Is gravity physical or just an a named effect of warped space by mass?

Answer 1

Ooh, I like this one. First off when Newton "discovered" and named gravity he himself proclaimed that while he could figure out what it did he had no idea what exactly it was. Einstein later believed that gravity was itself the warping of space by mass, that this effect not only created gravity but was gravity. The now familair rubber sheet demonstration helps us understand how this happens and how gravity affects planets and stars and such, though remember in space there is no "down" unlike on the rubber sheet it compresses in all directions.

Now, the problem arises of how are the effects of gravity conveyed to objects? How does the earth instinctively "know" where the sun is and how massive it is? Even if the space itself is warped how do objects completely inside it know this and respond accordingly? One theory is that they do not, that objects perceive their space as flat and are either forced along their route by the massive object or instively take the path of least resistance.

Another theory is that there is a particle for this force. As particles have been discovered that represent the smallest "package" of the forces of the universe, electricity, strong force weak force etc. have all had particles found that covney the smallest amount of that force. The elusive gravity particle, named the "graviton" is thought to exist that projects the force of gravity from one object onto another. Interestingly all objects of mass have the potential of gravity, but exerting gravity does not decrease their mass. Hence, the graviton must have no mass. This makes it very hard to find, so far it has not been done. We do know it's speed though as experiments have shown that through a vacuum gravity exerts itself at the speed of light.

The question you've asked has proponents on both sides but so far nothing has been proven. Whilst the elusive nature of a graviton may make others think it is jsut the warping of space, history has shown us that not having discovered something yet doesn't mean it isn't out there. String theory allows the possibility of the graviton and can even predict it's properties but like many of it's predictions we currently have insufficient technology to prove them all.