Speculative question on gravity

roosh

The theory of everything appears to be, somewhat, of a "holy grail" in physics; and part of that is the attempt to unify gravity with quantum theory. Am I right in saying that Gravity appears to be a separate "force" to the Strong and Weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism?

Is it right that Gravity appears to be connected to the mass of objects; and is the mass of objects connected to the number of atoms, and types of atoms, in that object?

Is it true that the nuclear force, which binds the nucleus of an atom together, dissipates the further the distance from the nucleus? Is it completely beyond the realms of possibility then, that gravity is just the same force but dependent on the number of atoms of a body?



It just seems like a logical conclusion that, if there is to be a theory of everything, then everything in the universe would have to be just different aspects of the same thing, as the strong and weak nuclear forces, and EM are different aspects of the same thing. It seems strange that gravity could be something different.

citrus burst

roosh wrote: »

The theory of everything appears to be, somewhat, of a "holy grail" in physics; and part of that is the attempt to unify gravity with quantum theory. Am I right in saying that Gravity appears to be a separate "force" to the Strong and Weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism?

Aye, any theory that unifies the four fundamental forces is a "holy grail" in physics. From what the theorists tell us and experimental results gravity just doesn't "fit" with the other forces. Its incredibly small and doesn't appear to have any discovered particle (in some theories its predicted) to mediate the force.

roosh wrote: »

Is it right that Gravity appears to be connected to the mass of objects; and is the mass of objects connected to the number of atoms, and types of atoms, in that object?

Yeah pretty much the inertial mass of an object says how strong it will be. Logically you'd think that, more atoms or heavier atoms will increase the gravity of an object. However this is not the deciding factor. Density also plays a big role, eg black holes.

roosh wrote: »

Is it true that the nuclear force, which binds the nucleus of an atom together, dissipates the further the distance from the nucleus? Is it completely beyond the realms of possibility then, that gravity is just the same force but dependent on the number of atoms of a body?

Close but not quite, more like the distances between the individual protons and neutrons. A proton on one side of a carbon atom would not feel any force from a proton on the other side of a carbon atom due to the strong interaction. Its main role is to bind quarks together, to a lesser extent to bind neculons.


Its not completely beyond the realms that they are the same force but not in the way you are thinking. Some theories suggest that moments after the big bang there was only one force and that at high enough energy levels there also only one force. This idea is supported by the electroweak interaction.

roosh wrote: »

It just seems like a logical conclusion that, if there is to be a theory of everything, then everything in the universe would have to be just different aspects of the same thing, as the strong and weak nuclear forces, and EM are different aspects of the same thing. It seems strange that gravity could be something different.

Yeah this is true and what a lot of theorists spend most of their careers trying to discover. I always forget which one is which but there is a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) and Theory of Everything (TOE). GUT's try and reconcile the strong and weak interactions and electromagnetism, while TOE's try and bring all four together (NOTE: it could be the other way around).

All in all gravity just doesn't seem to "fit" with the other three and there is at least a Noble Prize if you can make it fit. A lot of the time it can be ignored though, which is ok

Enkidu

I think one of the major problems is that according to General Relativity gravity isn't a force.

krd

Enkidu wrote: »

I think one of the major problems is that according to General Relativity gravity isn't a force.

Yeah, that's a little bit of kicker.


But, according to the standard model (which is the most accurate, in terms of experimental results, theory of all time) the Higgs field is needed - with it's boson.

The descriptions of the Higgs field I've heard, make it sound like the aether. That we have gravity because we have a gravitation aether. The experiment at CERN could turn out to be like the Michelson-Morley experiment - except on a much bigger scale.

It could be, that Higgs field just needs to be there to make the maths work, but in reality it doesn't exist.