(Brain storming) Our theory on gravity makes no sense.

I was sitting down at work today and for some reason I starting thinking about gravity. What we know about gravity or think we know, makes no sense what so ever.


How does gravity work?
You feel the effects of gravity everyday without even knowing it!
­There are two forces in nature that we experience every day: gravity and magnetism. You may have magnets on your refrigerator, and you know that a magnet will attract a refrigerator with a certain amount of force. The force depends on the strength of the magnet and the distance between the magnet and the metal. You also know that magnets have two poles -- north and south. Either pole will attract iron or steel equally well, north will attract south, and like poles will repel one another.Gravity is the other common force. Newton was the first person to study it seriously, and he came up with the law of universal gravitation:

Each particle of matter attracts every other particle with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
The standard formula for gravity is:

Gravitational force = (G * m1 * m2) / (d2)
where G is the gravitational constant, m1 and m2 are the masses of the two objects for which you are calculating the force, and d is the distance between the centers of gravity of the two masses.

­G has the value of 6.67 x 10E-8 dyne * cm2/gm2. That means that if you put two 1-gram objects 1 centimeter apart from one another, they will attract each other with the force of 6.67 x 10E-8 dyne. A dyne is equal to about 0.001 gram weight, meaning that if you have a dyne of force available, it can lift 0.001 grams in Earth's gravitational field. So 6.67 x 10E-8 dyne is a miniscule force. When you deal with massive bodies like the Earth, however, which has a mass of 6E+24 kilograms (see this Question of the Day), it adds up to a rather powerful force. It is also interesting to think about the fact that every atom attracts every other atom in the universe in some small way!

Einstein later came along and redefined gravity, so there are now two models -- Newtonian and Einsteinian. Einsteinian gravitational theory has features that allow it to predict the motion of light around very massive objects and several other interesting phenomena. According to Encyclopedia Britannica:

The general theory of relativity addresses the problem of gravity and that of nonuniform, or accelerated, motion. In one of his famous thought-experiments, Einstein showed that it is not possible to distinguish between an inertial frame of reference in a gravitational field and an accelerated frame of reference. That is, an observer in a closed space capsule who found himself pressing down on his seat could not tell whether he and the capsule were at rest in a gravitational field, or whether he and the capsule were undergoing acceleration. From this principle of equivalence, Einstein moved to a geometric interpretation of gravitation. The presence of mass or concentrated energy causes a local curvature in the space-time continuum. This curvature is such that the inertial paths of bodies are no longer straight lines but some form of curved (orbital) path, and this acceleration is what is called gravitation.
If certain assumptions and simplifications are made, Einstein's equations handle Newtonian gravity as a subset.
The question of why atoms attract one another is still not understood. The goal is to combine gravity, electromagnetism and strong and weak nuclear forces into a single unified theory.
science.howstuffworks.com...

One thought that comes to mind is if magnetism is involved and opposite poles repel each other, wouldnt we actually have objects floating in mid air?

continued........

Another thought that came to mind is magnatism is only attracted to metals.

These are just things that started rattling my brain.....

Just started this thread for brainstorming in this subject, so feel free to due the same if you would like.

onpoint

reply to post by onpoint


Interesting article on non-metalic magnets.


www.sciencedaily.com...

wow...thanks for sharing that!

Its just amazing how little we know.

Just to clarify, Newton didn't have a theory of gravitation. All he did was to describe, mathematically, how gravity behaved. He offered no theories of why it did so, what was going on. Just the math.

Einstein offered the explanation that gravity was an effect of the curvature of space-time caused by massive objects. But mass was also an effect of this curvature - so the bottom line was that gravity was an effect of the curvature of space. He didn't redefine gravity. He *did* offer equations that were accurate over a wider range of conditions than Newton's original gravity equations. For ordinary masses and speeds, the difference is insignificant. At great masses or speeds, Einstein's equations are more accurate.

In quantum theory, there is some thinking that gravitational force is mediated by the exchange of particles. As far as I know, the search is still on for a hypothetical particle called a "graviton".

I think comparisons to electromagnetic forces are treacherous and not helpful. In electromagnetic forces, like repels like; opposites attract. In gravity, "like" seems to attract "like", and there is no known "opposite". There is probably little to be gained by trying to analogize from electromagnetic phenomena to gravity.

OP,

You are absolutely correct. We don't really know what gravity is, we also don't really know what magnetism is, pi, quantum mechanics and so on. We are observers, we see the effect of a cause and scribble it down on books and lay claim to knowledge. Probably the worse offenders in my opinion is the areas of the pharmaceutical, genetic and biological sciences.

One thing I've always hated as a child is the countless equations, rules and laws etc. We were never really TAUGHT as to why things are they way they are. We never really questions why they are that way. A few months ago I made a post about the possibility that the value of pi could theoretically be changing. Many of the responses I got back were to the effect of "no, pi is a constant". A textbook answer for a very large expanding and cooling universe. A universe that at one time was very small and very hot and very different...

Anyway back to the topic of gravity. My current line of thinking is that the universe is either going to fizzle away in pure energy or collapse back into itself as pure mass. It's been theorized that black holes can "leak" so my gut is telling me that we are moving the way of fizzling away into energy. In either case gravity plays a key role. There is also the possibilities that there are multiple universes but I'll leave that for another topic.

Obsidience

We do not even know what "Space" is or weather "Time" is a perception or dimension.

If you broke our solar system off of the rest of the universe and bring it to a dead stop would gravity exist then?

What is space like in between Galaxies where no galaxies gravity effects you. Could you reach zero momentum out there outside of any large gravity well? Would a spacecraft move faster out of gravities pull?

It seems we kinda of live in a huge ocean under water being carried by its currents but cannot understand what water is. What is the speed of light under water?

i can give u my view on gravity and for some reason i cannot explain this seems to me more plausible.
Think of a large tank of water and imagine that water to be spacetime or base energy. and now imagine that water wants to repel.
Now lets put some ice cubes in theres to represent at least atoms or matter. (reason i chose water and ice because they are the same thing with a different vibrational energy. try to imagine the same with the universe).
when an ice cube moves through the water it makes a wake or wave(this is how i can come to terms with dual wave particle)
now place 2 ice cubes at any point (ignore the boundaries of the tank), due to the repelling nature of the water the side of the cube that does not face its counterpart will fell more pushed from that side.
The side of the cube that faces its other will fell less pushed and so the 2 will eventually meet. This is how i see gravity.
Sorry if my explaination might confuse some ppl but i rushed this explaination