What is gravity?

[Pablo]

What causes gravity?

No Newtonian classical physics descriptions allowed. We know the effects of gravity, but what IS gravity?

Math helpful, but not necessary. Not saying I have the answer here, btw

 

[Mike242GT]

Pablo, what's got into you this morning? Poker, gravity, what's next?

And I know you're a scientist; I suspect you're sandbagging us here. Not sure what kind of a definition you're looking for; Newtonian, Einsteinian, L. I. Schiff, Brans-Dicke? How about an attractive force "caused" by mass. Anything with mass will have and be affected by gravity. No? Or did you want Cavendish's gravitational constant computed to ten decimal places?

[ February 03, 2004, 09:44 AM: Message edited by: Mike242GT ]

 

[MarkC]

There is no gravity; the world just sucks! Which fits in nicely with my Theory of the Great Vacuum, which states that everything sucks!
Seriously, What I know is not much, just that it's the attraction of the mass of a body for another body nearby. Bsides Newton's laws, there are Kepler's Laws, but I guess that would be classical descriptions, right?
The original word means the seriousness, importance, or significance of something.

 

[Pablo]

Again, I'm not saying I have the answer, more like humankind doesn't have the answer!

I'm just a poor hack. If I knew what I was doing, I'd be rich - this came as a paraphrase from my father ("If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?)

My qi has been off a bit, too much superbowel junk food, anyhow as I drifted off to sleep last night the following occurred to me (very briefly as just a clue):

Einstein's special and general relativity theories say basically as an object approaches the speed of light the mass approaches infinity. All objects are moving....like it or not.....from some some relative fixed position.....then I just remember something about Asian girls and lingerie.

 

[MarkC]

quote:

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Originally posted by novadude:

quote:

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My wife prefers black...or nothing.

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Your wife digs lingere-clad asian girls?!?

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My wife IS a lingerie-clad Asian girl.

 

[Stooge]

Pablo:

Search the .net for "String Theory." This will help you understand the recent convergence of modern and classical physics with respect to Newtonian Laws and Einstien's Relativity offerings.

 

[novadude]

quote:

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My wife IS a lingerie-clad Asian girl.

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Well there is certainly nothing wrong with that!

 

[MarkC]

This is true.
Hmmm. I think I'll leave work early....

 

[n8wvi]

A force that warps space-time, such that two objects in the same 'warp' are attracted to eachother. Like two kids on a trampoline. Far apart, little affect, but when one gets close to the 'warped' area the other is creating in the elastic, he's drawn that way. How this force is created and maintained by mass is WAY beyond the capabilities of a software engineer!

 

[Pablo]

P branes is not an insult.

String theory seems good but I don't buy into some of the made up particle stuff. Even some of the massive particle stuff.

The trampoline warp thing is maybe an OK anology -as a mass moves faster the more it stretches the fabric or more appropriatately it's mass gets larger and it stretches the "fabric" more....

Speaking of silk fabrics....

 

[Al]

Gravity in a nutshell is one of the problems that doesn't quite fit in the latest Quantum theory. As was mentioned-the "String Theory" is promising. But they ain't there yet.

 

[cryptokid]

i think gravity is just magnetism on a larger scale. anything given enough force can become magnetic, even water and air. the mood and earth are big magnets which pull the tide around the world. small magnets are not really magnetic but are infact really gravity modifiers.

i saw some discovery channel show on gravity and thats what one of the eggheads said. i dont know if it is true or not but it seems to make sence.

 

[garyb80]

Some physicists think that gravity is the polar opposite of matter. Some think anti-matter is the polar opposite of matter. I think I'll leave work early, have a beer, and think about Mark's wife in something skimpy.

 

[MolaKule]

quote:

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What color lingerie do most naked Asian girls wear?"

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Nude women don't wear lingerie.

Some define gravity as the perturbation of space surrounding a mass.

Gravity is a force which can be thought of as a field mediated by Gravitons, or quantum mechanical gravity particles.

Some new theories indicate that when Leptons (particles which participate in the electromagnetic field) interact with gravitons, then gravity or space is perturbed.

 

[MarkC]

quote:

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Originally posted by garyb80:
Some physicists think that gravity is the polar opposite of matter. Some think anti-matter is the polar opposite of matter. I think I'll leave work early, have a beer, and think about Mark's wife in something skimpy.

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[garyb80]

Sorry Mark,

No offense intended. It's just when people start talking about women in skimpy clothes, my mind gets cloudy.

As far as gravity being the polar opposite of matter, here is an interesting quote from Hawking; "The total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero." (Hawking, 1988, 129) [thanks to Ross King for this quote]

 

[TheLoneRanger]

quote:

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quote:
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What color lingerie do most naked Asian girls wear?"
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Nude women don't wear lingerie.

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MolaKule wins!

 

[Pablo]

Thanks guys....I'm no closer to my antigravity device, but it was fun....the Hawking quote was good.

I'll think next time before I write:

quote:

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...something about Asian girls and lingerie.

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I think the wife is calling.....glad I didn't ask Mark for any photos.

sorry...

 

[Scotto]

That force which attracts one moving object to another moving object?

 

[TheLoneRanger]

What color lingerie do most naked Asian girls wear?

If we can figure out what gravity actually is in this thread, then it's a simple matter to reverse-engineer an anti-gravity machine. After that, the Universe is ours!

Come on guys, think!