

Gravitons, as bosons, are violating some rules

 

What rules, exactly, are they violating? Please provide a reference to peer reviewed science to support this claim.

 

 

So which is it, bosons or curvature?

 

Curvature (currently). We do not have a theory of quantum gravity. Gravitons are purely hypothetical.

 

 

For example, if it were both bosons and curvature, wouldn't the trajectory of subsequent gravitational bosons be offset by the curvature? If photons are offset by it, gravitons should as well presumably.

 

The self-interaction of gravity is one of the reasons that it is highly non-linear and mathematically complex. This is not a contradiction.

Edited March 26, 2016 by Strange

[metacogitans]

 

You can't because they are different things. Not even apples and oranges. More like apples and the frequency of the colour orange.

 

Can you equate force and taste? Or curvature and hunger?

 

 

Curvature (currently). We do not have a theory of quantum gravity. Gravitons are purely hypothetical.

 

Curvature tensors are used for electromagnetism as well; so a force.. involving curvature.. hmm

. I guess it could be said that gravity is unique in that the curvature applies to all of spacetime, affecting even light.. but what if it didn't affect light? What would 'spacetime' even mean in that context then really? Just a force with curvature tensors, kind of like electromagnetism?

 

 

 

What rules, exactly, are they violating? Please provide a reference to peer reviewed science to support this claim.

Well, they are exempt from the paul exclusion principle. and can occupy the same location in spacetime, yet they interact with each other. Iff they can occupy the same location in spacetime and pass right through each other, what part of them interacted, and where?

[swansont]

So which is it, bosons or curvature?

 

 

Is light photons or is light an electromagnetic wave?

[ajb]

Well... how can you?? How could you..

In the context of general relativity the equation of motion for a test particle is taken to be the geodesic equation. On a general curved space-time these geodesics are not straight lines and so we interpret this as a force.

 

A little more technically, we get a force as there are no true inertial frames on a curved space-time, only local ones. We then see gravity as a pseudo-force.

 

 

Gravitons, as bosons, are violating some rules...

So if we are going to discuss gravitons properly we need to do this within a theory. By gravitons one is usually thinking of perturbative quantum general relativity as an effective theory. So, within this theory what rules are being violated?

 

If gravity has a force carrier, light should be passing right through it, not getting stuck someplace because of it.

If we are dealing with gravitons then we are to some extend discussing weak fields; gravitons come from linearising general relativity and then applying quantum theory. Anyway, as photons have energy-momentum they couple with gravity and so have non-trivial interactions with gravitons (within perturbative quantum general relativity). These interactions are very weak, but still there are there.

 

So which is it, bosons or curvature?

Probably both are good descriptions of gravity for different situations. Much like electromangenetic waves and photons, as swansont hints at.

 

For example, if it were both bosons and curvature, wouldn't the trajectory of subsequent gravitational bosons be offset by the curvature? If photons are offset by it, gravitons should as well presumably.

In quantum general relativity there are non-trivial gravitons scattering amplitudes. Even more basically, we would expect graviton-graviton interactions as general relativity is highly non-linear. It is akin (but different to) Yang-Mills theories where the gauge particles can interact with each other. Such processes are highly suppressed in electromagnetic theory.