Ask any question you want about Physics

originally posted by: ImaFungi
But that is relative to the earths rotation and linear velocity through space and the fact the earth has atmosphere.

Of course it's relative. Why do you think it's called the theory of general relativity?

Also, when things escape earths gravity, do they not enter into the suns gravity well, as we are always amidst suns gravity well?

Yes, but if you use the motion of the Earth around the sun as a starting point, something like 30 km/s, and add the 11km/s escape velocity of the Earth, the total velocity you get from an object going the same direction as Earth in its orbit is about 41km/s. You only need a little over 42km/s to escape the sun's gravity so relative to the Earth you only need a small increase in velocity above the ~11km/s. ~13km/s should be enough if you aim it in the right direction so it's added to Earth's motion, yielding about 43km/s total.

This relates to my thoughts, on the nature of the slope of the well;

If a baseball cannot be thrown off earth because every point on earth you throw the baseball away from the surface of earth, the ball is rolling up and then rolling down a slope/well wall we cannot see but must be there;

Ok, well a younger me would have asked; why doesnt neptune roll down the hill towards the sun; and the answer is because the sun is always moving; so this is the classic image of wake, neptune, the planets are surfing the suns wave/wake;

The answer is, Neptune does roll downhill toward the sun, which is why it moves in an elliptical orbit instead of shooting out of the solar system in a straight line.

But then I ask;

Related to the well and the bubble, 3 dimensional wake? The sun is a sphere, it must effect the medium all around itself equally (intuition says), so would this not mean there are lesser and greater pockets of gravity medium density, in proportion to the vertical axis from N to S of the sun in relation to the square of the distance?

That is to say a probe sent from earth, would experience greater gravity aligned with the suns N and S poles, then it would as it moved to be aligned with the suns equator?

Do you get what I am asking here? Do you see this intrigue?

I get the inverse square law part, but I never did get this vertical axis N-S idea of yours and I still don't. Neither the sun nor the Earth is a perfect sphere, and both bulge a little more at the equator than at the poles due to their rotation, resulting in a gravitational field which is not spherically symmetrical but it's not clear to me that this irregularity is what you're talking about. It's measurable but not really that large of a deviation from spherical symmetry of the gravitational field (something like 0.3% variation for Earth and the oblateness of the sun is much smaller than that).

If you're measuring the distance 0.2AU from the center of the sun to spacecraft A which is above the sun's north pole, and spacecraft B which is above the sun's equator, you're saying spacecraft A would experience greater gravity but you don't explain why. I think it would be spacecraft B because the sun's oblateness is due to its rotation which means it bulges a little at the equator, meaning there's more mass at the equator:

science.nasa.gov...

"When we subtract the effect of the magnetic network, we get a 'true' measure of the sun's shape resulting from gravitational forces and motions alone," says Hudson. "The corrected oblateness of the non-magnetic sun is 8.01 +- 0.14 milli-arcseconds, near the value expected from simple rotation."

In other words, the sun's rotation makes it bulge at the equator so you have more mass there, so why do you think gravity would be stronger above the sun's poles? It doesn't make sense to me.

For satellites orbiting the Earth, same thing. At a given distance from Earth's center there's more mass at the Earth's equator because of the rotational bulge.

If you want to talk about effective gravity on Earth's SURFACE, then that's greater at the poles for two reasons, the lack of bulge means the radius isn't as great, and you don't feel lighter at the poles due to the Earth's rotation, but I don't think it makes any sense to try to apply these effects on the Earth's surface to the sun, which doesn't really have a solid surface like earth does.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Could you escape it if we just had a massive ladder?.
Or a space elevator?.

Not escape gravity, but you can put a sat into geosynchronous orbit if you have a tall .
enough ladder. Like an elevator to space

Is there a universal measurement such that comparison among length, mass, and time be possible?

a reply to: joshint
We've made a lot of progress in defining units that don't rely on standards. The benefit of this is any lab anywhere in the world can independently create the units for reference purposes.

However we have so far been unable to do this with mass, and we still rely on a mass standard to define a kilogram:

Here's a photo of the standard kilogram:
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/28a2af2cd02d.jpg[/atsimg]As that photo suggests it's not that easy to get to being inside all those bell jars, and they hardly ever allow access to that standard because of fears that someone using it might change it by scratching off a sliver or something. This is somewhat of a nightmare.

This article explains what they are trying to do to also convert the kilogram to a unit that no longer requires such a standard as has been done with other fundamental units such as the meter, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela:

The Search for a more perfect kilogram

Aside from a yearly ceremonial peek inside its vault, which can be unlocked only with three keys held by three different officials, the prototype goes unmolested for decades. Yet every 40 years or so, protocol requires that it be washed with alcohol, dried with a chamois cloth, given a steam bath, allowed to air dry, and then weighed against the freshly scrubbed national standards, all transported to France. It is also compared to six témoins (witnesses), nominally identical cylinders that are stored in the vault alongside the prototype. The instruments used to make these comparisons are phenomenally precise, capable of measuring differences of 0.0000001 percent, or one part in 1 billion. But comparisons since the 1940s have revealed a troublesome drift. Relative to the témoins and to the national standards, Le Grand K has been losing weight — or, by the definition of mass under the metric system, the rest of the universe has been getting fatter. The most recent comparison, in 1988, found a discrepancy as large as five-hundredths of a milligram, a bit less than the weight of a dust speck, between Le Grand K and its official underlings.

This state of affairs is intolerable to the guardians of weights and measures. “Something must be done,” says Terry Quinn, director emeritus of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, the governing body of the metric system. Since the early 1990s, Quinn has campaigned to redefine the kilogram based not on a physical prototype but on a constant of nature, something hardwired into the circuitry of the universe. In fact, of the seven fundamental metric units — the kilogram, meter, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela — only the kilogram is still dependent on a physical artifact. (The meter, for example, was redefined 30 years ago as the distance traveled by light in a given fraction of a second.)

However, as that article explains, if it was easy to get away from that troublesome kilogram standard, we would have already done it. It turns out to be not so easy to do, but it may still happen eventually. Read the article for more details.

Once you have all those units well defined, then you just need to ensure that you're making the measurements in the same reference frame (or else making the appropriate adjustments to translate between reference frames), since general relativity says things like length and time can change depending on which reference frame you're in.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
Yes, but if you use the motion of the Earth around the sun as a starting point, something like 30 km/s, and add the 11km/s escape velocity of the Earth, the total velocity you get from an object going the same direction as Earth in its orbit is about 41km/s. You only need a little over 42km/s to escape the sun's gravity so relative to the Earth you only need a small increase in velocity above the ~11km/s. ~13km/s should be enough if you aim it in the right direction so it's added to Earth's motion, yielding about 43km/s total.

I was more so attempting to point to not the nature of escape velocity from earth per say, but that once escaped from earth, a body is still unavoidably in the suns gravity well, and it is only debatable that any body of ours has ever left the suns gravity well, so all of our experimental comprehension of gravity is within the suns gravity well, even away from earth in outer space, compared to the presumably non gravity well average of gravity medium away from not only stars, but galaxies. This is why this acknowledgement led me to think that something about this was related to dark matter and energy but thats another convo.

I get the inverse square law part, but I never did get this vertical axis N-S idea of yours and I still don't.

What I mean by this is;

First it helps to however impossible it is, attempt to give you mind some leeway, in comprehending the size of the sun, the distance from its N to S pole; even though for our minds sake, we will scale it down and I can use something like a basket ball as a perfect approximational tool.

Well, I say what I say, because considering the well 2d in proportion to the powers of the number, give you images like that graph you posted, and that can throw you off from reality;

You have to start considering how the gravity medium might exist 3d (4d), if you want to progress towards comprehending truth.

To start with the simplest crudest analogy and then lets see why it does not relate to reality, and how the analogy must be altered to more closely relate to reality;

Imagine a fish tank the size of a room the shape of a cube, full of marbles;

Imagine we squeeze a basketball into the center of this room;

Now right off the bat, if we considered that the room was purely dense with this ungiving material of marble, that we couldnt even get the basketball in;

A change we might make to the thought experiment, is that the marbles must have give (I suppose that would mean they must not be marble), the area of their bodies, must be able to compress, if force is applied on an area, the area must be able to become denser;

Now lets assume the universe is not a closed system, so lets assume this fish tank sized room is not a closed system for a moment;

So we squeeze our basketball into the middle, and some of the marbles expand outward in space, or over flow out of the room, or the room gets bigger;

In either scenario, there will be marbles touching the surface of the basketball;

What then is different about the marbles touching the surface, to the marbles square of the distance away from the center of the basketball?

Where is the geometry alteration?

Now to make things closer to scale, let me acknowledge how bad the basketball size to marble size, is in relation to sun size compared to graviton size.

So in your mind scale up the basketball and scale down the marble until you are satisfied, and tell me if any insights come to mind that make a difference in our conundrum.

This is what I will say for starters, and lets see if we can work toward a better understanding of how the gravity field might exist.

I acknowledge that the basketball might not be a perfectly dense object, thus there are marbles within it, and passing through it;

So if that is closer to truth we must work towards incorporating that insight.

a reply to: ImaFungi







One caveat at the end - yes it works, but that's no reason that an extraordinary discovery could not be made just by asking a question and going through the process of discovery.

Are we living inside a black hole?

a reply to: Phantom423

I am so very thankful for your helpful efforts and I will take more time to digest what you have written and explore what you have made, but I just need to point out what seems to be an unfortunate misunderstanding that I noticed while reading your response, while it is awesome what you have done, I can only wish for your sake you would have forced me to clarify so you would not have taken so much time out to potential, I dont want to be harsh but, miss what I was getting at, hopefully your efforts are salvageable regardless.

I did not intend for it to be interpreted as an actual fish tank and basketball and marbles on earth.

I only attempted to use the general notions of 'room/area', 'basketball/star/massive body', 'marbles/gravity medium/gravity field';

As an independent abstraction, because what I am most interested in is how must the material of the gravity field exist, and how must it mechanistically (physically) interact with mass, the interaction between which, is what we term the event of gravity.

So I am sorry but I was imagining those elements, as if I were the creator or re creator or as a scientist is reverse engineerer, of the universe;

Trying to think about if I had a blank canvas, and a palate of any sort of elements (elements in the sense of items, not elements in the sense of atoms) I could think of how I might place analogous elements together in order to scalabley mimic the elements of nature that exist together to produce the phenomenon we term gravity. So that I might most fundamentally comprehend the general mechanics of nature.

a reply to: Arbitrageur

Hello. I think the question was this: is there a way to express other units in terms of seconds? I was thinking about a geometrized unit system. More specifically, can we express length or mass in seconds? Thank you.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
I was more so attempting to point to not the nature of escape velocity from earth per say, but that once escaped from earth, a body is still unavoidably in the suns gravity well, and it is only debatable that any body of ours has ever left the suns gravity well

You can't escape the gravitation of any object because you can't travel faster than the speed of light and that's probably the speed gravity travels at.

However if you propel an object away from the gravitational field, it's a simple calculation to determine if the object will fall back down or not. If it falls back down, we say it hasn't escaped. If it never falls back down, we say the object has exceeded the escape velocity. It's still in the gravitational field and will continue to slow down as a result, but it will never slow down enough to fall back if it exceeded the escape velocity. This is what we mean by escape velocity.

The fact we know how to calculate escape velocity and that some of our spacecraft exceed it allows us to be confident some of our probes like voyager and pioneer will continue traveling outside the solar system, probably long after the Earth has ceased to exist (It may be swallowed up by the sun's red giant phase in 5 billion years though that's not certain).

I still have no idea why you think gravity would be stronger at the sun's poles. Your clarification does nothing to clarify your idea to me. I explained clearly why the sun has more mass at the equator and you've also said nothing to refute that.

originally posted by: DiggerDogg
Are we living inside a black hole?

According to the peer reviewed paper mentioned in this article, maybe:

Are we living inside a black hole?

But I doubt it.

originally posted by: Direne
a reply to: Arbitrageur

Hello. I think the question was this: is there a way to express other units in terms of seconds? I was thinking about a geometrized unit system. More specifically, can we express length or mass in seconds?

As I said so far mass is the one type of measurement that still uses a standard. If the new measurement of mass is ever adopted, which at some point it probably will be, then a second will be a part of how the mass unit is derived and we won't use the old mass standard, though we will use transfer standards.

This diagram shows how the units relate to each other now:

kilogram

If the kilogram is redefined using the watt balance, then the second will also feed into the kilogram definition, in a rather complex way. It won't be as simple as the way the second is used to define a meter.

The second has been part of how we define length since 1983...look up the definition of a metre on Wikipedia. It's how far light travels in a vacuum in a certain fraction of a second.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
You can't escape the gravitation of any object because you can't travel faster than the speed of light and that's probably the speed gravity travels at.

However if you propel an object away from the gravitational field, it's a simple calculation to determine if the object will fall back down or not. If it falls back down, we say it hasn't escaped. If it never falls back down, we say the object has exceeded the escape velocity. It's still in the gravitational field and will continue to slow down as a result, but it will never slow down enough to fall back if it exceeded the escape velocity. This is what we mean by escape velocity.

Sorry, you still mistook what I was pointing at.

There is area between galaxies.

There is area between stars.

There is area between the sun and the earth.

There is area between the earths surface and the atmosphere of earth furthest from earths surface.

The average density of the gravity field, or the geometry of the gravity field is different amidst all those different areas.

(I can ask; would the earths gravity be different, if the earth was in an area in between galaxies?)

What I was pointing to with what I said, which is what you are responding to, which is what I am attempting to clarify what I was pointing to;

That when an object leaves earth, it is still in the suns gravity well.

I wont state as a statement, but to be humble state as a question; Are all our measurements of gravity on earth 'tainted'/slighted/relative (as in not the purest measurement of an object in relation to the gravity field it self) because all our measurements of an object in relation to earths gravity is also measurement of that object in relation to the suns gravity?

The earth make a well in a well;

The well is the well of something;

The something is the material medium gravity field;

Away from all mass, (besides the reverberation of waves, which I predict is what and why dark energy and dark matter) the material medium gravity field must be at its most natural and average density and geometry, or its least wellness as is compared to when increasing size mass comes into this area of non wellness, it creates its relatable well.

I still have no idea why you think gravity would be stronger at the sun's poles. Your clarification does nothing to clarify your idea to me. I explained clearly why the sun has more mass at the equator and you've also said nothing to refute that.

Did you follow at all what I was attempting with the 'room, basketball, marbles' contemplation?

Let me try another approach;

A taught 2d sheet for you;

You take your hand on top of a basketball and press the ball down into the sheet;

Then take a pencil and place it at the equator of the ball horizontally;

Then place it at the S pole horizontally;

Will you not notice that it would take this measurement of incremental length of any kind, a longer distance to touch the substance of sheet at the equator than at the poles?

originally posted by: ImaFungi
I wont state as a statement, but to be humble state as a question; Are all our measurements of gravity on earth 'tainted'/slighted/relative (as in not the purest measurement of an object in relation to the gravity field it self) because all our measurements of an object in relation to earths gravity is also measurement of that object in relation to the suns gravity?

Yes and no. Yes because the raw measurements we make include gravitational effects from other objects in the solar system, primarily the sun and the moon. No because we know how much the sun and the moon affect those measurements, so to calculate the effect of the Earth's gravity, we make the appropriate adjustments.


Variation in Earth's gravity

Temporal variations of the Earth's gravity field are caused by a variety of complex phenomena including lunar-solar tides, atmospheric and oceanic mass redistribution, variations in groundwater storage and snow cover/ice thickness, earthquakes, post-glacial rebound in the Earth's mantle, long-term mantle convection and core activities, and other geophysical phenomena.

On that list, gravitational attraction of the sun and moon are well-understood. Variations in groundwater storage and some other factors are not as simple and easy to calculate or predict.

Will you not notice that it would take this measurement of incremental length of any kind, a longer distance to touch the substance of sheet at the equator than at the poles?

Sorry I don't follow at all. What incremental length? the pencil at the equator will never touch the sheet of paper at the south pole. I don't understand the purpose of the sheet of paper in your example, or the pencil.

The radius of the sun is greater at the equator (compared to the poles), which is why gravity would be stronger above the equator. The distortion of the sun's shape due to it's rotation is called oblateness.

originally posted by: DiggerDogg
Are we living inside a black hole?

I've wondered the same thing. I'm not sure how you'd prove it one way or the other. Maybe the microwave background is just infall radiation.

a reply to: ImaFungi

No problem. Just trying to explore your ideas. No doubt gravity is an interesting topic. You might take a look at these lectures - they are mathematics-oriented, but Leonard is an outstanding teacher and you may gleen some information here: theoreticalminimum.com...

a reply to: Phantom423

Thanks;

The simplest way I can think of to highlight my wondering about gravity is to imagine a stationary planet away from all other massive bodies (but in the universe, so amidst the gravity field);

To consider that this planet has no atmosphere so its physical hard surface is its physical body limit;

And to consider throwing a ball upward while standing anywhere on this planet;

What physically will be 'touching' (as thats what physical interaction implies and demands) the ball as it comes back down?

Once comprehending this, it might be thought of how the planets motion might alter the notion and effects of gravity;

For instance, if a rotating planet also rotates the gravity field it is in, giving the gravity field relative mass and therefore more gravity, or if the rotating planet is increasing the planets relative mass and therefore that is why it is said the association with stronger force of gravity;

The gravity field is some physically connected substance;

A planet is some physically connected substance;

How when a planet is amidst the gravity field (seemingly always), does the gravity field respond?

How can a sphere in a medium, force a gradation of change as distance away from the surface of the sphere is increased?

Why is not all the material displaced by the spheres presence in the local region of medium, not pooled up at the spheres surface?

That was analogized in the room of marbles by if the room was sealed tight or if the marbles could over flow;

If the collective mass of the gravity medium was compressed from all angles outward in, (as the marbles would be in the sealed room);

Then we would imagine a sphere in a medium, displacing the medium, and since the medium being displaced would have no where to go, it would pool up at the surface;

Or, perhaps the pooling or tension (suppose thats where the word tensor came from) would be released, as in the bunching or pooling of displaced medium would not pool, but ripple or leak or propagate ever outward from the point of displacement,

Of course this is all extremely tricky, like catching lightning in a bottle, because I am trying to think absolutely purely about these fundamentalities, such as 'ok we have the gravity medium, lets imagine if a massive body magically appeared in it, what would happen' but the truth is that all these parts are always moving, and perhaps were born moving, and perhaps they need to be moving to do what they do, but I dont know, I think if we just think of every possible option we will come across the more and hopefully most likely ones.

a reply to: ImaFungi

I think I figured out what your asking tell me if this is what your talking about. Gravity can be combined to make larger gravity wells. We really don't see the effect in out solar system the suns just to masive.

But galaxies form clusters these clusters rotates. Basically each galaxy creates a larger gravity well . These galaxies have a center of gravity and spin around nothing. There mass creates a center of gravity. Now imagine a larger scales galaxy clusters are known once again to circle each other and they two will have a point they revolve around. However if you were trying to figure out if there is some kind of pressure being applied instead of pull. The fact that galaxies circle a point with nothing there eliminates that theory.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur
Yes and no. Yes because the raw measurements we make include gravitational effects from other objects in the solar system, primarily the sun and the moon. No because we know how much the sun and the moon affect those measurements, so to calculate the effect of the Earth's gravity, we make the appropriate adjustments.

How is the suns mass calculated? By the square of the distance of its gravity effect, that would seem circularly logical?

Well anyway;

We agree that the material gravity field/medium exists independent of planets and stars?

That it is planets and stars interacting with the material gravity field/medium which allows the effects of gravity to occur?

So the material gravity medium exists as an independent material medium, if it truly exists at all points in space, its total mass must be mind boggling;

And that makes one wonder about the central black hole, how it is effecting the gravity medium of the galaxy;

As if an analogy could be made as the central black hole was the sun and the stars that make up the galaxy were the planets of the solar system;

And so again, are we also in the central black holes gravity well? The earths, which is in the suns, which is in the central black holes well?

So beyond the edge of the spiral galaxy, where there are no more stars that can be said to be swirling with/as the galaxy, is the gravity field at its average? (well there is where my predictions of dark energy come into play);

I am trying to wonder, is there such a thing as the primal average density of gravity medium? Is there a square mile in the universe in which 0 gravity medium exists (not 0 well slope, but where there is a gap), like an analogy would be if in the middle of the ocean there was just a parting of the sea?

What is the force which binds the gravity medium, which keeps it taught and tensor like?

Do the particles of the gravity medium 'swash and swatch' over one another, or is it always the same chain link of particles? The difference between being able to move the balls around over and past one another in a mcdonalds ball pit, and it every ball was superglued together so that could not be done.

Sorry I don't follow at all. What incremental length? the pencil at the equator will never touch the sheet of paper at the south pole. I don't understand the purpose of the sheet of paper in your example, or the pencil.

I never implied a sheet of paper, I implied a sheet like a bed sheet;

Imagine placing a basketball on a taught bed sheet suspended off the ground but held taughtly by all 4 corners and sides stapled to legs, like legs of a table with this bed sheet as the table part;

Using your hand, push the basketball downwards;

Take a ruler and place it so the 0 cm end is horizontally/perpendicularly touching the south pole;

Take the ruler and place it so the 0 cm end is horizontally/perpendicularly touching the equator;

Is there a difference in noted length on the ruler as to where (and we have to use a magic ruler for this, imagine the ruler is made of laser beam) the ruler makes contact with the sheet, in accordance to both trials?

The radius of the sun is greater at the equator (compared to the poles), which is why gravity would be stronger above the equator. The distortion of the sun's shape due to it's rotation is called oblateness.

My focus is less upon the the reaction or action or activity of gravity, and more about the mechanism; what mass is doing to the mass of gravity medium and how the material mass of gravity medium is composed and maintained as a medium, is my interest here.

Gravity is not what we are told,
Gravity is something we observe and something is wrong with the formula.

The calculated density of comet 67P is 0.4
we know now it's a rock and not a snowball therefore kick the gravity formula or at least redefine the acting forces or something...

a reply to: ImaFungi

Well than you might be disappointed some believe gravity ro be an illusion.Meaning it's not a force but an emergent property of matter. Let's see to explain we understand temperature but it really doesn't exist It is an a mergent property of energy in an atom. This would imply gravity and inertia are entropic. Me personally I find this interesting because it does seem like in the end entropy is the order of business. Yes that's a joke but at the very least it's a good idea to start looking at gravity in a new light. We have been stuck since newton. Einstein improved on it but both newton and Einsteins theory work equally as well in most situations.


mobile.nytimes.com...

originally posted by: ImaFungi
We agree that the material gravity field/medium exists independent of planets and stars?

That it is planets and stars interacting with the material gravity field/medium which allows the effects of gravity to occur?

So the material gravity medium exists as an independent material medium, if it truly exists at all points in space, its total mass must be mind boggling;

I never agreed to such a thing, and it seems to me like gravity is very much dependent on the masses from which it emanates.

Imagine placing a basketball on a taught bed sheet suspended off the ground but held taughtly by all 4 corners and sides stapled to legs, like legs of a table with this bed sheet as the table part;

Using your hand, push the basketball downwards;

Take a ruler and place it so the 0 cm end is horizontally/perpendicularly touching the south pole;

Take the ruler and place it so the 0 cm end is horizontally/perpendicularly touching the equator;

Is there a difference in noted length on the ruler as to where (and we have to use a magic ruler for this, imagine the ruler is made of laser beam) the ruler makes contact with the sheet, in accordance to both trials?

What's the point of the sheet? Why not just put the ball on the ground, and sit on it? Does the sheet have some different properties from the ground in that it will stretch, so as to prevent the same kind of deformation of the ball you would get if you sat on it? If so then you can't say what the effects will be without defining the properties of the sheet.

My focus is less upon the the reaction or action or activity of gravity, and more about the mechanism; what mass is doing to the mass of gravity medium and how the material mass of gravity medium is composed and maintained as a medium, is my interest here.

It's certainly a good question, one of the first questions I had as a little boy and it's never been satisfactorily answered for me. Newton said he didn't know why gravity worked, he merely described how it worked. Einstein described it better but even relativity still leaves the "why" question unanswered.

originally posted by: dragonridr
a reply to: ImaFungi

Well than you might be disappointed some believe gravity ro be an illusion.Meaning it's not a force but an emergent property of matter. Let's see to explain we understand temperature but it really doesn't exist It is an a mergent property of energy in an atom. This would imply gravity and inertia are entropic. Me personally I find this interesting because it does seem like in the end entropy is the order of business. Yes that's a joke but at the very least it's a good idea to start looking at gravity in a new light. We have been stuck since newton. Einstein improved on it but both newton and Einsteins theory work equally as well in most situations.


mobile.nytimes.com...

"All models are wrong, some are useful" -George Box

That model doesn't seem to be useful if nobody can understand it. I had a little trouble getting your link to work, this fixed version of your link should work better:

Gravity

At a workshop in Texas in the spring, Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley, was asked to lead a discussion on the paper.

“The end result was that everyone else didn’t understand it either, including people who initially thought that did make some sense to them,” he said in an e-mail message.

“In any case, Erik’s paper has drawn attention to what is genuinely a deep and important question, and that’s a good thing,” Dr. Bousso went on, “I just don’t think we know any better how this actually works after Erik’s paper.

Having said that, until we have an answer, I'm not going to be too quick to dismiss any ideas on the topic including the idea that gravity could be an emergent property of matter. But for that explanation to make sense we'd have to understand how it emerges the same way we understand how temperature is an emergent property, but we don't, and I don't think Verlinde explained it, at least not very well based on that quote from your source. Even Dr Robertson, who wrote the paper on which Verlinde's paper is based, doesn't understand Verlinde's paper.