Why Is Gravity the Weakest Force?

StartsWithABang writes: If you calculate the forces between two fundamental particles separated by subatomic distances, you find that the strong, electromagnetic or weak nuclear force could all be the strongest, dependent on the particulars of your setup. But throw gravity in there, and it turns out to be weaker by some 40 orders of magnitude. This discrepancy, that gravity is such an oddball, is known as the hierarchy problem, and is by many measures the greatest unsolved problem in theoretical physics. Yet the new, upgraded run of the LHC has the potential to uncover any one of four possible solutions, some of which we have hints for already.

Comments

Hype

[Anonymous Coward]

Theoretical particle physicist here. These claims are hype. Pure wishful speculation to entice funding agencies via the general public. They should be ashamed of themselves. Best to ignore them. Cui Bono.

Re:Hype

[Beck_Neard]

To be fair to them, it's a very tough time for fundamental physics right now. Progress is insanely expensive, funding is all but non-existent, it's hard to find talented scientists who actually want to study it, and the general public just isn't interested anymore.

Re:Hype

[Z00L00K]

Another question is rather - is gravity a true force or a side-effect of the bending of spacetime?

Some people have tried to find the so called gravitons. However that may lead to the result that gravitation has a minimum quanta - and wouldn't that result in other problems?

Re:Hype

[Anonymous Coward]

Hype is a powerful force that attracts money.

Re:Hype

[greenfruitsalad]

i disagree with the part about talented scientists. there are plenty of theoretical scientists in physics but nothing for them to do (funding problem). the brightest 0.1% get a job in their field, 1% stay at their university for life, the rest sell used cars or teach high school physics.

i know a guy how knows a guy... who worked at LHC and i heard about how the jobs dried up during the hiatus. theoretical physics is not a field i'd study if i wanted a safe career.

Re:Hype

[visualight]

I think it's interesting how documentaries always take time to explain how time and space are inextricably connected and then go on to explain one or the other independently. It's common to speak of gravity as if it's a force but you never hear ( in the documentaries ) anyone say graviton.

Re:Hype

[mikael]

From the jobs adverts I have seen, anyone with a 2:1, a PhD from a red brick university in Physics or Mathematics will be headhunted by the financial industry to work in derivatives and trading algorithms.

Re:Hype

[FooAtWFU]

One of the more interesting speculative ideas that real physicists take seriously is that gravity as a force is a side effect of entropy.

Imagine a spherical screen with radius R surrounding a physical system of mass M. According to the holographic principle, all the physics that takes place within the screen can be described by bits of information that can be thought to be located on the screen. If each bit occupies an area Abit, a total of N = 4ÏR2/Abit bits is available to describe the system surrounded by the spherical screen.

...

Each bit is associated with a degree of freedom of the system being described. According to the equipartition theorem, each degree of freedom caries on average an energy ½kT, with k representing Boltzmann's constant and T the absolute temperature.

...

The holographic screen is not a physical screen but rather a thought construct created to represent the information contained in a physical system. How can such a non-entity have a temperature? The Unruh effect lends us a hand here. According to this principle, an observer being accelerated in empty space will record a non-zero temperature of that empty space.

-- Johannes Koelman explaining Erik Verlinde, who's apparently gone and won the Spinoza prize for this work (worth a few cool millions of euro?)

Re:Hype

[InterGuru]

I thought the cost of the LHC was insanely expensive, then I realized we spent more to bail out one sleazy bank ( while the banksters still got huge bonuses. )

Re:Hype

[tommeke100]

I know a guy who worked at CERN and seriously it's only a place you want to stay if you're a hardcore physicist. These guys do research because they love it, not for fame or big money. How many persons of the general public can name a theoretical physicist next to Stephen Hawking? These guys easily find their way into other areas like Software Development, R&D, All forms of analytics like statistics and machine learning.
Here are some official stats for the last couple of years (https://www.aip.org/statistics/data-graphics/field-employment-exiting-physics-masters-working-private-sector-one-year): 45% engineering, 24% Computer and Information Tech, 10% phys/astronomy, 14% STEM and 7% non-STEM.

Re:Hype

[Crowd Computing]

Has fundamental physics always been synonymous with gigawatts of energy?

Re:Hype

[Dcnjoe60]

To be fair to them, it's a very tough time for fundamental physics right now. Progress is insanely expensive, funding is all but non-existent, it's hard to find talented scientists who actually want to study it, and the general public just isn't interested anymore.

There is a reason for this. There isn't a lot of practical application from theoretical physics, particularly given the high cost. Businesses realize this, which is why they don't invest in such research and it is left up to the government. In a time of anti-government spending, no ROI equates to no funding.

As for the general public not being interested, there is, in the USA, anyway, a strong correlation between the decline of the middle class and funding of science. Why? The rich don't need it and the poor are too busy trying to figure out how to get their own basic needs met. In addition, tax revenues, which fund such endeavors come from a strong economy. Economists will tell you that the economy is driven by the middle class. A strong middle class equates to a strong economy and vice-versa.

So, in short, yes, the public doesn't care about any of this, because the public is interested in either accumulating more wealth or meeting basic needs. Doing something for the common good has gone the way of the middle class.

Re:Hype

[khallow]

To be fair to them, it's a very tough time for fundamental physics right now. Progress is insanely expensive, funding is all but non-existent, it's hard to find talented scientists who actually want to study it, and the general public just isn't interested anymore.

It's worth noting here that there is an overproduction of PhDs in all areas of theoretical physics (and not by a little bit either, I'd estimate at least a factor of two myself, due to the number of people who publish a few times and then drop off the radar), vast sums are being thrown at fundamental physics, and the general public is as interested as they get for something they'll never understand.

Re:Hype

[mikael]

It's cheaper to employ PhD students and postdocs than it is to employ full-time staff as lecturers, professors and readers.

Re:Hype

[khallow]

Seriously, the more brains and CPUs you throw at it, the worse it'll be.

That hasn't been a problem in previous recessions nor will it be the problem in the next recession. The usual problem as in the recent real estate crisis has been leverage combined with easy money. Enough leverage and trading in government bonds becomes as risky as juggling chainsaws.

Also, it's worth noting that financial trading has a lot of cutting edge research. It beats a lot of other work you could be doing, including one-year-at-a-time college lecture positions.

Re:Hype

[bytesex]

The last financial meltdown was caused by the government mandate to take on bad loans. Since bad loans were all-of-a-suddenly risk-free, they could be bundled into derivatives, and every single perverse incentive started rolling from there. Had nothing to do with millisecond trading.

Re:Hype

[Beck_Neard]

I'm sure there are plenty of talented scientists in fundamental physics. But are the MOST talented scientists there? I doubt it. In the 90's and 2000's they were sucked away by Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and various academic research fields (biology, neuroscience, etc.) that offered both more exciting research and more stable careers.

Re:Hype

[Beck_Neard]

There's an overproduction of PhDs in all areas of science. I have a PhD myself. There's nothing special about physics in that regard. Yet, on average, PhD unemployment is around 4% or so (and most of that is, I would guess, voluntary unemployment e.g. burnout). So that's really no excuse.

Re:Hype

[khallow]

Yet, on average, PhD unemployment is around 4% or so (and most of that is, I would guess, voluntary unemployment e.g. burnout). So that's really no excuse.

I'm pointing out that while it may be hard to find talented scientists, it's a problem that is solved to the point that they are being overproduced by a lot.

Re:Hype

[Pseudonym]

It's also dubious as to whether or not there's a problem to be solved. The strength of gravity is what it is. Perhaps the real question is why electrons are so light.

I'll tell you why

[fnj]

Because. That's all. There doesn't have to be a reason. The mystery is the puzzlement.

Re:I'll tell you why

[93 Escort Wagon]

You might as well ask "why is the weak nuclear force weaker than the strong nuclear force?"

And did Forbes open itself up to bloggers recently? These used to be on medium.com.

Re:I'll tell you why

[Anonymous Coward]

And did Forbes open itself up to bloggers recently? These used to be on medium.com.

I'm sorry, you didn't phrase that in the form of 10 GIFs, a rehash of General Relativity from 20 years ago and the answer "We don't know" with an interstitial.

Ethan/StartsWithABang is the Jon Katz of Slashdot 3.0. Enough.

Re:I'll tell you why

[Carewolf]

Because. That's all. There doesn't have to be a reason. The mystery is the puzzlement.

You could say that about all physics. Physics is all about finding out WHY what we observe is what it is, if you just accept it "because", then there would be no physics.

Re:I'll tell you why

[Anonymous Coward]

A scientist asking "why" to find a purpose is like a priest citing scripture to explain the laws of physics. "Why" is not a scientific question to ask, except when it means "what is the cause of this", as in "why does the apple fall?" This is a case of the latter.

Re:I'll tell you why

[Aighearach]

Physics can only predict the future, it can't tell you why anything happens. Only what happens, and when.

Re: I'll tell you why

[GodelEscherBlecch]

Whahhuh? Nobody is looking for a 'reason' (by which you seem to mean purpose) - they are trying to understand how this system works. Granted, the headline should say 'how' not 'why', but did you really think the question being asked was some philosophical one of design and purpose rather than attempting to define the physical mechanics, you know, for science?

Re:I'll tell you why

[Anonymous Coward]

At least "why" is a question. The thing you should be worried about is the people who say that every question is answered.

Re:I'll tell you why

[KGIII]

We didn't get our Friday SJW thread. I'm kind of disappointed.

So, with that in mind, it's because gravity is the female variant of force. Obviously, this makes it weaker. Even the most retarded of forces, magnetic force, is stronger than gravity and it's a mentally retarded male force. The feminists have taken over academia and called it the weak nuclear force to imply that it, a male force, was weaker than the strong independent female force of gravity! Well, the yolk's on them because we now the truth.

I, for one, am glad of this publicity! I hope more people see this and realize the harm that has come to science in the name of social justice and political correctness.

Re:I'll tell you why

[William Baric]

You're completely wrong. Physics is only interested in describing the universe, it is not interested in explaining why the universe is the way it is.

Re:I'll tell you why

[Richard_at_work]

Once we know the reason, we can start setting into place the science to change that reason, controlling gravity. Thats why the why is important.

Re:I'll tell you why

[stevelinton]

You might as well ask "why is the weak nuclear force weaker than the strong nuclear force?"

And people do, extensively. Physics is the quest to explain as much as possible of the universe from as few assumptions as possible. Then if you have a few assumptions that explain a lot, you can predict outcomes of experiments/observations and see what happens. History suggests that this works rather well. James Clerk Maxwell found that you could explain electricity and magnetism as one thing instead of two and out of that came radio and electronics.

Re:I'll tell you why

[KGIII]

And, if you've ever been drunk enough, not all gravity is all that attractive either. Stupid gravity.

Re:I'll tell you why

[tompaulco]

Not true. Science is all about the "why" of an observation. An apple falls from a tree. Why? Gravitation and force are discovered to be something measurable and can be demonstrated to have universal application. What it won't tell you is whose orchard it is.

Science is "how", philosophy is "why".

Re:I'll tell you why

[Kjella]

Not true. Science is all about the "why" of an observation. An apple falls from a tree. Why? Gravitation and force are discovered to be something measurable and can be demonstrated to have universal application. What it won't tell you is whose orchard it is.

It's an ambiguity of the English language, if there was a clean separation "how?" should describe mechanism and "why?" purpose. Like in criminal law, means and motive. Gravity really explains how the apple falls from the tree, not why. Outside of religion and philosophy class we don't consider inanimate objects and forces of nature to have a will or purpose though, so we just assume the question to mean how. The real why is more like is there a god who wants the apple to fall to earth? Like, why is the universe the way it is and science won't answer that.

Re:I'll tell you why

[ChrisMaple]

Not all females are attractive.

This implies the existence of an antigraviton. We need to create antigravitons for use by NASA.

Re:I'll tell you why

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Because. That's all. There doesn't have to be a reason. The mystery is the puzzlement.

I think there's always a "reason", but the reason doesn't have to have any meaning behind it.

I drop a ball and it falls to the ground. The reason is gravity (in this case) but there's no meaning involved; that's just how things work or interact.

To me, meaning implies some sort of value applied or assigned in relation to some context, and it's optional at best when talking about physics or the fundamental laws of space and time.

Meaning is actually more along the lines of "irrelevant", but people love to frame things in such a way as to attach some sort of intelligence or agency to whatever it is they're discussing...and it's understandable. Wrong, but understandable.

But is there a reason? Yes, there's always a reason, even if it's just "this thing behaves this way under this set of conditions". And we can keep drilling down, finding the reason(s) for why things are the way they are until we hit the most fundamental level of interaction available to us. (That doesn't mean there aren't more "levels" underneath that, it just means that's where we'll have to stop due to the limits of our technology or understanding or whatever.)

Re:I'll tell you why

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

We didn't get our Friday SJW thread. I'm kind of disappointed.

Lol, I noticed that too...maybe it was some sort of SJW holiday or something.

Re:I'll tell you why

[careysub]

In my understanding of it increased alcohol consumption is strongly correlated with an increased strength of the local gravity field, judging by available evidence.

Re:I'll tell you why

[alexgieg]

Science is "how", philosophy is "why".

Actually, philosophy is "wait a minute..."

What all philosopher, from everywhere and every time, did best, was to look around, think really hard about what they were seeing, notice something didn't fit, and express it. Expressing it usually comes in the form of trying to solve the problem (it's rare the person who simply asks the questions and stays at that), so it isn't a surprise that such a proposed solution, being the first attempt at solving that problem no one else had noticed, is weak. But then come others who down the line actually manage to solve it well.

Aristotle, by all accounts the third philosopher, wrote a book called "Questions". If I remember correctly, it's 400 pages of just that. After 2400 years we solved 20% of the book, and most of those 20% solutions only very recently.

Add to that all the questions philosophers since then made, and how the attempt at solving those questions led to progresses in all area, and you see that the task philosophers have is actually quite important. Annoying as hell, but important all the same.

Re:I'll tell you why

[alexgieg]

especially the natural philosophers, or as we call them now, scientists

No. Scientist work from within a set of philosophical assumptions about a huge number of things, assumptions that are taken as givens "just because".

The good philosophers open up that black box of assumption and go on questioning, HARD, every single one of those. And none of those stuff scientists assume can be falsified, because they're the very basis upon which non-falsifiable methodological constructs such as the principle of falsifiability are built.

Philosophy is the art of making the annoying questions, no matter who gets annoyed, all the while never accepting hand waves such as "well, it works".

Re:I'll tell you why

[KGIII]

It's the weekend Bub. Unknot your knickers and giggle at bad jokes. Life is short.

Re:I'll tell you why

[KGIII]

There does appear to be correlation. Stand back, we're gonna do some science!

Re:I'll tell you why

[Aighearach]

Sorry kid, you didn't read your history so you didn't understand. Stop trying to explain the past to people who read about it already.

For example, Newton was not a scientist. He was a natural philosopher.

The system of "peer review" was created by Natural Philosophers such as Newton publishing open letters in the journals (like a blog) of the different Philosophical Societies that they were all members of. This was an alternative to letting publishers decide which studies and reports to publish. (!)

The underpinnings of all of science were created by Natural Philosophers. Science is a superset of Natural Philosophy that formalizes a bunch of best practices into a consensus system; but those same practices are and were Natural Philosophy when done simply because they're good ideas, and not because they're the consensus requirement of established experts.

There are other types of philosophy you also don't know about, as proven by your definition at the end.

Re:I'll tell you why

[alexgieg]

Stop trying to explain the past to people who read about it already.

Sure! I'll tell that to all my teachers back at the University, in particular the ones who taught me Philosophy of Science I to IV, Philosophy of Physics and Philosophy of Biology. They'll love finally finding themselves enlightened! Thanks a bunch! (y)

Re:I'll tell you why

[Aighearach]

OK, so philosophy is worthless, because you took classes and didn't learn about argument from authority? And you learned from these illustrious teachers that philosophy is the art of "making the annoying questions?"

You haven't convinced me that you understand even the parts you're choosing to talk about. Maybe you should follow Feynman's lead and just admit you took the class, passed, and yet have no idea what it was about?

Re:I'll tell you why

[alexgieg]

Maybe you should follow Feynman's lead and just admit you took the class, passed, and yet have no idea what it was about?

Certainly, as now you've enlightened me too! Isn't that cool?

Because

[nerdyalien]

Sith lord is not behind it !

Simple

[Tablizer]

Because it was raised as a sissy.

Gravity is not real

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as gravity. It's just that the world sucks.

I am quite happy with gravity

[hughbar]

At its current strength. Thank you.

It has to be

[Waffle Iron]

Unlike the other three forces, gravity neither cancels out because of negative and positive versions, nor peters out beyond subatomic distances. Its effects are therefore cumulative over huge swaths of the universe.

If gravity were much stronger, the entire universe would collapse into a singularity, and we wouldn't be here to gaze at our navels about the issue.

Re:It has to be

[Anonymous Coward]

If the universe wasn't expanding fast enough to outpace the effects of gravity, it could collapse into a singularity with gravity at this strength. The issue isn't purely the strength of gravity, but its strength relative to the expansion of the universe.

Re:It has to be

[phantomfive]

If we're going to ask "why is it weakest," we ought to also ask, "why does it exist?" Of course down that path lies turtles all the way down.....

Re:It has to be

[Twinbee]

If the force of gravity is the inverse square of the distance, what are the 'powers' of the other forces? Cubed, quad power, 10th power?

Re:It has to be

[Aighearach]

I got stuck at, "wait, why is this a problem?" There is a huge difference between our values for Planck's Constant and Pi too, why would it be a problem for different things to be at different scales? It doesn't seem to me that they're even puking up a real "why" in the first place.

And who cares, philosophically, about the proportions of different forces? We don't even know how gravity works, what the mechanism is. Therefore we have no context for presumptions about how strong it should be.

The details matter if you're predicting something, but preferences for an outcome are arbitrary.

Re: It has to be

[bill_mcgonigle]

Right - Jeez, give gravity a break. It has to work over the distance of the entire universe and resist the cosmological 'constant' in its field. This isn't just a lazy ex-husband deserving of your criticism.

Re: It has to be

[Twinbee]

I agree - this favoritist forceism must stop.

Re:It has to be

[tomxor]

If the force of gravity is the inverse square of the distance, what are the 'powers' of the other forces? Cubed, quad power, 10th power?

I always had roughly the same thoughts on this argument, that other fundamental forces don't appear to operate over the distances that gravity does... but it's actually quite logical when you play out the details: The inverse square function of distance is no coincidence, it's comes from the dimensionality of space and an omnidirectional force which is why it applies to other things like electromagnetic waves.

Other forces are stronger (the strong nuclear force is 10^38 times stronger than gravity at the same distance!) and i think they probably have the same distance function... So why isn't it stronger at large distances? As others have said the main difference between gravity and other forces is it's insatiability, (it's cumulative). When some subatomic particles form an atom, the forces at play are satisfied to some degree and the resulting matter is less reactive (has less attraction to other similar matter); whereas when matter coalesces under the force of gravity, only separation is satisfied, the force is just combines resulting in a denser gravitational force in a region of space.

Another way to compare is by imagining under what hypothetical scenario another force would act the same way: for instance how could you make a strong nuclear force on a universal scale, you would need a large mass (i.e the size of the earth) of protons or something... and they need to stay in the same place (not fly apart) oh and they need to have not reacted with anything... That scenario would result in a frighteningly large force but it will also never happen because those forces tend to get satisfied on small scales very quickly.

Re:It has to be

[Twinbee]

Ignoring the cancelling of forces on a micro-local scale, are you saying the power for the strong forces are inverse squared like gravity? If not, what are they?

Re:It has to be

[tomxor]

Ignoring the cancelling of forces on a micro-local scale, are you saying the power for the strong forces are inverse squared like gravity? If not, what are they?

I don't know what kind of distance function the strong force has, my point was more that the cumulative native of gravity is the primary reason why it continues to operates at larger distances.

I had a look for this anyway and it's a slightly more complicated answer than simply some exponential function: between quarks there seems to be a relationship based force "color force" which means beyond a certain distance the force actually does not diminish at all - however this is only true for a single pair, and does not apply between all quarks in the universe. I'm just reciting whats on wikipedia, it's a well written article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The point remains that these other fundamental forces are conditional or can be partially or completely satisfied - where as none of that is true for gravity.

Re:It has to be

[tomxor]

Calculating the range of strong force: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g...

Re:It has to be

[ByteSlicer]

It doesn't really make sense to compare the fundamental forces that way. Only the electromagnetic field and gravity propagate far enough to exhibit an inverse square law. This is simply because the field covers a bigger spherical area at larger distances.

The strong force stays roughly constant at growing distances. This is because the color field absorbs the energy used to separate the quarks, and interacts with itself via the color force (generating virtual gluons and quarks). When the separation gets too large (i.e. sub atomic distances), the field energy condenses into new quarks close to the original quarks, and the field between the original quarks disappears (almost, but not completely. The leakage makes nucleons stick together).

The weak force is even harder to describe in this way, since it doesn't really behave like a classical force.

So how do physicists compare these forces then? Each force is associated with a quantum field, and each field has some probability to interact with some particles. This probability is a constant number called a coupling constant, and can be determined by experiment. The fact that C14 has a certain half-life for example is caused by the weak interaction having some probability of turning a neutron in a proton (by changing the flavor of one of its quarks).

So it's the value of the coupling constants that determines the strength of the force, and on average the many quantum interactions between a field (or the bosons that are its quanta) and other particles (which are also just quanta of a field) manifest as a classical force that exhibits an inverse square law.

Re:It has to be

[Twinbee]

The strong force stays roughly constant at growing distances.

You don't mean linear right? So the force is as strong a million miles away as it is just a metre away? If so, that's quite..... odd.

Re:It has to be

[ByteSlicer]

No, I really meant constant, not linear. It is indeed odd, and known as color confinement.
But this property only exists at very small distances (sub atomic, nucleus scale), because once the field energy becomes too high with bigger distance, the energy is converted to mass, and these new quarks close the distance.
Outside the nucleus, the color field strength (and thus the strong force) is almost zero, because the colored quarks and gluons in the nucleus have a neutral color charge on average, similar to how positive and negative charges almost completely cancel each other out.

Re:It has to be

[Tablizer]

hypothetical scenario...make a strong nuclear force on a universal scale, you would need a large mass (i.e the size of the earth) of [just] protons...That scenario would result in a frighteningly large force

Sounds like a great idea for an evil weapon. Any sci-fi try to leverage it?

Then again, the huge energy to build & contain such could probably be leveraged to make other kinds of nasty weapons also.

Re:It has to be

[suutar]

actually, according to this the strong/weak forces do not use inverse square, because they're fundamentally different: they're based on particle exchange and the distance at which the particles can get exchanged is related to quantum uncertainty, which drops off a lot faster with distance than just inverse square.

Electromagnetic is stronger and is also inverse square but it's based on charge differentials, and at macroscopic scales objects tend to be neutral overall which means two planets (for example) have very little charge differential relative to the distance. If you could somehow move all the electrons from Mars to Earth they'd probably be pretty strongly attracted (I haven't done the math... maybe I'll send that one to What If).

Re:It has to be

[radarskiy]

Electromagnetism is also inverse square, with a larger constant but with both positive and negative charges.

The weak force is roughly a negative exponential.

The strong force is repulsive up to around 0.7E-15, maximally attractive at 0.9E-15, and then decays to 0.

Re:It has to be

[david_thornley]

AIUI, the strong force, like the electromagnetic force, is caused by the interaction of virtual particles. Virtual particles are particles that come into being randomly but exist a sufficiently short time that we can't detect them. You can reformulate the Heisenberg equation to show that there is a threshold of mass times time that we can't determine any more closely, just like momentum and position. This means that a virtual particle must be in existence for a short enough time that we can't detect a change in mass.

Since the strong and electromagnetic forces are carried by virtual particles, they have a range that is limited by how massive the particles are. The electromagnetic force is carried by virtual photons, and we can get photons of any desired energy or mass-equivalent, so there's no limit on how long a virtual photon lasts, or how far it can go. The strong force is carried by virtual pions, and a pion actually has mass. Therefore, a virtual pion can only exist for a certain limited length of time, and hence can only travel as far as light would travel in that time. Actually, the range is slightly less, since a pion moving too close to lightspeed has increased energy and therefore can't last as long. It can't travel further, because then we'd be able to notice it and it would violate a conservation law.

I have drawn two conclusions from this. First, since apparently fundamental particles are held together by a force that depends on things that violate natural laws in ways we cannot detect, the Universe is sticking its tongue out us behind our back. Second, if there is a God, and God made the Universe, then God has a good sense of humor.

Re:It has to be

[cwsumner]

... If gravity were much stronger, the entire universe would collapse into a singularity, and we wouldn't be here to gaze at our navels about the issue.

Gravity -was- stronger, the universe -did- collapse into a black hole, and we are looking at it from the Inside!!! 8-)

Does there need to be a "reason" ahead of time?

[RyanFenton]

Scope and scale are funny things. You can only see so small before it gets REALLY hard to see, even using large chains of tools. Same with really big. Same with really slow or fast. But even from what we can observe - our reality has had a LOT of chances to get the roll of the dice to work out - and we happen to live at one level of scope in this universe that allows intelligent life to hang on, in one spot.

However the underlying constants unfold though - it doesn't have to be convenient at every level - just at any particular level. Tweak the rules around, and what we'd count as atoms could be intelligent for billions of years. Tweak it again, and you could have intelligent planetoids with lifespans of hours. Tweak it some more, and it might take a trillion "universes" of stuff to combine to make an intelligent life, in a web where they pop out constantly. It's only anthropically important to us, because we were lucky enough to get intelligence, and don't know how it could work otherwise.

Now I've got to re-watch some Rick and Morty episodes.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Does there need to be a "reason" ahead of time?

[_Sharp'r_]

Your comment sounds to me like a really smart mouse crossing the Golden Gate bridge and remarking to a friend, "We sure got lucky all this steel and cables and stuff combined and fell together just exactly right in order to give us a way to get across all that water! Imagine if even one set of cabling fell a few inches over there instead..."

See, the smart mice know it was all an accident because they've shown they can carefully and deliberately drop logs across a small stream and make a similar structure with a similar function, therefore bridges must be accidental things created when something like a tree falls on it's own and happens to be across water.

Don't even get me started on deliberately designing and creating something and then using that to "prove" something else must have been a random accident with no designer...

... And time is the strongest dimension

[wylderide]

We are dragged along by four dimensions as they expand, but we can still move freely in the other three, but not time. Coincidence? Yeah, probably, but maybe not.

Re: ... And time is the strongest dimension

[GodelEscherBlecch]

Sure, if you want to make the massive oversimplification of saying that time is a 'dimension' just like the other 3. Just because you have seen it on an X axis doesn't make it part of a simple coordinate system.

Re: ... And time is the strongest dimension

[wonkey_monkey]

Sure, if you want to make the massive oversimplification of saying that time is a 'dimension' just like the other 3.

It's not like the other three, but it is a dimension. It can literally be interchanged with the spatial ones - in certain ways. If I'm in motion relative to you, some of my time becomes your space and vice versa. Granted, it's not exactly like the case with just three, because there are limits on the kind of rotations we can make our (personal) four axes undergo, but I don't think that makes it any less a dimension than any of the spatial ones.

Just because you have seen it on an X axis doesn't make it part of a simple coordinate system.

Right. It's part of a slightly-less-simple coordinate system.

forbes = ad hell

[ljw1004]

I tried reading that article on my mobile device (doesn't support ad-blocker). Got ten ads. The first was a full-screen block that, after I clicked through, didn't even take me to the article. The other 9 all caused the article to "repaginate" under my fingers when I reached them (or at least, recalculate vertical spacing) and all blocked further text until they'd spent their 1-2 seconds loading.

What a terrible experience. So sure that I never got to the actual substance of the article before I gave up.

Oh, also a permanent title bar that takes too much of my small device's limited screen real estate.

Forbes is a disaster on mobile.

Re: forbes = ad hell

[cyber-vandal]

Even iOS has ad blockers now. It's very ready to get rid of them.

Re:forbes = ad hell

[thegarbz]

So sure that I never got to the actual substance of the article before I gave up.

Consider yourself lucky. I didn't even check where links went to, just who posted the story.
skipped.

Re:forbes = ad hell

[messymerry]

Forbes is a disaster in general...

Re:forbes = ad hell

[david_thornley]

That is precisely why I upgraded my iPhone 5S to iOS 9, to get an ad blocker (earlier versions of iOS couldn't support them.). It has made sites readable again.

why is gravity weak?

[Anonymous Coward]

because it doesn't even lift. thank you, i'll be here all week.

Just ask the CIA/NSA/DOD for secrets

[cheekyboy]

Im sure the govt has many secrets and break thrus that they are keeping secret.

Imagine if it was easy to create a worm hole to cut a planet in half, ISIS would dare do that and we dont need some wacko muslim doing that.

And yes there is a secret shadow govt, and secret highly advanced break away civilization with tech decades beyond mainstream, that probably has deep space convoys and ships and far off bases etc.

Re:Just ask the CIA/NSA/DOD for secrets

[morgauxo]

Tomorowland is a documentary to you isn't it?

How about...

[mark-t]

... they are all just plain wrong, and gravity is simply weird?

Re:Gravity isn't a force, no one claims it is

[Zero__Kelvin]

If I place a mass in the air it accelerates toward the ground at 9/8 meters per second squared. F=MA. I take a mass and gravity causes it to accelerate that mass, ergo Gravity is indeed a force.

Why Is Gravity the Weakest Force?

[Feral Nerd]

Why Is Gravity the Weakest Force?

Entropy? If there are other universes some of them may have a different set of physical laws due to their big bangs or their aftermath playing out in a subtly different way than in the case of our universe. If some of these other universes have strong gravitational forces they will presumably pass into something resembling the upcoming black hole era of our own universe before developing any intelligent life so let's just be happy our universe has weak gravity.

Re:Because it's a closed loop string.

[Anonymous Coward]

If string theory is correct,

Okay, that got a chuckle out of me. Good one.

Broken Link

[allo]

Redirects to forbes.com/welcome, which is an empty page.

Stop linking sources with crude javascript, please.

Re:Broken Link

[Anonymous Coward]

The page managed to render for me, but it was still loading, using 50% cpu, and scrolling was extremely jerky. I had to print the webpage to a pdf file to read it. Forbes should fire their web devs and save money by hiring new ones that don't know Javascript.

Exercise for the reader

[Hognoxious]

It is left as an exercise for then reader to make up your own joke about attracting clicks.

For bonus points, work in a few hipster clichés, all of which are true in the submitter's case.

It's not *that* much of a mystery...

[rocket rancher]

if you think about it for a moment in terms of the weak anthropic principle, gravity has to be very weak, because it is cumulative. The Weyl curvature of spacetime, which is the metric tensor that governs the propagation of gravity in free space, acts across the entire Einstein manifold, i.e., everywhere at the same time. If gravity were any stronger, it is pretty unlikely that matter as we understand it would be able to exist long enough to produce objects like humans capable of asking that question.

With that said, it is not really an important question question on its own, as the over-hyped intro suggests. The important questions pretty much are looking for explanations as to why the universe behaves so differently at different scales and velocities. Important questions in physics and cosmology are more along the lines of "Why are our two most successful theories about the nature of the universe, quantum mechanics and general relativity, incompatible with each other?"

Re:It's not *that* much of a mystery...

[sysrammer]

Thanks for the lucid posting. I'll qft this..."Why are our two most successful theories about the nature of the universe, quantum mechanics and general relativity, incompatible with each other?"...as an elegant summary. One day we'll perhaps have an elegant summary that reconciles the two theories, after, I imagine, we figure out why we can't detect most of our universe.

Re:The multiverse

[KGIII]

The universe functions the way it does because, if it didn't then we'd not be here to discuss it. Some posit that it's a mathematical impossibility and still others claim that it is a certainty. There's really not much more to it.

Elbow Room in Wind-Up Universe

[TheRealHocusLocus]

But throw gravity in there, and it turns out to be weaker by some 40 orders of magnitude.

Elbow room ?

Because we are presently living in a wind-up Universe and its mainspring consists of two fundamental forces that are 10^40 apart. As evidenced by the receding galaxies, we still getting all wound up.

At the end of this cycle the mainspring will snap around and in the next cycle gravity will trump the electromagnetic force by 10^40 to form a battery operated Universe. The charge light will come on and increase of potential (not spatial expansion) will take place.

The whole thing is the result of pulling on String Theory, and when contraction takes place the background remnant (which you could hear now if you play it backwards) is actually a slow voice saying,

"There's a snake in my boot!"

Try Other Questions

[VernonNemitz]

We know the theorists want to be able to describe gravitation in terms of Quantum Mechanics. This will necessarily involve hypothetical "virtual gravitons" as "exchange particles" between interacting masses. So:
How do gravitons, even virtual ones, escape a black hole?
How do gravitons from the Sun pass through the Earth to affect the Moon (and artificial satellites) when eclipsed by the Earth, as if the Earth was a zero-size object? That is, the orbits of those bodies don't change just because the Earth sometimes eclipses them from the Sun's perspective.
In a way, just one proposal can answer both those questions, plus the one in the title of this page's article. If gravitons interact very rarely with other particles, including each other, then they can't stop each other from escaping a black hole, the Earth would be mostly transparent to them --AND gravitation would be the weakest force.

Re:Try Other Questions

[ChrisMaple]

"Mostly transparent" implies not completely transparent. In that case, the orbits of the moon and satellites would be very slightly affected when eclipsed by Earth. The affect may be too small to be measured, hidden in the noise of unknown masses and the noise of sensing equipment.

Re:Try Other Questions

[VernonNemitz]

Well, depending on the total number of virtual gravitons available, "mostly transparent" might be so close to "actually transparent" as makes an indetectable difference. Some wild-eyed speculations that I've played around with include the notion that if we want ANY type of mass-energy to be directly associated with a rate-of-production of virtual gravitons, then we might most-simply compute it using the wave-particle duality. Pretend each wave-like vibration is associated with one virtual graviton, and a single electron would emit something like 10-to-the-20th-power virtual gravitons per second. If another electron was nearby, how many virtual gravitons per second would need to be absorbed, to account for gravitation between the two electrons? Even granting that the gravitons get radiated in all directions, such that only a portion pass near enough to the other electron to be absorbable, how many ignore that electron as if it wasn't there?
The second of the two links has some algebra in it, and a proposed explanation for how virtual gravitons could be so-rarely absorbable --and it is "interesting" that if a virtual graviton from the Sun had appropriate properties such that it got absorbed by the Earth, those same properties would have not made it absorbable when it reached the Moon! And vice-versa; only those virtual gravitons with properties such that the Earth couldn't absorb them might have properties such that the Moon could absorb some of them. This neatly makes the Earth totally transparent, with respect to Sun-Moon interactions, heh!

Re:Try Other Questions

[Black Parrot]

How do gravitons, even virtual ones, escape a black hole?

Do any of the other forces escape black holes? I remember that Larry Niven had a story about a Bond Villian type who used an ion engine to put an electrical charge on a black hole. Since light can't get out, it seems odd that electrical charge could. Was Niven wrong, or is there something interesting going on with black holes and forces.

And back to the question above: even if gravity is just curved space rather than a force, how does the space outside the event horizon know it's supposed to bend, and how much?

Re:Try Other Questions

[Black Parrot]

Thank you for your careful replies!

Re:Try Other Questions

[strikethree]

Awesome questions. The answer is that gravity is an illusion. What I mean by that is that gravity is not a fundamental force, it is a byproduct of mass creating space. There are no gravitons, there is only the shape of space.

Weak my ass.

[freedom_surfer]

Gravity keeps stars orbiting around galactic centers. It draws galaxies to each other. Lets see the other forces do that!

Re: Weak my ass.

[GodelEscherBlecch]

Macro != quantum. If you paid attention you would know that this seeming paradox is why they are so interested in it.

Re:Gravity isn't a force, no one claims it is

[wonkey_monkey]

If I place a mass in the air it accelerates...

Not as far as the mass is concerned. From its POV it doesn't "feel" anything - at least not until a few moments later when the Earth suddenly slams into it.

That's not an explanation though

[Anonymous Coward]

> "If gravity were much stronger, the entire universe would collapse into a singularity, "

Yeh, but *why* is that?

Most likely its a delta- force, a some small difference in another force. Because otherwise it would have to be a *special* force (Occams Razor, the les complicated the better, the fewer forces the better). And that difference has to explain why its always attraction, never repulsion.

So for example, if it was a delta on a magnetic force somehow, then that would always be attraction, because, well this effect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWoQDzyonFA

The magnets could repel or attract, yet they always attract because the tiny size of the magnet vs the large distance to the next magnet.

And likewise a delta force on electro-static spinning dipoles (little +- spinning pairs) does the same thing, the dipoles kick each other to align themselves to a net attraction force.

So understanding why these things are always attraction is fairy easy.

----

And you'd have to explain why its related to mass. Gravity scales with mass. But magnetism is related to change of charge, neutral particles don't have the same magnetic field as protons etc. so any delta in magnetic force wouldn't work, it wouldn't scale with mass.

On the other hand, the only difference between all particles are the charge, + and -.
So you could hypothesize that all matter is made of just two fundamental particles, and every anti particle, is just the particle with the + and -'s swapped. And photons? Well they would be clouds of spinning dipoles.

If you then asserted that, then you have a relationship between mass and the delta electrostatic force you get with dipoles.

It's merely the weakest one you know about

[goombah99]

Some force has to be the weakest. And perhaps there's some other force 40 orders of magnitude smaller yet. maybe there's some inter multiverse quantum repulsion that causes multiverses to diverge. We just don't know about it.

Likewise it's possible there's some force 40 orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest forces we know of. perhaps quarks have sub particles that are held together by this but it's so string we've never seen them unbounded.

Re: Gravity isn't a force, no one claims it is

[GodelEscherBlecch]

TFA:

the forces between two fundamental particles separated by subatomic distances

I don't think Newtonian physics are applicable in this context.

Why? Because

[tompaulco]

Because if it wasn't, we wouldn't be here to observe it.

Not in Experimental Particle Physics

[Roger W Moore]

Progress is insanely expensive, funding is all but non-existent, it's hard to find talented scientists who actually want to study it, and the general public just isn't interested anymore.

I completely disagree, funding still exists although it is being squeezed by governments who want to fund building better widgets rather than understanding the physics which will let you continue to do this 50-100 years in the future. Given the article it is clear that the public are interested in it - so much so that they will listen to someone like 'startswithabang' who, when it comes to particle physics, doesn't really know what he is talking about since the heirarchy, or fine tuning, problem is all about trying to explain the difference between the mass of the Higgs and the scale of gravity and not just why gravity is so weak. For example in SUSY you still end up with gravity incredibly weak and there is still no explanation as to why.

the simple solution

[slashmydots]

Maybe it's because most physicists don't consider gravity a force anymore. It's a warping of space which takes a lot of energy/mass and that's why it's so weak.

Because otherwise this universe does not work

[gweihir]

Whether this is design or natural selection/optimization is immaterial. The question is stupid though.

Obvious

[Diamon]

Because it doesn't even lift

Philosophy is science's retarded parent

[fyngyrz]

Like, why is the universe the way it is and science won't answer that.

Science doesn't answer "Why did Santa Claus bring me a sweater instead of a choo-choo train?", either. Because the question is formulated such that it isn't a valid question. Just as the questions that philosophy (and its retarded offspring, religion) likes to say "science can't answer" (as opposed to science hasn't answered yet) are.

"Why is the universe here" is no more meaningful than "why did santa (do anything)." Both assume facts not in evidence: For the former, that there is a why (no evidence for this whatsoever); while for the latter, it assumes there is a santa (no evidence for this whatsoever, either.) In the scientific sense, neither one is a meaningful question. In the philosophical sense, all those questions do is reveal large domains of "philosophical thinking" as intellectually bankrupt.

Even very intelligent people are often variously naive, gullible, uninformed, misinformed, fearful, or simply lack critical thinking skills (as opposed to potental ability.) Or various combinations thereof. Less intelligent people, more so, and more often. All of these people are vulnerable to failing to spot the invalid posits in many "philosophical" questions without a significant amount of help. And that help is often rejected, as it is a common human failing to not be at all willing to change anything that might affect one's perception of one's self in relation to everything else.

Until or unless something can be done to improve both the overall level of human intelligence, along with considerably better education, we're going to be stuck with these kinds of invalid questions and the people that disadvantage others by inserting them into the public mindset as if they were valid.

There are myriad examples of this stuff out there. Taken from the net just now, located in only a few seconds:

"Crystal Healing Stones Bring Healing Energy To Your Health, Wealth, Spirit, Emotions and Soul."

"Jesus loves you."

"One day we will meet again on the rainbow bridge."

"God created the world for His pleasure and our good."

"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

"The beauty of the principle of similars is that it not only initiates a healing response, but it encourages a respect for the body's wisdom."

...just because someone can (or did) phrase something in the form of a question (or an answer), doesn't mean something worthwhile has been accomplished. Quite often all it does is waste resources and screw people up. Religion being the front-and-center poster child for exactly that.

tl;dr: Much of philosophy is nonsense; all of religion is nonsense; the general intellectual level is low; people resist change.

Re:Philosophy is science's retarded parent

[yes-but-no]

And that help is often rejected, as it is a common human failing to not be at all willing to change anything that might affect one's perception of one's self in relation to everything else.

Until or unless something can be done to improve both the overall level of human intelligence, along with considerably better education, we're going to be stuck with these kinds of invalid questions and the people that disadvantage others by inserting them into the public mindset as if they were valid.

So you don't suffer from this same failing? And why do you think you need to help? and who are you to "improve"? If someone feels happy because he/she believes one plus one is three, who are you to say it's wrong? If pursuit of happiness is the goal, there is nothing that states that one must follow the path of science.

Re:Philosophy is science's retarded parent

[fyngyrz]

So you don't suffer from this same failing?

I actively try not to, as opposed to wallowing in it the way the superstitious and religious do, which I find at turns amusing and sad, not that it matters.

And why do you think you need to help?

I don't. Not sure what you're talking about there. You might want to elaborate.

and who are you to "improve"?

Hmmm. I pointed out a cause and a consequence, along with one possible factor that can reduce the cause, and thus, perhaps, the consequence. I have no idea how you got from that to where you seem to be now.

If someone feels happy because he/she believes one plus one is three, who are you to say it's wrong?

Oh, it's not me that says its wrong. It's the universe that says it's wrong. If you think one plus one is three, that's perfectly fine with me. I don't require that anyone in particular try to actually grasp objective reality other than myself. I didn't even require that of my kids.

If pursuit of happiness is the goal, there is nothing that states that one must follow the path of science.

I completely agree. If jumping off a cliff makes you happy, or self flagellation does, or maintaining that one plus one is three does... awesome. You go, fella. :)

It's all about personal choice. The way I see it, you, and anyone else for that matter, should be perfectly free to make any choice you like as long as it doesn't infringe on the liberties of others, or otherwise cause harm to a non-consenting, and/or uninformed person or persons. That's my entire metric, right there, aside from animal cruelty issues, which I regard similarly.

It doesn't change anything I said, though. Doing what you want in pursuit of whatever it is you want to pursue is a whole 'nuther thing than having a clue about what you're doing.

Clear now?

Re:Philosophy is science's retarded parent

[yes-but-no]

So you don't suffer from this same failing?

I actively try not to, as opposed to wallowing in it the way the superstitious and religious do, which I find at turns amusing and sad, not that it matters.

And why do you think you need to help?

I don't. Not sure what you're talking about there. You might want to elaborate.

and who are you to "improve"?

Hmmm. I pointed out a cause and a consequence, along with one possible factor that can reduce the cause, and thus, perhaps, the consequence. I have no idea how you got from that to where you seem to be now.

I believe it's not a pure cause-effect explanation -- it goes to further an idea [like 'science is better than superstitions' or 'religion is non-sense']. You suggest a way to change [likely 'fix'] something which exists. When I say "you" ..it's either you or you encourage others (with these ideas) that something needs fixing.. when in reality there is nothing that needs fixing.

If someone feels happy because he/she believes one plus one is three, who are you to say it's wrong?

Oh, it's not me that says its wrong. It's the universe that says it's wrong. If you think one plus one is three, that's perfectly fine with me. I don't require that anyone in particular try to actually grasp objective reality other than myself. I didn't even require that of my kids.

If pursuit of happiness is the goal, there is nothing that states that one must follow the path of science.

I completely agree. If jumping off a cliff makes you happy, or self flagellation does, or maintaining that one plus one is three does... awesome. You go, fella. :)

It's all about personal choice. The way I see it, you, and anyone else for that matter, should be perfectly free to make any choice you like as long as it doesn't infringe on the liberties of others, or otherwise cause harm to a non-consenting, and/or uninformed person or persons. That's my entire metric, right there, aside from animal cruelty issues, which I regard similarly.

It doesn't change anything I said, though. Doing what you want in pursuit of whatever it is you want to pursue is a whole 'nuther thing than having a clue about what you're doing.

Clear now?

Universe never said it's wrong. It never said it's right. It's each mind that forms notions of right or wrong. So what is right for you [you may bring in the whole arsenal of "science" to help you] may not be right for another. And if xyz makes a person happy.. only he/she knows if they are happy - they don't need a nod from the "universe" to approve it. BTW your conditions on what a person should/should-not do [about liberty, consenting etc] is as childish as "santa claus is packing gifts". Universe doesn't work that way ..else we won't be witnessing what we are seeing all around us [No, we don't have to increase efforts, there is no proof it ever worked (in the goal of pursuit of happiness)].

Re:Philosophy is science's retarded parent

[Aighearach]

The Dalai Lama explained it very clearly.

He said that science is very good at answering the types of questions it asks. And if science and religion disagree about the answer to a question, science is usually right because science really is good at answering those questions. But science doesn't ask questions like, "How do we get along in the world in a moral and ethical way that we can agree on?" I would go on to observe that science doesn't have an imaginary universe to simulate these things, and the human experience is not easily reversible. Even if you engineered a great way to get along, you wouldn't know if it is optimal because you can't both maintain a moral and ethical consensus, and also test alternate systems. So you can't even build the experiment to test it if you tried. You would have no way to quantify the results in comparison to other possible results, because the test wouldn't have any isolation from worldly events.

You've identified problems not with religion, but with individuals who practice it in an illogical way. But not all religious people would endorse those practices. A majority of lay Christians believe in evolution, for example. They believe that God could simply create the Earth in such a way that evolution would later happen. They might not even be asking questions about "why," or about Santa.

Just as the questions that philosophy (and its retarded offspring, religion) likes to say "science can't answer" (as opposed to science hasn't answered yet) are.

This here is just horseshit, because the "philosophers" who claim science can't answer certain types of questions include the majority of scientists, who generally have views compatible with Logical Positivism. It is the basic epistemology of science. Once you start to consider epistemological questions, you can't retain a belief in science without adopting some sort of theory of the nature of knowledge. And that is called a "philosophy."

It is a basic part of science that science only asks answerable questions. If it isn't an answerable question, then science isn't waiting to answer it later. It is incorrect to claim that science has not yet answered questions like, "what is the meaning of life?" Science is explicitly not considering those types of questions. They are believed not to have answers. And if our understanding of the nature of consciousness advances so we can answer questions in that direction, those intermediate advances would change the questions and make it specific and answerable. The original general question would still be unanswerable.

You're trying to invent an understanding for something that is already well explored philosophically. That the philosophers in question would mostly be regarded in modern times as "scientists" might be getting in the way of your understanding of their work, and indeed, of the philosophy of science. Because that is primarily what science is; a philosophy about epistemology, and a set of established practices designed to provide information on that basis. New ideas are great, but they can't easily supersede ideas they don't know about and didn't consider.

You can't separate a question lacking meaning from science being unable to answer questions that lack meaning. Other systems, as you dismissively observe, do in fact answer those types of questions. Also, you not believing in their answers don't stop them from having answers. How can you disagree without first conceding that nobody has a truly objective perspective? Throwing insults next to words like philosophy is not a convincing philosophical argument. And no claim about science can be made without philosophy, because that is what science is.

Forgive me for not pointing out the contradictory parts, I preferred instead to argue against both sides in isolation.

Re:Philosophy is science's retarded parent

[Aighearach]

If someone feels happy because he/she believes one plus one is three, who are you to say it's wrong?

Oh, it's not me that says its wrong. It's the universe that says it's wrong.

No, this is falsity pushed by various math religionists. The universe doesn't use human math at all. Math is entirely 100% arbitrary. It is a constructed human tool. The problem with "one plus one equals three" is entirely that you'll get different answers than other humans, and so won't be able to fully participate in the use of math as a language form.

Math is designed to be self-consistent, and the universe is (presumably) self-consistent. The self-consistency of math is what makes it useful. One plus one equals three is not self-consistent in the context of the known rules of math. But you could construct a different set of math rules where it would be consistent, and then it would be just as "correct" from a universal perspective. All you would have done is change the units. Makes it non-communicative, though.

If we were using the Universe's math, counting numbers would all be multiples of Planke's Constant, and all the "natural constants" would be whole numbers. Those are the proportions that are objectively real in the actual Universe, and we can't even represent them precisely in our hackneyed math system. But that is OK, we can get "close enough for human scale." Arbitrary, but contextual.

Re:Philosophy is science's retarded parent

[david_thornley]

Looks to me like the crystal healing stones and the principle of similars are falsifiable. I'd bet a nickel they would in fact be falsified if anybody did the appropriate research.

Science is philosophy's retarded child.

[Demena]

Science is based on fundamental philosophical axioms. Agreed, philosophy is definitely the parent and science the child.

Much of science has been developed from thought experiments. They, by their very nature are philosophical, not scientific. The "child", science, is not "full grown" and needs support from its "parent" to function and grow. If, indeed, it can ever "stand alone".

It is a big world out there and science is only part of it.

Re:Science is philosophy's retarded child.

[Aighearach]

Science is based on fundamental philosophical axioms. Agreed, philosophy is definitely the parent and science the child.

ROFL I don't know if this was an intentional Russell's paradox puzzle, but I laughed pretty good. I won't give away the answer, but just a hint: metadata

Re:Science is philosophy's retarded child.

[Demena]

Not me that needs the hint. Not sure if metadata is quite the word. Glad someone laughed though.

Re:Science is philosophy's retarded child.

[david_thornley]

Thought experiments are typically extrapolations of principles of science we're already familiar with. They're useful for explanation, education, and teasing out new predictions that we can then try to test. They are not normally philosophical.

The twin paradox is an example of a thought experiment, since we're nowhere near sending people around at relativistic speeds. It exemplifies principles of Special Relativity, and is completely explained by the science involved.

Depends on your unit system

[XNormal]

If you use Planck Units then all your coefficients (G, Ke etc) are set to a value of 1. All fields and forces are now the same. The basic equations governing the behavior of energy and matter do not favor one force over another.

Matter itself is now the issue. The question changes from "Why is Gravity the Weakest Force" to "Why is matter so fluffy?" (i.e. why is the the mass of elementary particles that make up matter so small relative to their charge).

Works for me

[Trax3001BBS]

The inverse square function of distance is no coincidence, it's comes from the dimensionality of space and an omnidirectional force ...

The PBS series and book, "The_Elegant_Universe" (being just one reference) claims that Gravity should be the strongest force, yet one of the weakest.

Gravity is also the only force that can transverse different dimensions (sharing it's force), it explains dark matter for me.

because gravity isn't real

[Mirddes]

its all electromagnetism

Because

[Puppet Master]

it won't Awaken until December 18th at a theater near you.

Re: Gravity isn't a force, no one claims it is

[Zero__Kelvin]

What you are describing isn't gravity. All objects attract each other. Two or more items so linked are treated as one, subject to Gravity, When the distance between the two subatomic particles becomes small enough the force of attraction outweighs/trumps the force of gravity. An albeit simplistic explanation, but ... nah, I'm not going to say it. Have a good day!

Re:Gravity isn't a force, no one claims it is

[Zero__Kelvin]

I have never found mass to be concerned about anything as mass is clearly sans opinion, so I hardly think we should consider mass' opinion on the subject now that we know the effort to be fruitless. Wouldn't you agree?