Is gravity necessary? Could gravity be long range dipole moments?

Question

This is a serious question beyond my ability to fully think through with mathematical rigor and design an experimental proof. I did what I could, and got nowhere. Unfortunately, I could not disprove this idea.

Electrical dipole moments attract each other. Could gravity just be the collective dipole moments of matter? If you sum all the dipole moments in an atom, is the sum of their forces roughly equivalent to the gravitational force of the atom?

I know dipole moments tend towards zero by inverse square law at distance, but if they do not go to zero, how strong would they be?

All experiments on matter have been on matter composed of charged particles. I just can't figure out how to prove that electromagnetism couldn't explain gravity.

When two uncharged masses are brought together, their atoms realign and their dipole moments attract each other. How much is it differerent from gravitational force? I can't calculate that.

I try to consider dielectrics, but they have mass and their thickness is small comparred to gravitational distance. I know basic physics, but never could disprove the idea (I'm sure it is silly, but can't prove it's silly) that electromagnetism and gravity are the same force. I thought I'd try the Y!A community.

Answer 1

If what you proposed is true, that gravity has dipole moments like the electromagnetic force, then the net dipole moments of gravity would cancel each other out, resulting in NO net gravitational attraction or repulsion.

This is exactly what we observe for electromagnetism, that there are no NET electromagnetic attraction or repulsion, because all the electromagnetic dipole moments cancel each other out (i.e. all positive charges cancel out all negative charges and all north magnetic poles cancel out all south magnetic poles.)

BTW, the EM force is also a long range force like gravity and is thousands of time stronger. So if there were a net EM dipole moment such as a net positive electric charge, we would experience it in our daily lives, and it would overwhelm the effects of gravity.

So the answer is NO, there is no dipole moments of gravity.

PS - electromagnetism does NOT and can NOT explain gravity. The effective reach of dipole moments are miniscule compared to gravity, and that's because the positive and negative charges cancel each other out at long distances.

Answer 2

Without gravity, the universe could not exist.
The inter-atomic forces are only strong enough to hold a couple of molecules in close proximity.

Gravity can be imagined in this way:
Space is a suspended blanket. When you put something on it, it creates an indentation or curvature. If you attempt to roll something in a straight line across the curvature, it will fall down toward the object. This is the easiest way to visualize gravity (although gravit is the reason this happens in the first place).

The two sums are not the same, but have a similar equation (inversely proportional to the distance of separation).
Hope I helped you!

Check out:
www.howstuffworks.com
for more detailed info and links to sights that can explain more.

Answer 3

Nothing in your question has anything to do with dipole moments, so probably none of us understand what you're saying. The electrostatic force is an inverse square law with distance, just as gravitation is. But gravitation is independent of charge. The gravitational force between two objects depends only upon those objects, and not on anything else in the environment. There are no gravity conductors or insulators or shields that we know of. Are you saying that gravity is some kind of by-product of the electrostatic force?

Answer 4

Gravity isn't a rigidity, 'gravitational pull' isn't a precise word to declare, because of the fact because of the fact it is not a rigidity, this is going to no longer be able to be a push or a pull.. Newton has no theory how gravity extremely works. to illustrate, if the solar all at as quickly as disappears interior the universe, newton's theory predicted that the planet will right now fly out of the orbit. Newton concept that gravity grew to become right into a rigidity that act instanuously for the duration of any distance, so we are able to right now sense the effect of the solar's destruction. however the fee of sunshine is the commonplace speed minimize! Even the quickest doesnt travels instantanuously, it takes 8 minutes for the sunshine to commute from solar to earth. on the grounds that there is no longer something that travels swifter than the fee of the sunshine, alongside with gravity, so how ought to the earth be launched from the orbit beforehand the darkness ensuing the solar's disappearance reached our eyes? widespread theory of relativity pronounced that the fabric of area and time familiar as 'area-time' is distorted/curved via heavy gadgets (Mass) like planets and stars. So this is the curving of area-time that creates what we sense as gravity, the earth saved in its orbit because of the fact it follows the curve interior the gap-time fabric led to via the solar's presence. So lower back, if the solar all at as quickly as disappears interior the universe, the gravitational disturbance that effects will variety waves that commute around the fabric of area-time in a lot a similar way that a pebble dropped into the pond makes ripples that commute around the outdoors of the water, so we wouldn’t sense the exchange in our orbit around the solar until eventually the waves reached the earth, ripples of gravity=speed of sunshine, so gravity is extremely works and curves interior the fabric of area-time. So the gravity of the vegetation is desperate via the mass of the plant, because of the fact the greater enormous the article, the bigger the distortion created on the fabric of area-time.

Answer 5

Also, gravity as a force is on the order of billions of times weaker than the electro-magnetic force - yet without it, I imagine the universe would be nothing but a sea of particles or possibly gases.