The Funny Thing About Gravity... (Astrophysics)

[DPCrisp]

Dunno whether this is what the Electric Universe boys say, but this train of thought was triggered by the guy on QI recounting
modern-physics-in-thirty-seconds. "The curious thing is that gravity is very weak compared with the other 3 fundamental forces [They haven't noticed there's at least one more required.], so they think gravity is 'diluted' because it permeates all 11(?) dimensions (or just about leaks into our dimensions)."

Both gravity and electricity are inverse-square laws. (The electro-static, Coulomb force, I mean: electro-magnetism is trickier.) We don't know what gravity is, but where there is massiness, there is attraction. We don't know what electricness is, but there is electric plussiness and electric minussiness, where opposites attract and likes repel.

What we mean by gravity being weak is that it's very easy with ordinary objects of experience to generate electrostatic forces that swamp gravity (vid. balloon rubbed on jumper that sticks to the ceiling, in defiance of the entire planet. [Good job it does: if it weren't easy to mechanically resist gravity, we wouldn't be here at all {and this is where that missing Pauli-Harper fundamental force comes in}; while large amounts of electricity tend to fuck things up.])

You've seen the rubber sheet with a ball forming a depression, representing the curvature of space-time, around which marbles curve or orbit, right? Well, even without any idea of General Relativity, gravity and electricity are the same: the curvy surface represents the force: strong where it's steep, and weaker, flatter, the farther you go away. The depression is a "potential well" -- potential energy, that is -- but an electric charge, unlike a gravitational mass, can also be on top of a "potential hill", depending on plussiness or minussiness: another charge (a marble) is either attracted (rolls into the well) or repelled (rolls off the hill).

Everything is made up of plussy and minussy stuff, but plus and minus cancel to leave nothing: push the rubber sheet up as much as you push it down and you get nothing, no force.

But what if the centre of the hill doesn't quite coincide with the centre of the well? The difference between the two electric fields would be ever-so-slightly plussy to one side and minussy to the other: only actually zero at the midpoint between the two (point) charges. Everywhere around the two charges would be like an inverse-square electric field, but a pale imitation.

Is that why gravity is so weak: because it is actually the residue of the electro-static force when charges do not quite cancel out?

[DPCrisp]

The maths is beyond me, but the sum of two inverse-square fields is like an inverse-square field. And it should be possible to calculate how close the charges would have to be to leave a gravity-strength residue. Lo and behold, a rough-cut calculation says it's on the scale of subatomic particles.

[DPCrisp]

Hang on, though. That would still make it attract on one side where it repels on the other.

But consider: if we're saying a neutral particle is really a pair of charged particles, then they will align themselves with any electric field: one attracted and one repelled. Dunno why they're stuck together, but they would rotate, so the attracted one is closer. But then, being closer, the attracted one is always pulled harder than the repelled one is pushed. So the pair is attracted. That is, all neutral particles of matter, being made up of not-quite-cancelling electric charges would be attracted together, regardless of the polarity of the residual electric field at any point.

If you could align the particles the other way, you could defy gravity -- and I've heard of serious suggestions that massive magnetic fields have done just that.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[DPCrisp]

This residual field wouldn't quite be an inverse-square field, but you wouldn't notice the difference over 'short' distances. This might explain long-distance anomalies like the trajectory of the Voyager probe and Dark Matter.

[Mick Harper]

You're so tiresomely brilliant, Crisp.

[DPCrisp]

"Hang on, though. We know static charges do fully cancel each other."

"You mean you can measure a force between two separated charges..."

"Yes."

"...but when you bring them together..."

"Together, they exert no force on another charge."

"There is really zero force between the cancelled pair and another charge?"

"Well, just the force of gravity..."

"Ah-hah!"

[DPCrisp]

Some proper maths and statistics would have to follow -- lots of particles all in motion, both internally and externally -- what a nightmare -- but might there be something to this (classical) idea?

[DPCrisp]

Before quantum mechanics got all (or more) weirdy-beardy, Nils Bohr had some success at describing atoms in terms of electrons orbiting nuclei, but having to conform to certain numerical criteria -- a blend of classical, geometrical thinking and the new finds regarding quanta. But the whole thing was thrown out because moving charges means moving electric fields... and orbiting charges would mean regular electro-magnetic (radio?) waves... and radiating waves means the atom losing energy... and the whole universe collapsing.

But electric fields also move charges, which means radio waves can be absorbed. With a m�l�e of charged particles still behaving as distinct charges inside atoms (as I have suggested here), there is plenty of shielding, absorbing and re-emitting going on, which on a macro scale means... I dunno what... but it might be time to resurrect poor old Nils Bohr and head off some of the worse excesses of this modern quantum mechanical non-sense.

{Long live the Scatter Matrix!}

[DPCrisp]

Next step: work out what mass is, sort out these poxy fundamental forces, vanquish Einstein and get theoretical/astro-physics back on track. Simple.

[DPCrisp]

[DPCrisp]

[Hatty]

[Chad]