/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.5547143]

What is gravity and how does it work? I'm not looking for the answer of "gravity is the force that keeps us on the ground" or some crap like that. I'm looking for what it's made of or exactly what causes it. I would also like to know how it's measured.

[Anonymous No.5547146]

>>5547143

have fun

Fg = G (m1*m2)/(d^2)

[Anonymous No.5547155]

>>5547146
OP here. I should perhaps say that I am in no way a genius. I am not, however, a complete idiot. I will understand if somebody were to explain that equation to me. Or perhaps if they explained it in some other way.

[Anonymous No.5547160]

>>5547155
probably helpful for you:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/grav.html

tongue in cheek answer:
http://www.if.ufrgs.br/oei/santiago/fis02012/FirstCourseGR.pdf

[Anonymous No.5547163]

The essence of gravity is that it is a relation of substance in space that has a noticeable an calculable effect. The origin of this force is very much a fundamental question philosophizing upon reality that no one has as of yet provided conclusive proof one way or another about how this is done. Existing explanations are all fairly weak and are still operating in a very juvenile imaginative way for lack of the truth.

[Anonymous No.5547168]

>>5547160
Ok, I'll check both of those out, thank you.
>>5547163
That makes sense, thank you.

[Anonymous No.5547175]

The easiest way to imagine gravity is to pretend that 3D space is actually a flat blanket. Whenever u place a mass, eg a ball, on the blanket, it will sink, creating an indent. So whenever u place an object that is smaller then the ball, it will roll into the indent which and hit the ball.

Gravity is a very difficult thing to imagine because its in 3D. It is basically the resultant force of mass and its ability to contract space-time around it.

[Anonymous No.5547178]

No one knows what the most fundamental interpretation of gravity is. Best we've got is a description of gravity as a distortion of space time that causes straight lines to bend towards massive objects. That's General Relativity.

[Anonymous No.5547185]

Continued from 5547175

So like the others have said, no one has conclusively explain how gravity can effect objects at a distance, it just does. All we have now are observations of what happens, and from there we have come up with equations to predict what will happen. Why it happens, no one yet knows for sure.

[Anonymous No.5547189]

>>5547185
>>5547178
Ok, it's making a bit more sense to me now. I wish I could know exactly what it is and how it works, but it's something of a twisted comfort to know that nobody else know either.

[Anonymous No.5547210]

>>5547189
Haha. That's true, people are like "this is what gravity does"
but what is gravity?
"nope"

Anyways, here are some 3D representation of gravity i found while i was writing a paper on it.

Source: hxxp://library.thinkquest.org/27585/what/frame_what7.html

[Anonymous No.5547213]

>>5547210
and
hxxp://www.universetoday.com/87983/astronomy-without-a-telescope-a-photons-point-of-view/

[Anonymous No.5547219]

The simple answer is no one knows what gravity is. We only know the acceleration caused by gravity.

[Anonymous No.5547220]

>>5547213
I see! Well thank you.

[Anonymous No.5547223]

We don't know. Theoretically, gravitons.

[Anonymous No.5547224]

What answer were you expecting? No seriously, make up an imaginary answer, which if it were true, would answer "what gravity is."

[Anonymous No.5547225]

If "I don't know" isn't good enough for you, there's no shortage of ideas. You can check out loop quantum gravity and string theory for some ideas on what gravity might be.

[Anonymous No.5547226]

>>5547220
You are very welcome, yes, indeed.

For science.

[metric !1tensorX8Q No.5547228]

In physics (and in all science really) the only way you can explain *why* a theory is correct is with a better, more general theory. Right now our best theory of gravity is General Relativity, so "why questions" about it cannot be answered. You will likely find this video enlightening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMFPe-DwULM

Newton proposed his Law of Gravitation, which says that massive objects experience a force on them due to all other massive objects. Fast forward a few hundred years and we end up with General Relativity. GR tells us that the geometry of spacetime is related to matter by the qualitative equation:

curvature = energy-momentum density

In curved spacetime, objects follow Newton's First Law: "if an object experiences no net force then it follows a straight line with constant velocity." But we have to extend our idea of "straight" into a curved spacetime. The "straightest" possible line you can draw on a curved surface is called a geodesic. All objects with no net force on them will follow geodesics. This creates the "illusion" that there is some force pulling massive objects towards other massive object, when all they're really doing is following straight paths in a curved spacetime.

[Anonymous No.5547485]

also interesting to analyze, Ive read a paper but I don't remember where... does the effects of gravity move faster than the speed of light?

[Anonymous No.5547543]

>>5547143

gravity is spin created by energy from manipulating the fabric of space through mass

the spin has power to pull down objects into the center of mass as of on earth or in a loop as of in space when it reaches an equilibrium

[Anonymous No.5547604]

>>5547143
In current views it can be figured out as some space distortion, which is related to curvature term in the action integral

[Anonymous No.5547629]

Gravity is NOT a force, so looking at it as such will only mislead you. Gravity is an affect of the travel time of the message. Think of each thing in existence, now pretend it sends out messages to every other thing to let everything else know what it's doing. What we call space, is really just a difference in the update interval between each thing. All possible intervals are represented.(1/1,1/2,1/3,1/4, etc. etc. etc. forever.) Things that are 'close' will get updated faster than things that are 'further' away. This is really just saying that one half is bigger than one fourth, or two feet away is closer than four feet away. What reality does is given two different options of saying something, it ALWAYS chooses the option that uses the least information, or lowest total 'distance' to represent the relationship. The combination of all things using all subsets of update intervals with every other thing taken together looks like gravity. E.g. it takes less information to store the number of atoms in a planet when those atoms are close together, because the big bunch of atoms we call a planet is just the combination of least 'distance' between each atom locally. The update interval or 'distance' is literally how reality stores information. So things clump together because reality is optimizing itself, always. The most disturbing thing about this there is a mechanism for going the other direction, otherwise total 'distance' would already be zero. That mechanism is choice. Choice is a prerequisite to change. The reason this is disturbing is that there's a whole bunch of choice here, and it's not ours.

[transfer student F No.5547693]

>>5547629