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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 12, 2016 at 11:25 pm
(October 12, 2016 at 11:15 pm)KUSA Wrote: (October 12, 2016 at 7:25 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: What is the mechanism of "attraction"? How is the force transmitted/conveyed?
Search all you want but you won't find an answer. Nobody actually knows. We can only observe things and give them names. We don't actually know what the hell it is.
Do you have a good theory?
"Leave it to me to find a way to be,
Consider me a satellite forever orbiting,
I knew the rules but the rules did not know me, guaranteed." - Eddie Vedder
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 12, 2016 at 11:32 pm
(October 12, 2016 at 10:40 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: And who's to say space is warped ?
Thought experiment:
you're blazing through space in your little excursion pod at 1% the speed of light. "Oh look !!" you exclaim "I'm going to pass near a star, I bet this will be fun!!"
So there you go at 1% the speed of light, passing very close to a star. You're going fast enough the heat and light and radiation will not hurt you or your excursion pod. The star is coming up fast on your right, and zoom! You go past it and off into the inky depths.
And then you think for a second, "Hmm, odd, I never touched the steering controls, and I never felt any sideways force at all, but I'm traveling in a slightly different direction now! What happened?"
Indeed, you're confused, you peer straight ahead through the view screen, and the direction you are traveling is now slightly different, you're aimed a bit off that 3rd star to the right you aimed at months ago. But you never felt a thing, and your excursion pod never thrusted to change your direction at all.
So, did you turn, because it sure looks like you did, or did you travel in a straight line, because that is exactly what it feels like and you never fired thrusters to change direction?
The mass of the star attracted you and your passing vessel whether you were able to perceive it or not. 
But I'm wondering how do particles "know" there are other particle out there in space and why do they aggregate?
"Leave it to me to find a way to be,
Consider me a satellite forever orbiting,
I knew the rules but the rules did not know me, guaranteed." - Eddie Vedder
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If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 12, 2016 at 11:44 pm
(October 12, 2016 at 11:25 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: (October 12, 2016 at 11:15 pm)KUSA Wrote: Search all you want but you won't find an answer. Nobody actually knows. We can only observe things and give them names. We don't actually know what the hell it is.
Do you have a good theory?
God did it. Fuck I don't know. I'd be a brazillianair if I knew.
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 12, 2016 at 11:49 pm
(October 12, 2016 at 11:44 pm)KUSA Wrote: (October 12, 2016 at 11:25 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: Do you have a good theory?
God did it. Fuck I don't know. I'd be a brazillianair if I knew. How did God do it? No one knows, do you have any logical ideas? Sudden large sums of money tend to be bad for the recipient.
"Leave it to me to find a way to be,
Consider me a satellite forever orbiting,
I knew the rules but the rules did not know me, guaranteed." - Eddie Vedder
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 13, 2016 at 6:10 am
Yeah I get how space is on a curve. They tell you that in like, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grade science I think? One of those. What I don't get is how empty space which isn't supposed to have anything in it has properties of matter, IE being able to be flexed and warped and pulled like fabric. That doesn't make any sense to me at all. I mean, I get the curve and fabric model, but that doesn't really explain anything but give you a very vague image of the direction gravity flows.
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 13, 2016 at 7:00 am
Little simians on a backwater planet in a very average galaxy of a routine super group think they can figure out the secrets of the Universe.
Sounds like a bad scifi movie.
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 13, 2016 at 8:57 am
(October 13, 2016 at 6:10 am)EruptedCarcassBloat Wrote: Yeah I get how space is on a curve. They tell you that in like, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th grade science I think? One of those. What I don't get is how empty space which isn't supposed to have anything in it has properties of matter, IE being able to be flexed and warped and pulled like fabric. That doesn't make any sense to me at all. I mean, I get the curve and fabric model, but that doesn't really explain anything but give you a very vague image of the direction gravity flows.
near the sun, the strength of it's gravitational field is so strong that the energy it represents is of such magnitude that it's mass equivalent (E equals MC squared works both ways) affects the orbit of Mercury enough to be detectable.
Newton's law of gravity didn't anticipate this effect, Einstein's 'tweak' explained it'
So empty space can have energy in it, and then exhibit properties of the mass equivalent of that energy.
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 13, 2016 at 8:59 am
(October 12, 2016 at 5:54 pm)Arkilogue Wrote: (October 12, 2016 at 5:50 pm)Alex K Wrote: Einstein's field equations basically describe how curvature gets communicated between neighboring points in spacetime. In a sense, and speaking very simplistically, the curvature gets communicated by one piece of spacetime getting bent by the next neighboring one, and so on... So would a field at the lowest end of scale act as such a "stretchy fabric"? Would not the Higgs field having specifically to do with mass conference, having been formed right after the inflation of space-time, be intrinsically linked to "gravity" conferred through space?
What do you mean by lowest end of scale, what scale?
The Higgs is kind of tangential to how gravity works - it confers rest energy to particles, and gravity is caused by energy. It could be intrinsically linked to gravity, but from all we know, there could still be gravity if there were no Higgs field.
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.
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 13, 2016 at 9:13 am
Empty space is "empty" because we can't see what's there.
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RE: If there's nothing in empty space, then how does it get warped by gravity?
October 13, 2016 at 10:20 am
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2016 at 10:21 am by Neo-Scholastic.)
Space isn't a container. I think of it more as a kind of knowledge about embodied extension.
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