Any thoughts on what the force of gravity may be?

Question

I don't really expect an "answer," as this question apparently stumped even Professor Einstein. Just asking for thoughts or discussion.

Answer 1

I am by no means an expert, but I am aware of 3 theorys, i will try to describe them to the best of my abilities:

1) The first was postulated by the über smart science god Sir Isaac Newton. This is probably the one everyone has heard of, something along the lines of "Matter attracts other matter". An example would be two marbles floating in the void of space would be attracted to each other.

2) The second one was postulated by the other über smart science god, Albert Einstein. His theory goes something like this: "matter bends the fabric of space/time". The best way i've heard this described is: imagine a trampoline, now put a bowling ball in the middle, it bends the trampoline material so that if you were to put a marble somewhere on the trampoline it would be "attracted" towards the bowling ball.

3) The third and totally unproven theory (the math supports is but there is no way to test it) is described by string theory. The theory goes that gravity is like a particle that is weightless and can travel instantly transmitting the "data" of gravity. I dare not go into any detail because it is so mind boggling that whatever i described above was what my tiny brain can comprehend. Well that and also string theory has sooooo many different theorys (all of which they cannot test) behind it that by the time you finish reading this Im sure they will have disprove 1/2 of their hypothesis and created 4 times as many. (if your interesting Im sure youtube has some cool stuff on it, its some crazy mind Fing stuff)

Again i would very much like to emphasise how little i know about all three and that what i describe here is my understanding of them.

Answer 2

Einstein understood perfectly what "gravity" was --- but you may not understand his understanding ! :

As far as strictly Newtonian gravity is concerned, gravity exists because time runs differently in different places. In fact gravity is a kinematical manifestation of that fact.

(Where Newtonian gravity is concerned, you can forget about the trampoline analogy. It's a con game --- and I admit that, having shamelessly used it! Others either don't realize that, or if they do won't admit it. All that the trampoline illustrates are the ADDITIONAL effects due to space being curved. But in the solar system that latter fact changes the results obtained from the time effects only by an amount of relative order 10^(-7) at most! Space curvature per se has NOTHING to do with the big picture of Newtonian gravity.)

The local Newtonian acceleration of gravity is c^2 times the gradient in the rate at which time runs locally. Conversely, you can find out how differently time is running locally in different places by dividing the local rate of gravitational acceleration (' g ') by c^2 and multiplying by the "height" difference.

For example, time runs at different rates at sea level and on top of Mt. Everest. However. it's a MINUTE difference, illustrated by the following fact:

If you were to place absolutely synchronized, completely IDENTICAL clocks at sea level and on top of Mt. Everest, how long would you have to wait before their readings would differ by 1 second? --- 30,000 years! (The one at sea level would be lagging.)

Minute though this effect is, it was measured and verified very ingeniously using the "Mossbauer effect" in a tower of height only ~ 70 feet on the Harvard campus in the early 1960s. That remarkably ingenious experiment later won Pound and Rebka the Nobel Prize.

Clocks indeed run SLOWER the deeper that they are in a "gravitational field", but that isn't a CONSEQUENCE of the existence of gravity, as is often misleadingly stated. The true scientific logic is quite the reverse --- as I said, gravity only exists BECAUSE time runs differently in different places.

The ultimate limit to these differences in how time runs locally is at the surface of a black hole, where time stops running altogether. There's a very good reason why Russian scientists call black holes "frozen stars" : it's because time itself is frozen there!

I hope that you now feel enlightened.

Live long and prosper.

Answer 3

Well, according to Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, gravity results from two masses placed a given distance apart, so you may say that gravity is kinda an intrinsic property of mass, i.e., the more mass you have, the greater the gravitational force you can exert.

Answer 4

Einstein had no problem with explaining gravity as curved spacetime by the presence of mass and energy. Because the nature of nuclear forces were still premature during his time, he was not able to fulfill his mission of unifying gravity and E&M force as one grand equation.

Answer 5

The force of gravity is the magnetic force acting on our bodies to give us weight. All objects have a certain amount of magnetic strength.

Answer 6

it's the Force that keeps Humans , Animals and other Things on earth ..