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Gravity Diluted By Multiple Dimensions?
SEWilco writes: "Why is gravity so weak? Maybe it isn't, but it's diluted by propagating through many dimensions. The theory provides a relatively simple explanation to several oddities of physics, and it should be relatively easy to test. Notice the links at the bottom of the story; one of them mentions that the concept doesn't have a catchy name yet...and we'll be reading more about it soon. Slashdot discussed extra dimensions before, but this concept involves gravity actually propagating into them." I think we should call it 'The Emmett Effect.' There's got to be some lab-coated brainiac out there than can make it happen.
I mean how the hell can you compare two forces with completely causes? It is just as absurd as saying that 1 gram is more than 1 coulomb.
That's right. They're comparing the values of the coupling constants, which are dimensionless quantities (ie. no units), so they can look at things on the same scale. The coupling constant determines the strength of the interaction. (It also has a really bad name; it turns out that it's not constant.)
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com
In large part, the difference in the examples you give is not so much gravity, but other issues. For the insect, their fall is governed primarily by aerodynamic drag - in a vacuum it will plummet directly to the ground, same as the horse. In all cases, the amount of damage sustained is controlled primarily by the 'square-cube' law - the strength of the body's structural components goes up as the square of the size, but the mass goes up as the cube of the size. This means the strength to weight ratio gets worse the larger you get, so the larger, hence heavier objects will suffer worse damage.
...phil
...phil
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The formula for calculating the gravity between two objects from Newton is:
Fg = G * m1 * m2 / d^2
Fg - is the force
G - is a constant that is very small (about 10^-11)
m1 and m2 - are two masses of objects attracting
d - is the distance between objects
Gravity acts between every two objects in space. Even between you and me. But because G and our "weight" is so small, we can't notice the gravity. It is very weak force.
But when gravity acts between the Earth and you, the Earth's mass is very very big and the gravity is noticable. If the gravity would be a strong force, then you'd probably change into a pancake.
We rearrange this equation:
Fg=(G*m1/d^2)*m2
(G*m1/d^2) = g ~ 10 m/s
So we get the good old (and very simplified) equation:
Fg= g * m
But the word weak is very relative. You must compare gravity with the other forces. And relatively it is very weak.
Oh come on !
Semi mystical garbage ?
Listen to yourself ? Ever heard of the Einstein/Rosen Bridge efect ? The theory of parallel universes, based on the concept of multiple dimensions was an Einstein theory !
I really get ticked of when people try to hide their ignorance behind other peoples genius. Are you aware that Einstein divided by zero in the orriginall theory of relativity, something that was only discovered 30 years later by a 2nd year physics student (sorry, can't remember his name) Einstein acknowledged throughout his life that he is not infallible, and expansions upon his theories had always done him proud. What makes it sacrosanct now ?
Here is a litle something else for you, in 1891 Jules Verne (One of the Godfathers of SCI-FI) wrote a story called Paris, which his publisher rejected because "it was too unbelievable"
He described Paris in the 20th century as a city where everbody has electric lighting (back then the lightbulb had yet to be invented) and cars (which was a brand new invention). The manuscript made headlines a few years ago when someone decided to publish this, pitty Verne could not live to see it. Get the point ?
Science Fiction has a lot of Science in it. And has been the inspiration for many inventions (more recently voice-recognition software, which in the 80's was considdered completely impossible)
And frankly this theory tends to make sense, even to someone who doesn't understand the maths behind it. Yeah, I admit where my knowledge falls short - try it sometime.
PS. I would like to propose the name "Chrighton Efect" I'm sure Michael will be writing a story about this soon, and thereafter make a sucky movie version.
"Semper in excretum set alta variant"
Could someone give me some background on what precisely makes gravity weak? I never thought of it as anything but normal before. :)
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Gravity is related to mass, and electromagnetic forces on charge. How can someone compare the mass of the earth with the charge in the atoms in a magnet? They are totally different things.
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Exactly. A person could make the opposite argument - that you can place a rock on the ground and it will stay there, and yet remain stationary when you move a magnet over it.
Or even plop down a 2 ton chunk of solid iron. It's a lot easier to keep it on the ground than to lift it with a magnet.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
String theory requires 10 dimensions. It's been effectively replaced by membrane theory, which requires an 11th dimension. They weren't brought in to make the math easier, they were brought in to make it possible. String theory didn't quite pan out, but membrane theory is gaining strength.
Part of the string theory problem was that there were five totally separate formulations for the theory. Membrane theory allows all five to be related by "gauge transformations."
A gauge transformation is essentially a freedom within the math. When calculating the potential energy of an object, we need a reference height, generally the height of the lowest place it can go. This is totally optional; we can set "ground level" to be the ground, the ceiling, or the basement. As long as we use the same ground level in all calculations, anything that we can measure or observe will be correctly predicted by the theory.
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com
I have a simple question.
Suppose for a moment that, indeed, many universes inhabited this specific multiversee.
Also suppose that certain extreme events would lead to cross universal leakage.
We wouldn't need to wait for a particle accelerator to be built to witness such effects--those stellar furnaces known as stars should be a constant source of evidence for reactions so extreme that they violate the bounds of this 3D environment.
In fact, stellar reactions should be the most mysterious, because they'd contain the most missing energy by far. It's not unimaginable, to be sure. Where I think some things start to break down is that, if there *is* leakgage, the events that cause such things as Gamma Ray bursts would *need* to involve cross universal effects.
A bigger problem actually with cross universal gravity is that it would cause real problems for universal integrity. In order for multiple universes to to exist in parallel to eachother without any kind of "reinforced wall" between those universes, they must grow in parallel to one another and never blur together. But if gravitation in one universe can extend out towards another, there'd be no way for the parallel universes to remain separate--particularly if the forces equated at short distances, the universes would draw together into one.
Thoughts?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
"Little Caesars? You do pizza?"
What I'm wondering, is what this has to do with mice? I mean, since it is Science and it was posted on /., it HAS to have a mouse that was genetically engineered, right?
RIGHT?
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If this checks out, it could lead to a new era of physics research as productive as the first half of the 20th century. Too much of recent work in physics has revolved around explaining cosmology or developing theories that involve energy levels far beyond our reach. But this gravity theory leads to something that can be worked on. That's where new technology comes from.
Science is prediction, not explaination. - Fred Hoyle.
Hyperspatially Orthogonal Transmission of Gravitational Rays In Twisted Space, or HOTGRITS for short...
Damn...I think I've just used up my day's supply of long words...
-- Bah weep grah nah weep nini bong
Actually this is a perfectly sensible and serious theory, which has been around for 10 or 15 years, in various guises, it has just suffered from abbrevation and simplification.
Regarding the comparisons, if you take any fundamental particle in the universe which actually has both mass and charge and place an identical particle at rest 1m away from it, the electrostatic force between them exceeds the gravitational by many orders of magnitude. If you want a theory that explains both electromagnetism and gravity as aspects of the same thing (which is generally considered desirable) then it has to explain this huge discrepancy.
Regarding the dimensions, imagine a 1mm^2 two-dimensional creature living on the outer surface of a garden hose. It has two very different dimensions: along, which is practically infinite (althoiugh explorers may claim to have reached the mythical "tap" and "spout") and around, in which you can go only a few dozen body-lengths before you get back to your starting point.
Actually an even closer analogy would be to imagine creatures living on the hose big enough to actually wrap round it in places. Fundamental particles are supposed to be entangled with the extra dimensions in this way.
Because G is small.
:-) I'd like to know why G constant is the way it is.. what does it stand for? The number of angels who can dance of the head of a pin? The number of massless spin 2 bosons which can fit into a 3x3 room which has a 2.5 people in it?
The equation for measuring the gravitation force between two objects is the same as the equation for measuring the electromagnetic force between two objects, except for the constant.
If you want to figure out why gravity is weak, figure out why G is small. There are a lot of "magic numbers" used in physics that were measured through experimentation, but which have no explanation. As a programmer, I find the situation intollerable
Once we know where the magic numbers come from, we'll have a better chance of understand how things work on the lowest (i.e.: quantum) levels where they likely originate.
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Gravity IS the weakest of all known forces of nature. If you compare the force of gravity to the other forces: weak&strong nuclear force and electro-magnetic force, than gravity is far far behind.
The fact gravity is felt strong to us is just because any other force is balanced on large scale, and thus we feel only "residual" force. There are positive and negative electric charges, whereas the strong nuclear force is created by three-color quarks that balance each other.
Anyone with a good scientific background can see that this article is very flawed. Here are some examples:
Although we think of gravity as strong -- we can get hurt if we fall down -- compared to electromagnetism, gravity is astonishingly weak. It takes the gravity of the whole Earth to hold a pin on a tabletop; a toy magnet can lift it easily.
Ehm, excuse me but doesn't the phrase "comparing apples to oranges" come to mind here? I mean how the hell can you compare two forces with completely causes? It is just as absurd as saying that 1 gram is more than 1 coulomb.
Gravity is related to mass, and electromagnetic forces on charge. How can someone compare the mass of the earth with the charge in the atoms in a magnet? They are totally different things.
The notion sounds deceptively simple: besides the familiar three dimensions of space there may be other dimensions, too small to see yet perhaps as large as a millimeter.
Dimensions do not have a size. Objects have sizes in a set of dimensions.
I hope Sla
Perhaps you should have turned round and asked the doctorate in physics, behind you.
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Does this mean that we will be able to build gravity bombs so we can preemptively defend ourselves from invasion from those other dimensions? "Let's 'grav' those suckers before they decide to come over here and take our stuff."
It is quite an interesting article. However it shows an all-time stereotype that we are some sort of center. It seems that Relativity teached absolutely nothing to a bunch of monkeys that just came out of the trees.
What if this, "our" Universe is just a projection of much larger structures? No we are not looking through 3-4 dimensions over two or five or seven more. We could be folded in three dimensions that result from something much larger and bigger. Or "our" Universe could be the result of the intersection of two or more "meta-Universes".
You may argue quite strongly with this. Well I'm not pointing how the Universe is made. I'm pointing on how we look at the Universe. Imagine that our Universe is made of five dimensions. What tells you that you are "in the center of it"???? You could well be in the first three or last three. The two other you don't see, feel, taste. As much as what you see is just a 0,01% of what sorrounds you. Besides you see nothing. All what you "see" is the result of how your eyes and brain produce out of something beyond you. Forget about radio waves, infra-red, ultra-violet, X-rays, your sunglasses and your short-sightness and you can still say "I see the world" with the same success.
When one talks about "other dimensions" should be very careful. Because it will be quite serious the problem on how we are positioned to them. I would wildly laugh if suddenly anyone found the "originator" of gravity in the dimension next to us. No one knows how exactly gravity is made of. And G is, until the biggest mistery of all. I consider that this article fails in this little thing. It considers gravity as "weakening" through dimensions. Could it be that gravity is born from "travelling" through them? We are talking about dimensions. This is not a thing that stays next door. It is in every quantum of our Universe. a dimension determines a section of the space. And we live in it.
PS: Again about relativity. For the hard-thinkers. What is the correct theory: geocentrism or heliocentrism. Note: both are correct. The problem is that it is much simpler to calculate planet dynamics from a heliocentristic point of view. However if you are hard in maths we can do this from a geocentristic point of view. The problem is that you have to do a lot more of maths to achieve this. And be quite careful about forces and gravity. However it is done. Many observational tasks are made from a goecentristic point of view. Middle Age geocentrism failed because it ignored completely Dynamics and mixed everything in a mystical-religious-political pan. However you still can say with some success that you are in the center of the Universe. The problem is that you have to be a damn mathematician to do it...