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Why is there gravity?
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 (May 10, 2015 at 2:08 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:(May 10, 2015 at 5:45 am)Alex K Wrote: What is the difference between Gravity and "Effects of Gravity"? Strictly speaking, Gravity is a physical phenomenon, and "Effects of Gravity" is three words, so the difference is three words and a physical phenomenon.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
 (May 10, 2015 at 2:14 pm)Alex K Wrote:(May 10, 2015 at 2:08 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Two words. And did you intend to be asking that question, or were you just careless about the quotation marks in your original question? If the former, it would be a very strange thing for you to be asking. If the latter, then I answered the question properly. "A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." — David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
RE: Why is there gravity?
May 10, 2015 at 2:24 pm
(This post was last modified: May 10, 2015 at 2:25 pm by Alex K.)
(May 10, 2015 at 2:19 pm)Pyrrho Wrote:(May 10, 2015 at 2:14 pm)Alex K Wrote: Strictly speaking, Gravity is a physical phenomenon, and "Effects of Gravity" is three words, so the difference is three words and a physical phenomenon. I of course didn't intend it like that, but still felt the need to point out that if you are trying to be anal, you should be anal in a consistent fashion.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
Forgive him. He is a anal virgin.
(May 10, 2015 at 2:24 pm)Alex K Wrote:(May 10, 2015 at 2:19 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: And did you intend to be asking that question, or were you just careless about the quotation marks in your original question? If the former, it would be a very strange thing for you to be asking. If the latter, then I answered the question properly. Except that I was not trying to be "anal." I was being quite serious about the matter. It is, as I have heard it said, "a distinction without a difference." Which, of course, seems very much to have been your original point. "A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." — David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
Oh, yes, that was my point!
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
 RE: Why is there gravity?
May 11, 2015 at 1:53 am
(This post was last modified: May 11, 2015 at 1:56 am by nihilistcat.)
(March 28, 2015 at 7:27 am)urlawyer Wrote: So gravity is awesome. It keeps my ass in my chair and my beer in the bottle (provided I hold it right side up). But why is it there? What causes it? Just things having mass? I've searched it up and all I got were ambiguous "We don't know"'s or "That's just how the universe works"'s. We don't know exactly ... actually is the right answer. We do understand gravity extremely well, we know it can't be shielded against, it has infinite range, it's the weakest of the four fundamental forces, it causes time dilation, acceleration due to gravity (on earth) is ~9.8 m/s^2, recent experiments suggest that the speed of gravity is equal to the speed of light in a vacuum, etc. Newton approximated gravity (for most purposes) pretty well (gravity is proportional to mass), and Einstein gave the best description of gravity (a consequence of the curvature of spacetime), and Einsteins theory of relativity is one of the best tested scientific theories in history. But we don't know if gravity exists as a particle (quantum field theory postulates the "graviton" as a hypothetical particle which mediates gravitational force), but it's impossible to test this hypothesis at this point in time (practically speaking). There are experiments that are trying to detect gravitational waves, so hopefully we'll learn more in the near future; but for the time being, there's much we don't know about gravity. This is a crude explanation (I'm a biologist, a physicist can obviously do a better job of explaining this, but hopefully this helps). RE: Why is there gravity?
May 11, 2015 at 2:34 am
(This post was last modified: May 11, 2015 at 2:36 am by Alex K.)
@francismjenkins
Sounds right. The other field theories are tested to higher precision than GR though.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
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