Mike Smith Cosmos Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 (edited) I am trying to understand ' HOW GRAVITY WORKS ' . Whether this is a question , that should not be asked, I do not know , or care ? I personally as a practicing Engineer , all my life , have tried to understand the HOW , and WHY , things work , the way they do . I know a typical answer may be along the lines .." Science deals with the 'how ' not the why ." But , I do think that is insufficient , in understanding such an engrained , primary facility , by which the universe is fundamentally held together , and controls are every move and structure . I am sure it MUST be possible to probe and understand at greater depth , the ' Nature of Gravity ' ? I am having genuine difficulty , finding out about the ' mechanism , or whatever' that GRAVITY , uses to communicate itself , both locally ( in front of me ) , and at reasonably larger distances ? Such as :- around particles, around ordinary earth matter, around planets, stars, galaxies and throughout the universe. There 'appears to be ' , little understanding of gravity, 'so one guesses! ' But I would genuinely like to know ? Mike Edited October 4, 2016 by Mike Smith Cosmos
swansont Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 How gravity works is, at a fundamental level, not something science addresses. You have been told this before. Bringing this up again isn't going to change that answer.
Strange Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 You have been told repeatedly, but you have rejected all explanations. It is can be considered a force between objects with mass (equivalent to the force between objects with charge) that falls off with an inverse square law. That force can be considered a pseudo-force which is how we experience the curvature of space-time. The curvature of space-time is caused by the presence of mass and energy. Currently, there isn't really anything else to say about it. A theory of quantum gravity might give us new insights and/or better models, but it will not tell us what gravity "really is". Nothing will ever tell us what gravity (or anything else) "really is".
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted October 4, 2016 Author Posted October 4, 2016 (edited) How gravity works is, at a fundamental level, not something science addresses. You have been told this before. Bringing this up again isn't going to change that answer.. You have been told repeatedly, but you have rejected all explanations. It is can be considered a force between objects with mass (equivalent to the force between objects with charge) that falls off with an inverse square law. That force can be considered a pseudo-force which is how we experience the curvature of space-time. The curvature of space-time is caused by the presence of mass and energy. Currently, there isn't really anything else to say about it. A theory of quantum gravity might give us new insights and/or better models, but it will not tell us what gravity "really is". Nothing will ever tell us what gravity (or anything else) "really is". .. Do not think I do not know , what you both are saying , and to some extent , why you are saying it . That does not alter the fact ( without any offence meant ! ) That is a ' cop out ' . We need to try harder . Meaning , it is easy to say . I beleive , we should make it our business , as scientists , to dig an awful lot deeper , to try and research more, dig deeper , do experiments , and yes even make a host of ' guesses ' . Ok we are going to be wrong 95 % of the time , but that must not put us off , or we will never find out . I doubt ,nobody is going to step out of a spaceship , and say " what you have been wanting to hear about ' gravity is .............." I do not think it will happen ! Will it ? Guess .....discuss, Experiment , test , propose , back to the drawing board , more guesses , more experiments , more discussion .... Maybe an interim conclusion, more discussion ....etc , etc Surely ? Mike Edited October 4, 2016 by Mike Smith Cosmos -2
swansont Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 . .. Do not think I do not know , what you both are saying , and to some extent , why you are saying it . That does not alter the fact ( without any offence meant ! ) That is a ' cop out ' . We need to try harder . Meaning , it is easy to say . I beleive , we should make it our business , as scientists , to dig an awful lot deeper , to try and research more, dig deeper , do experiments , and yes even make a host of ' guesses ' . Ok we are going to be wrong 95 % of the time , but that must not put us off , or we will never find out . I doubt ,nobody is going to step out of a spaceship , and say " what you have been wanting to hear about ' gravity is .............." I do not think it will happen ! Will it ? Guess .....discuss, Experiment , test , propose , back to the drawing board , more guesses , more experiments , more discussion .... Maybe an interim conclusion, more discussion ....etc , etc Surely ? Mike Devise an experiment that will distinguish between different mechanisms of gravity. No waffling, no pictures of waterfalls or whatever. How would you possibly tell the difference between gravity being cause by invisible pink fairies, or piskies, or anything else one can think of. If there's no way to test it, then it's not science.
DrP Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 (edited) Experimentation will give you what we know already - it has been well tested and written up in text books. We need a unification theory, but we don't have that yet... it isn't a cop out, we just do not know how it works and that's that. Think of the example of a 2D being trying to make sense of a 3 or 4D world... things pop in and out of existence for those beings and no amount of testing can give them the info they need to make sense of things beyond their 2 dimensions. You say that there 'surely' must be a way... well, where is it? no-one has found it yet and it kind of seems beyond our reach with our current levels of knowledge and understanding. It is as unobtainable as trying to look through binoculars to see what happened before the big bang - we don't have the tools for it and probably don't even know what tools we need. Edited October 4, 2016 by DrP
Strange Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 Do not think I do not know , what you both are saying , and to some extent , why you are saying it . That does not alter the fact ( without any offence meant ! ) That is a ' cop out ' . We need to try harder . It is not a cop out. And trying harder won't change anything. All you will get (from science) is scientific models. You will always find these unsatisfactory. That is your problem, not science's.
geordief Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 In either Newtonian gravity or Geometric gravity it seems that mass is essential. The Higgs field ,so I hear is a mechanism that gives mass to other particles. Does the Higgs field therefore need to be understood before a deeper understanding of gravity can be achieved?
Mike Smith Cosmos Posted October 4, 2016 Author Posted October 4, 2016 Devise an experiment that will distinguish between different mechanisms of gravity. No waffling, no pictures of waterfalls or whatever. How would you possibly tell the difference between gravity being cause by invisible pink fairies, or piskies, or anything else one can think of. If there's no way to test it, then it's not science. Experimentation will give you what we know already - it has been well tested and written up in text books. We need a unification theory, but we don't have that yet... it isn't a cop out, we just do not know how it works and that's that. Think of the example of a 2D being trying to make sense of a 3 or 4D world... things pop in and out of existence for those beings and no amount of testing can give them the info they need to make sense of things beyond their 2 dimensions. You say that there 'surely' must be a way... well, where is it? no-one has found it yet and it kind of seems beyond our reach with our current levels of knowledge and understanding. It is as unobtainable as trying to look through binoculars to see what happened before the big bang - we don't have the tools for it and probably don't even know what tools we need. It is not a cop out. And trying harder won't change anything. All you will get (from science) is scientific models. You will always find these unsatisfactory. That is your problem, not science's. O.k. . The comment that has given me something to think about was that of ARTHUR EDDINGTON " MASS " IS " a CURVATURE IN SPACE . Maybe he was stating , what we already know . But he was going out of his way to say that .o.k mass can cause a curvature in space , BUT MASS IS A CURVATURE IN SPACE ! What was he trying to say ? That they are NOT different things , they are one and the same ? I get a distinct sniff , there is something there ! It is as if we come up through the earth ,sea, air space .....going through different concentrations of mass , curvature, gravity, is it all one and the same , just with different concentrations ? How one would test for this , at this juncture I am not sure . , But there is something emanating out of the posting about a Lake with different thicknesses of water and rock . It appears to show that gravity and its influence is very local . Eg the lake bottom shape , is affecting the contour of the Geoid ( if that's how you spell it ) ? Many , many , breakthroughs in science have come from accidental by products of other research . I get a distinct sence there is something to learn, experiment , test , and theorise here somewhere ? Mike
hypervalent_iodine Posted October 4, 2016 Posted October 4, 2016 ! Moderator Note You should know by now that reopening closed threads is against the forum rules. Start abiding by them, or we will be forced to take further action.
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