explination for gravity... who should i go to?

Question

i have an idea of what gravity is... and i realy think it makes more sence then anything else.... um... i dont realy want to say it on here... but il just say that i think mabby gravity is due to the pull of atoms... in a way... llike i think it has to do with negetive and positive charges and what not.... and like in atoms the biger atom pulls the smaller... see what im saying?

Answer 1

Well, it's a valid hypothesis. You should try to start figuring out how you can test it (or have others test it), since all good scientists need to be skeptical about their own ideas.



A few conceptual questions. If they're answered well, we can go on to the mathematics:



If it has to do with positive and negative charges, then are you saying that things with larger gravitational pulls (like the sun) are more charged than other things? What if something has equal numbers of positive and negative charges? Does it then not produce or feel gravity?

Is there a fundamental difference between your gravity and some electrostatic interactions?

Could you measure the pull of your gravity from the two poles of an electric cell? If the larger atom in your hypothesis pulls the smaller atom, does the smaller atom also pull the larger one? What does "larger" and "smaller" mean in this context? Is there also a _repulsive_ form of your gravity, in addition to the usual _attractive_ form? How do the concepts of mass or inertia fit into your theory?







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I'd just like to point out that the other poster brings up some interesting and valid points. However, when it's stated that "gravity acts over longer distances than electricity or magnetism", that's not true. Both gravity and electrostatic forces are 1/r^2 forces, and thus have infinite range (it also means that if they're carried by particles, then those particles cannot have any mass, and must travel at the speed of light).



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"idk i just think atoms when i think about gravity"



I like this. Bohr (arguably one of the most important developers and refiners of quantum mechanics) went the other direction, and came up with a workable model of the atom (previously, it was thought that possibly the atom was a bunch of positive and negative charge mushed together into a "plum pudding") based on orbits of one thing about another thing.

Keep daydreaming, kid, and you'll go far!





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Don't you dare give up. You'll find something that fascinates you, and it won't get out of your head. Gravity is one of those _really_ deep questions, and it's a GREAT thing that you've been told it's there, but no one has really explained it to you.

Scott (the other responder so far) has given some excellent leads as to what scientists currently think about gravity. You're in good company if you're confused: one of the unsolved problems in physics (some would say THE unsolved problem) is how to make gravity and quantum mechanics fit together.

We *think* we understand gravity (at least at macroscopic and mesoscopic length scales), and we can make very good predictions of what things will do under the influence of gravity. We also think we understand quantum mechanics (at least at macroscopic, mesoscopic, and microscopic length scales, but maybe not at *very, very* tiny scales), and can make _very_ good predictions of what things will do based on quantum theory. The big problem, though, is this: gravity and quantum mechanics don't "fit" together. They seem to be at odds with each other.

Gravity (so far) needs nice smooth spacetimes (think of it as working in only slightly wrinkled tablecloths, or in a slightly rippled trampoline, as Scott suggests). However, quantum mechanics seems to require jagged spacetime, with holes (or at least sharp steps) in it. How do we fit the two together?

You may have heard of "string theory". It's all the rage at the moment (or at least was a few years ago), and its whole purpose is to make gravity and quantum mechanics work together. So far, the prospects aren't very good.

You might just be the one to work it all out (or maybe come up with better explanations for all of it). You might also get fascinated with describing how proteins encode information in cells, or how tsunami waves can destroy coastlines, or how computer viruses mutate and propagate, or how the human brain works. It doesn't matter -- just stay curious.



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Now, Scott. You and I both know that visible light (and light of all frequencies) is a form of electromagnetic radiation. The fact that we (and photomultipliers, or CCDs, or whatever) can see the farthest galaxies -- indeed, even the cosmic background radiation -- means that the range of the electric force is infinite.

Just because the dipole field falls off faster than 1/r^2, and the quadrupole, octupole, etc. fields fall off even faster does NOT mean the monopole field falls off any faster than is required by the conservation of energy through a solid angle.

It's also true that gravity *can* be "shielded", in the same way that an oscillating electric field can be shielded: shove in a wave of the same amplitude and frequency but shift the phase by 180 deg. We certainly don't have the ability to control spacetime on that scale, but nature does, and (for example) inspiraling bodies do just this with gravitational waves. Effectively, one gets a dipole moment rather than a monopole (though the monopolar contribution is still there).

Answer 2

Gravity is an attraction between masses. Charges attract each other too, but that's a different force with different rules. As far as having things "explained", well, you don't know physics yet. Learn the subject and things will be explained. You'll never run out of more questions to ask, though. And that's a good thing.



As far as having "ideas" that will lead to a better future, I'm sorry but that is not the way it works at all. You get an education, then you get ideas. You probably don't have any real ideas yet, only misunderstandings. I know that's not what it feels like right now, but you'll see that eventually. Ideas are only useful when they are based on an understanding of what you're talking about. It's probably true that there are still some subjects left out there that are don't require any special expertise, but physics is NOT one of them. In fact, even if you try to teach yourself physics from textbooks, you probably won't learn much. Smarter people than you or me have tried that, and eventually realized they weren't going to learn anything without going to college. Brilliant physicist Gerardus 't Hooft has made some nice comments about this.



If you want to do physics: get straight A's and go to college, then grad school. Coming up with physics concepts no one has thought of before is MUCH harder than getting straight A's in school, I promise you. If you can't or don't want to or don't have the drive to get excellent grades in school, then physics isn't for you. Physicists work insanely hard to understand everything perfectly. So, I'd recommend either trying a different direction in life or just learning to work harder. Of those, working harder is the one you should pick, and it's the one more likely to actually get you what you want.



Sorry, I don't mean to sound preachy, but a lot of very smart kids waste their lives by choosing a dead-end path instead of a real future, and then make up nonsense "theories" (without ever finding out what the word actually means) for the rest of their lives while they answer phones or whatever. This really does happen a lot. Enough times that it has become something that sets me off. Please don't be one of them. All you have to do is try harder.

Answer 3

EDIT****

Flutzpah put up an excellent post, and he brought up a point that I wasn't very clear on. While he's correct that both gravity and electromagnet forces are 1/r^2 forces and *theoretically* can both act at infinite distances, that's not the case *in reality* for electromagnetic forces. EM forces are shielded by electric charges and magnetic fields in the universe, so they're often "canceled out" before they've traveled great distances on the cosmological scale. But there's nothing that will shield or "cancel out" a gravitational attraction between two bodies, so gravitational effects act at much longer distances in the "real world" when compared to electromagnetic forces of comparable magnitudes.



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The question of how gravity actually works hasn't been definitively answered by *anyone*, so I don't think you're going to get much insight here. There are some interesting things to consider when comparing gravity to other forces, though.



Gravity can *only* be attractive, never repulsive. This makes it fundamentally different from electrical or magnetic forces, which can either attract or repel.



Also, gravity is one of the weakest forces in the universe in terms of magnitude, but it acts over much greater distances than either electrical forces or magnetic forces.



In fact, gravity might not be a "force" in the same way that electrical and magnetic fields produce forces. The effect that we call "gravity" might just be the result of distortions in spacetime from any object with mass.



Consider this analogy - imagine a comet passing near a sun. If it's moving fast enough, it's path will simply be deflected parabolically as it passes by the sun. If it's moving too slow, it will be pulled into the sun. All of that is because of the sun's gravitational pull.



Now, imagine a trampoline in your back yard with a heavy bowling ball sitting in the middle, distorting the fabric of the trampoline downward. If you roll a baseball along the surface of the trampoline near the bowling ball, the path of the baseball will be distorted parabolically as it passes near the bowling ball, much like the comet's path was distorted by the sun. Roll the baseball slowly enough, and it will be "trapped" by the bowling ball in the depression in the middle of the trampoline.



What we view as "curved" paths in flat space are actually straight lines in curved space. It's trippy to think about, but the parabolic path of a thrown ball near the surface of the earth is actually a perfectly straight line, if you account for the curvature of spacetime as a result of the Earth's mass.