Is Gravity Actually the Weakest Force?

This is a question, not a statement of fact. I can't imagaine I'm the first to consider this. So I'm assuming the math doesn't work, but here goes.



So, everyone knows gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces.

Those being :electromagnetism, the weak and strong nuclear forces and gravity.

The most common example I have heard is the paper clip one. Since a magnet the size of your pinkie can lift a paper clip with the whole worlds gravity pulling down. That means that electromagnetism is millions of times stronger then gravity.


Well, is distance figured into that equation?

Gravity may be weak, but goes on forever. That's why galaxies can still effect each other even with millions of light years seperating them. Hell, the gravity from a human body is incredibly weak, but hypothetically can still be felt at EVERY corner of the universe!

While electromagnetic fields are finite, but millions of times stronger.


Could figuring in the distance be the way to make all 4 forces equal? Kinda like a gallon of paint can in the gallon only covers about a square foot but the very same gallon can be spread over miles if spread thin enough. Either way it's the same amount of paint!


Assuming this is true, couldn't you use the equation to calculate the size of the universe? By using known objects and spreading out there gravity until it has the same "power level" as the other 3 forces???


Thoughts?

Whatever happened to the fifth fundamental force they claimed to find a few years back?

originally posted by: gspat
Whatever happened to the fifth fundamental force they claimed to find a few years back?

Well there's dark matter and energy, but those we can't observe directly. So they might not count.... I know in all the through the wormholes, the universe, and cosmos documentaries I've seen. They always say the 4 fundamental forces.

originally posted by: Entreri06

originally posted by: gspat
Whatever happened to the fifth fundamental force they claimed to find a few years back?

Well there's dark matter and energy, but those we can't observe directly. So they might not count.... I know in all the through the wormholes, the universe, and cosmos documentaries I've seen. They always say the 4 fundamental forces.

I definitely recall a TV news interview where they were talking to someone who was doing experimental crash testing. This person stated that he/his colleagues had discovered a fifth force, but it was so minute it had been extremely hard to find.

originally posted by: gspat

originally posted by: Entreri06

originally posted by: gspat
Whatever happened to the fifth fundamental force they claimed to find a few years back?

Well there's dark matter and energy, but those we can't observe directly. So they might not count.... I know in all the through the wormholes, the universe, and cosmos documentaries I've seen. They always say the 4 fundamental forces.

I definitely recall a TV news interview where they were talking to someone who was doing experimental crash testing. This person stated that he/his colleagues had discovered a fifth force, but it was so minute it had been extremely hard to find.

Might have found out they were wrong. Like the group who thought they clocked neutrinos going faster then light. It turned out they forgot to carry the 1 or some other BS.

I don't know, I was just moving rocks around the garden yesterday, many we had to roll because we couldn't pick them up. I don't consider gravity weak.

I think it's a great question; often wondered about this myself.

The strength of gravity is directly proportional to mass, so what criteria are used to determine its strength in relation to the other forces? The most powerful and destructive thing in the universe is a black hole where gravity is supposed to be infinite.

originally posted by: CJCrawley
I think it's a great question; often wondered about this myself.

The strength of gravity is directly proportional to mass, so what criteria are used to determine its strength in relation to the other forces? The most powerful and destructive thing in the universe is a black hole where gravity is supposed to be infinite.

I don't think infinite exists. I think it's just (JUST!) enough gravity to rip time/space making all the calculations go crazy!

Like once time space snaps, there no longer is a "math".

a reply to: Entreri06

i remember seeing a 'string theory' documentary years ago. CHeckin youtube now, it might've been 'the elegant universe'

It suggested, that all the forces, were / are equal ...
So ... in their example .. if you chuck a brick (or yourself) off a tall building .. gravity will pull your matter and the earths matter towards each other ... But, on impact if you will, it is electromagnetism that stops gravity in its tracks .. and stops the electromagnetic field of the matter from one object passing through the electromagnetic field of the other body .. at no point does matter actuall touch matter .. as much as it feels, and sounds like it does ...

so ... how they suggest gravity is balanced with the other forces, yet appears weaker, is, it starts off the same, but unlike the other strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity 'flows' into one of these other dimension that string theory / quantum physics suggests exists. So teh same amount of graivty exists as other forces, but is spread, or diluted, through one or more other dimensions, unlike the otehr forces. Which, if so, i am sure is behaving as its designed to, and is holding or binding the dimenstions together as they should be or the likes

youtu.be...
this is where he styarts his jump off the bulilding example ... 25m 48s

and then at some point forward in that same vid i reckon, they continue to suggest what i already said about it flowing to the other dimesnions.

heres anotehr vid where he speaks of something similar i think.

originally posted by: rickymouse
I don't know, I was just moving rocks around the garden yesterday, many we had to roll because we couldn't pick them up. I don't consider gravity weak.

The gravity of the entire Earth holding onto that rock was no match for your ability to roll it.

You: 1
Earth: 0

If Gravity is the weakest force, god knows what power the others have.

Remember all those sayings about a healing light, and light being used to heal?

www.newscientist.com...

Lasers can heal. Laser is light.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

There are three here that I can't even lift with my tractor and that lifts about four thousand pounds. It struggles with the effects of gravity sometimes too.

I just need a bigger tractor.

//EDIT
I didn't answer your question.

The electric force is not finite, and neither is gravity. At great distances they become essentially zero for practical uses.

The strength of the gravity from galaxies is due to the density of the mass acting on its surroundings. Mass density can be compared to the strength of the electric charge.

A simple way to think of what you are talking about is that the electric charge is more uniformly distributed (positive and negative) in the galaxy so no net charge (more positive or negative) is acting on its surroundings like mass from gravity is.

//EDIT End
Electromagnetism is a a pair force.

The electric field acts similar to gravity in that that further you move away from the charge (positive or negative) the weaker it gets. Magnetism arises with an electric field, and an electric field appears when there is a magnetic field.

The comparison of the electric force and gravity comes when the distances are reduced to nearly zero. The magnetic field can only change the direction of movement while the electric field actually applies force.

The formula for the electric field, and therefore the strength of the force it can apply is the integral of E * dA. That of gravity is a bit more messy, but is basically compared to the strength of gravity at the surface of the Earth, which is not an accurate description of how strong gravity actually is.

Here are some wiki links to the formulas of each which provide you with a definition of both, unfortunately calculus is a MUST for understanding the concepts. I encourage you to check into how math derivatives and integrals are used to show the physics.

Anyways:
en.wikipedia.org...
apologies the wiki really does not simplify the topic when the basics I am rambling on about are really much more simple than the wiki (and most of those studying the topic) make it out to be.

en.wikipedia.org...


I am looking on youtube for a good video that just shows the math and the graphs of the field strengths for each against distance from the charge or mass ( basically the same variable math-wise, but physics separates them) . . . and I am failing miserably.

-FBB

originally posted by: FriedBabelBroccoli
//EDIT
I didn't answer your question.

The electric force is not finite, and neither is gravity. At great distances they become essentially zero for practical uses.

The strength of the gravity from galaxies is due to the density of the mass acting on its surroundings. Mass density can be compared to the strength of the electric charge.

A simple way to think of what you are talking about is that the electric charge is more uniformly distributed (positive and negative) in the galaxy so no net charge (more positive or negative) is acting on its surroundings like mass from gravity is.

//EDIT End
Electromagnetism is a a pair force.

The electric field acts similar to gravity in that that further you move away from the charge (positive or negative) the weaker it gets. Magnetism arises with an electric field, and an electric field appears when there is a magnetic field.

The comparison of the electric force and gravity comes when the distances are reduced to nearly zero. The magnetic field can only change the direction of movement while the electric field actually applies force.

The formula for the electric field, and therefore the strength of the force it can apply is the integral of E * dA. That of gravity is a bit more messy, but is basically compared to the strength of gravity at the surface of the Earth, which is not an accurate description of how strong gravity actually is.

Here are some wiki links to the formulas of each which provide you with a definition of both, unfortunately calculus is a MUST for understanding the concepts. I encourage you to check into how math derivatives and integrals are used to show the physics.

Anyways:
en.wikipedia.org...
apologies the wiki really does not simplify the topic when the basics I am rambling on about are really much more simple than the wiki (and most of those studying the topic) make it out to be.

en.wikipedia.org...


I am looking on youtube for a good video that just shows the math and the graphs of the field strengths for each against distance from the charge or mass ( basically the same variable math-wise, but physics separates them) . . . and I am failing miserably.

-FBB

So in a nut shell, electromagnetic fields travel on forever as well??

originally posted by: Entreri06
So in a nut shell, electromagnetic fields travel on forever as well??

Yes, electromagnetism and gravity follow the same inverse-square law. Double the distance, and you get one-quarter the effect.

But because electrical and magnetic fields tend to cancel each other beyond a certain distance, for practical purposes, they have no real effect beyond that practical distance.

Take a hydrogen atom for example. It has a proton and electron. If you get close enough to the atom it doesn't look neutral, which is why two hydrogen atoms end up bonding to each other to form H2. But from a distance, a hydrogen atom does look neutral, since the electric fields from the proton and from the electron cancel each other out at a distance.

What makes gravity different is, there's nothing on the same scale to cancel it out.

In answer to the original question, gravity is something like a trillion trillion trillion times weaker than the other forces. The reason it doesn't seem that way is because when you have a lot of something which is very weak, it can still add up. There's a lot of "stuff" in the Earth, and even though the gravitational force from any given golfball sized chunk is very small , it adds up.

Think of a money analogy. A penny isn't worth much. But if you collected enough pennies, could you be rich? What if you had enough pennies to fill the Grand Canyon? That's sort of how I see gravity. Each little bit of gravity from each little bit of mass is like a penny, it seems tiny. But get enough of tiny things and they add up.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Entreri06
So in a nut shell, electromagnetic fields travel on forever as well??

Yes, electromagnetism and gravity follow the same inverse-square law. Double the distance, and you get one-quarter the effect.

But because electrical and magnetic fields tend to cancel each other beyond a certain distance, for practical purposes, they have no real effect beyond that practical distance.

Take a hydrogen atom for example. It has a proton and electron. If you get close enough to the atom it doesn't look neutral, which is why two hydrogen atoms end up bonding to each other to form H2. But from a distance, a hydrogen atom does look neutral, since the electric fields from the proton and from the electron cancel each other out at a distance.

What makes gravity different is, there's nothing on the same scale to cancel it out.

In answer to the original question, gravity is something like a trillion trillion trillion times weaker than the other forces. The reason it doesn't seem that way is because when you have a lot of something which is very weak, it can still add up. There's a lot of "stuff" in the Earth, and even though the gravitational force from any given golfball sized chunk is very small , it adds up.

Think of a money analogy. A penny isn't worth much. But if you collected enough pennies, could you be rich? What if you had enough pennies to fill the Grand Canyon? That's sort of how I see gravity. Each little bit of gravity from each little bit of mass is like a penny, it seems tiny. But get enough of tiny things and they add up.

I figured it was too straight forward to have been missed by the bigwigs :p .

I didn't think electromagnetic fields carried on forever. So I see how gravity is still trillions of times stronger....



Just a quick brain fart, but what if you calculate in the fact that gravity doesn't require motion or some stimulus?

It usually takes motion or something else to create an electromagnetic feild. While gravity is constantly there without any stimulus. We can't stimulate gravity like we can with electromagnetism. Could that account for the difference?

originally posted by: Entreri06
I didn't think electromagnetic fields carried on forever. So I see how gravity is still trillions of times stronger....

We say gravity is trillions and trillions of times weaker, so I don't know if that's a typo. But since there's nothing to cancel it out it seems to have more effect over large distances than electromagnetism.

Just a quick brain fart, but what if you calculate in the fact that gravity doesn't require motion or some stimulus?

It usually takes motion or something else to create an electromagnetic feild. While gravity is constantly there without any stimulus. We can't stimulate gravity like we can with electromagnetism. Could that account for the difference?

Electric fields don't require any motion or stimulus either. You can have a proton, which in space we might call a hydrogen ion, which has a positive charge. It will have an electric field without any motion.

You also get static electric charges building up shuffling your feet on the carpet in the winter before touching a doorknob, which can give you a shock touching the doorknob, or in charge buildup before a thunderstorm which is released in the form of lightning.

We don't know why the constants (like the gravitational constant, and other constants) have the values they do. It would be a big advance in physics if we could figure out some reasons for those, but for now it's unknown and we can't attribute their magnitudes to anything in particular. Other forms of electromagnetism do involve motion, but because static electric fields don't, I think we can say motion isn't the reason for the difference in strength between gravitational and electromagnetic fields.

originally posted by: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Entreri06
I didn't think electromagnetic fields carried on forever. So I see how gravity is still trillions of times stronger....

We say gravity is trillions and trillions of times weaker, so I don't know if that's a typo. But since there's nothing to cancel it out it seems to have more effect over large distances than electromagnetism.

Just a quick brain fart, but what if you calculate in the fact that gravity doesn't require motion or some stimulus?

It usually takes motion or something else to create an electromagnetic feild. While gravity is constantly there without any stimulus. We can't stimulate gravity like we can with electromagnetism. Could that account for the difference?

Electric fields don't require any motion or stimulus either. You can have a proton, which in space we might call a hydrogen ion, which has a positive charge. It will have an electric field without any motion.

You also get static electric charges building up shuffling your feet on the carpet in the winter before touching a doorknob, which can give you a shock touching the doorknob, or in charge buildup before a thunderstorm which is released in the form of lightning.

We don't know why the constants (like the gravitational constant, and other constants) have the values they do. It would be a big advance in physics if we could figure out some reasons for those, but for now it's unknown and we can't attribute their magnitudes to anything in particular. Other forms of electromagnetism do involve motion, but because static electric fields don't, I think we can say motion isn't the reason for the difference in strength between gravitational and electromagnetic fields.

Static electricity requires motion (friction)... Not that I'm arguing, you obviously know more on the subject then I do :p.......and not that I'm denying that there are stationary objects that still maintain electromagnetic fields.


Really I guess it can't truely be said that gravity doesn't require motion, since the entire universe is at motion.... So we have literally never seen ANYTHING at rest. Espeacially considering macro relativity doesn't work with quantum mechanics anyway. So the macro universes movement might or might not effect the quantum movement on a atomic scale.



Before we both get bored, thank you for answering my questions. I really appriciate it and do feel they were answered.... Which seems rare in the world!

a reply to: Entreri06

Static electricity does not require motion, rubbing a balloon on your head actually causes the protons and electrons to gather together which increases the charge at either end. Your hair stands up along the electric field lines from the positive charge to the negative charge. The magnetic field is acting at a 90 degree angle to every line of the electric field.

//EDIT
A changing magnetic field will create a current (the movement of an electric charge) while a moving electric charge will create a magnetic field. This is one of the tricky parts of electromagnetism but ties in to what Arb was mentioning about many forces canceling each other out at distances
//END

Gravity and the electric don't require movement.

It is the force acting on the object which actually causes the movement.

The money analogy is fairly apt here. Say a person has a lot of money, they have the potential (strength of the field) to buy a lot of things but it is the exchange of money (Force acting in this case) which actually purchases the object (movement, but really acceleration).

Big physics and little physics is for sure very interesting. Glad you are taking interest in it.

-FBB

a reply to: Entreri06
You're welcome. Yes almost everything in the universe seems to be moving, but there may be one exception, sort of....the Cosmic Microwave Background, which is the remnants of the big bang. You could arbitrarily set that as a reference frame of the entire universe and measure all motions against that, which we have done for the Earth and Milky way. Its composed of photons which are all moving at the speed of light, so it's not stationary from that perspective, but since its reference frame is the universe, it's hard to say it's moving relative to something else, as a collective. There's no larger reference frame we know of to compare it to.