How the hell does Gravity work ?

[JohnSmith]

In practice every mass attracts other masses proportionally. In theory, well there the whole bending space time ka-jigger then there is this really cool gravity particle that they are using the large hadron collider to look for.

 

[redShift_]

i think answer to gravity is 42, i'll have to check though.

 

[7moreDead_v1legacy]

Gravity, It sucks...

Sorry I couldn't resist =)

 

[ILPPendant]

Apparently the damn apple that fell on Newtons head started it all.

A trite story he perpetuated decades on to shift attention from the fact that some of his work was remarkably similar to that of his peer, Robert Hooke.

Interestingly as soon as Newton became president of the Royal Society, all the paintings and portraits of Hooke mysteriously disappeared quite literally overnight never to be seen again.

 

[ssgt splatter]

Skip physics class did we? Here read these posts since they hit the nail on the head.

You still here?

Every mass pulls weaker objects towards itself. The heavier the mass, the bigger gravity it has.

Simple. Wiki it next time.

One explanation is that mass bends space time like a ball placed in the middle of a stretched out sheet warps the sheet. If you place another smaller ball on the sheet it will follow the curve in the sheet. The hard part is visualising what space time is, which is why people like Einstein are cool.

Probably all wrong or oversimplified.

 

[Maze1125]

On topic, however, gravity works because of quantum physics. Every atom is made up of seperate elementary particles (protons, neutrons and electrons), but each of these is made up of even smaller particles (quarks, mesons, besons, etc.). Some of these particles, which every atom has at some fundamental level, are gravitons, which are basically attracted to each other according to Newton's Law of Gravitation. That's how gravity works.

Yeah.
Pity Einstein would disagree with that completely.

Gravity is not a force. Gravity is the curvature of space-time.
Objects don't move towards mass because of an attractive force, but because time is actually bent towards the mass.

 

[Trivun]

On topic, however, gravity works because of quantum physics. Every atom is made up of seperate elementary particles (protons, neutrons and electrons), but each of these is made up of even smaller particles (quarks, mesons, besons, etc.). Some of these particles, which every atom has at some fundamental level, are gravitons, which are basically attracted to each other according to Newton's Law of Gravitation. That's how gravity works.

Yeah.
Pity Einstein would disagree with that completely.

Gravity is not a force. Gravity is the curvature of space-time.
Objects don't move towards mass because of an attractive force, but because time is actually bent towards the mass.

If I got any of it wrong then I apologise, thanks for pointing that out. However, I was merely posting what I'd been taught in my Physics A-Levels last year. I'm doing Maths at university now so I know a bit about Newtonian mechanics through my course, so it seemed to fit with what I was taught, but I suppose university Physics courses will teach it differently. Anyway, thanks for pointing that out to me

 

[Swaki]

gravity is an moonman force used to keep us from floating away and invade their precious moon, why else should their be a force keeping us from the moon? also the sun is there to keep us from get night vision so we will never be able to look at the dark side of the sun

 

[Drunken Jedi]

The obvious answer is that at the beginning of time, God personally sprinkled some magic dust on every single subatomic particle.

 

[cutekittenkyti]

yes gravity is a very weird force
it is the weakest of all the forces, but can also travel incredibly long distances (considering that the strong force and weak force are only inside of an atom)

Anyways, for each force there is a particle that carries the force.
For electromagnetic (also includes light)
the force/energy carrier is the photon

I'm not sure what it is for the strong and weak force, but there are carrier particles

Idk how these particles actually carry the force. But in those big particle smashers they have supposedly proven the existance of these carrier particles for EM, strong and weak forces. They have confirmed sightings or something

But the particle that theoretically caries the force of gravity, the graviton, no one has found it yet (at least I don't think they have)

So theoretically it exists, but it hasn't been proven.

on a side note, particles carrying forces explains why forces can't travel faster than light. Einsteins decision that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light holds true (although my friend says that in a nuclear explosion there is this blue glow that is caused by faster than light travel but I doubt that)

then particles are something
and so they can't travel faster than the speed of light

the thought experiment is, what happens if the sun just suddenly disappeared. Well light from the sun takes 8 min to get here. Newton thought that if the sun disappeared, the earth would immediately leave its orbit.

But Einstein said that since nothing can travel faster than light, then the earth wouldn't immediatly leave orbit, and from that he found a point for his space time continuum

Although! There are experiments where a tiny atom or something is split in half. Then one half is transported quite a distance away from the other half. Then on one half, some action is performed (like spinning it or something). The other half IMMEDIATELY performs the exact same action. So somehow information is traveling faster than light.

So science has "laws" that explain and can predict certain phenomena, but actually explaining why it occurs? Science still needs some work on that


(yay for rambling)

 

[Zer_]

One explanation is that mass bends space time like a ball placed in the middle of a stretched out sheet warps the sheet. If you place another smaller ball on the sheet it will follow the curve in the sheet. The hard part is visualising what space time is, which is why people like Einstein are cool.

Probably all wrong or oversimplified.

No you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

Einstein's contribution to gravity. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpbGuuGosAY&fmt=18]

 

[Arcticflame]

Edit- Nevermind, got my particles mixed up. I'm thinking of mass.

And gravity most likely is oscillitating particles moving in between dimensions. Definitely. 100% sure.

 

[Lukeje]

On topic, however, gravity works because of quantum physics. Every atom is made up of seperate elementary particles (protons, neutrons and electrons), but each of these is made up of even smaller particles (quarks, mesons, besons, etc.). Some of these particles, which every atom has at some fundamental level, are gravitons, which are basically attracted to each other according to Newton's Law of Gravitation. That's how gravity works.

Yeah.
Pity Einstein would disagree with that completely.

Gravity is not a force. Gravity is the curvature of space-time.
Objects don't move towards mass because of an attractive force, but because time is actually bent towards the mass.

He's not wrong, he just has it kind of backwards; the bending of spacetime gives rise to the force. It's potential surfaces that give rise to forces.

Spoiler: Slight Wall of Text

UnknownIncognito, I think we've been pretty tolerant so far (remember the irrelevant jokes thread?), but this is getting silly now. I'm asking you nicely, could you please just stop posting stupid threads that have no real merit for discussion? Thank you.

On topic, however, gravity works because of quantum physics. Every atom is made up of seperate elementary particles (protons, neutrons and electrons), but each of these is made up of even smaller particles (quarks, mesons, besons, etc.). Some of these particles, which every atom has at some fundamental level, are gravitons, which are basically attracted to each other according to Newton's Law of Gravitation. That's how gravity works. How they are attracted is similar to electromagnetism. There are four forces - weak, strong, electromagnetic, and gravitational, which are all basic properties of these fundamental particles (each type of particle has different properties, however). So these forces are what allow gravity, and it isn't just big things like planets, but everything in the universe is attracted to everything else. It's only noticeable at planetary sized levels though, since the force of gravity is minutely small for each particle, so only absolutely huge objects like planets have any sort of major gravitational pull.

That's basically it, as far as I can remember, but Wikipedia might be able to fill in any gaps since my own knowledge is based on a Quantum Physics course I did at A-Level.

[/thread]

Wait, so your QP course at A-level posited the existence of virtual particles that haven't even been confirmed yet?

 

[Zersy]

UnknownIncognito, I think we've been pretty tolerant so far (remember the irrelevant jokes thread?), but this is getting silly now. I'm asking you nicely, could you please just stop posting stupid threads that have no real merit for discussion? Thank you.

On topic, however, gravity works because of quantum physics. Every atom is made up of seperate elementary particles (protons, neutrons and electrons), but each of these is made up of even smaller particles (quarks, mesons, besons, etc.). Some of these particles, which every atom has at some fundamental level, are gravitons, which are basically attracted to each other according to Newton's Law of Gravitation. That's how gravity works. How they are attracted is similar to electromagnetism. There are four forces - weak, strong, electromagnetic, and gravitational, which are all basic properties of these fundamental particles (each type of particle has different properties, however). So these forces are what allow gravity, and it isn't just big things like planets, but everything in the universe is attracted to everything else. It's only noticeable at planetary sized levels though, since the force of gravity is minutely small for each particle, so only absolutely huge objects like planets have any sort of major gravitational pull.

That's basically it, as far as I can remember, but Wikipedia might be able to fill in any gaps since my own knowledge is based on a Quantum Physics course I did at A-Level.

[/thread]

Thanks

 

[Maze1125]

On topic, however, gravity works because of quantum physics. Every atom is made up of seperate elementary particles (protons, neutrons and electrons), but each of these is made up of even smaller particles (quarks, mesons, besons, etc.). Some of these particles, which every atom has at some fundamental level, are gravitons, which are basically attracted to each other according to Newton's Law of Gravitation. That's how gravity works.

Yeah.
Pity Einstein would disagree with that completely.

Gravity is not a force. Gravity is the curvature of space-time.
Objects don't move towards mass because of an attractive force, but because time is actually bent towards the mass.

He's not wrong, he just has it kind of backwards; the bending of spacetime gives rise to the force. It's potential surfaces that give rise to forces.

But, again, gravity isn't a force.
When an object is in freefall, it feels nothing. Freefall is in fact the natural state of affairs in the universe. Only when the fall is prevented, for example by the ground, is any force felt.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Apparently the damn apple that fell on Newtons head started it all.

Kinda gave him a bit of a bonk on the head, either stimulating nerves, or killing his brain.

 

[Serinanth]

Yah from what I understand they are still trying to determine what causes mass, that's why they built the Large HADRON hehe hehe ehehe Collider.

We have yet to observe the particle that actually creates mass. Grabity.. err Gravity is an effect ... hrmm or is it affect, I always forget. Anyways, of mass. The more massive an object, the more gravity. They are callin the particle to cause this the Higgs Bosun particle, so when they cool stuff down to pretty much next to 0 Kevin everything kind of puddles together, and they call it a Bose-Einstein condensate and Higgs, well crap that guy frikin made this stuff confusing. Not to mention we could even meander into shrodigers cat sometime now.

I'm not sure of the connection but *shrugs*.

From what I know of the standard model there is something called universal gravitational unit and that is the made up calculated number that works only sometimes but makes the standard model work even though its something we really don't understand.

If anyone tells you that they understand quantum physics.
They are a damned liar, none of us understand this crap its PFM

 

[Danny Ocean]

some please answer this question since science still hasn't.

My Theory: Magic

yes witchcraft it explains gravity wind electricity kittens and nukes


i hear gravity pulls harder on you the more you weigh so that means fat people are hogging the gravity

Nope, your weight changes depending on the gravity. Your mass is constant.

On the moon, you weight less than on earth, even if your mass is the same, because there is a smaller gravitational effect.

 

[ILPPendant]

the thought experiment is, what happens if the sun just suddenly disappeared. Well light from the sun takes 8 min to get here. Newton thought that if the sun disappeared, the earth would immediately leave its orbit.

But Einstein said that since nothing can travel faster than light, then the earth wouldn't immediatly leave orbit, and from that he found a point for his space time continuum

This was demonstrated experimentally a few years ago by an astronomy team who deduced, by observing the behaviour of one of Jupiter's moons, that gravity does indeed travel at the speed of light.

Although! There are experiments where a tiny atom or something is split in half. Then one half is transported quite a distance away from the other half. Then on one half, some action is performed (like spinning it or something). The other half IMMEDIATELY performs the exact same action. So somehow information is traveling faster than light.

Einstein supposedly derided quantum mechanics as "spooky action at a distance". I'm not sure what experiment you are referring to here (and I'm sure I'd have heard about FTL communication) but we do know that quantum entanglement does not travel beyond the speed of light. What it does do is provide a completely secure mode of communication, which is why cryptographers are so excited about it. Why is it secure? It's impossible to eavesdrop on it without disturbing the original transmission.

EDIT: Aaaaargh!!! Horrid typo! Must change!