Origin of Gravity

Originally posted by adam warlock
But you had some circular logic going on on the post I quoted.

I know about all the shadiness regarding the Higgs boson and the standard model of particles so if you are a non-believer in it that just makes two of us. 😉

Hmm, I'm not an expert on the Standard Model, but if the Higgs boson is needed to explain the particles' mass, then not knowing the mass of the Higgs boson itself makes predicting the particle masses more difficult, including the Higgs boson mass itself. So it's not circular at all, I think.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Hmm, I'm not an expert on the Standard Model, but if the Higgs boson is needed to explain the particles' mass, then not knowing the mass of the Higgs boson itself makes predicting the particle masses more difficult, including the Higgs boson mass itself. So it's not circular at all, I think.

The Higgs boson makes it able for one to explain how particles acquire their mass. The question of predicting all particle masses using the Higgs boson I think falls in the realm of how many free-parameters one wants our theory to be.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That is the prevailing attitude among cosmologists but string theory says gravity goes way beyond our universe, a kind of glue that couples the extra dimensions, threaded through, sharing its field, which is the explanation as to why in our universe gravity is so weak compared to the others, EM etc. So the origin of gravity may be way beyond the origin of o ...[text shortened]... redictions soon. String theory explains a lot about gravity, if only ST can be verified somehow.

Unfortunately, one of the basic tenets of string theory makes it unverifiable with any foreseeable technology. The way that string theory reconciles classical physics with quantum mechanics is as follows: anything that happens at distances smaller than 1x10^-33 cm doesn't matter anyway. Most of the issues that cause classical physicists to lose sleep at night - particle/antiparticle pairs, the universe creating information spontaneously - happen around that threshold. Physicists haven't even begun to think about the detector necessary to verify string theory. I heard a quote from a physicist: "Any theory that is not testable is not science; it's philosophy."

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Unfortunately, one of the basic tenets of string theory makes it unverifiable with any foreseeable technology. The way that string theory reconciles classical physics with quantum mechanics is as follows: anything that happens at distances smaller than 1x10^-33 cm doesn't matter anyway. Most of the issues that cause classical physicists to lose sleep ...[text shortened]... quote from a physicist: "Any theory that is not testable is not science; it's philosophy."

String theory itself is not testable, as we know it. But clever experiments can be set up to observe secondary effects of string theory. Future will tell.

But if string theory can foresee particles that is unknown with previous theories, isn't that a testable result? Again - future will tell.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
String theory itself is not testable, as we know it. But clever experiments can be set up to observe secondary effects of string theory. Future will tell.

But if string theory can foresee particles that is unknown with previous theories, isn't that a testable result? Again - future will tell.

String theory posits that what we call quantum particles are really bands of energy vibrating at different frequencies and at different patterns. It doesn't predict new particles; it treats all particles as if they were made up of the same stuff, with different behavioral characteristics for the stuff. There was a previous post that made reference to quarks. Quarks, the Higgs boson, and a few other so-called elementary particles have unsatisfying idiosyncracies that call out for resolution. String theory does this.

Right now, the main argument for the validity of string theory is that the number of complex problems it makes simple, and the easy way in which it unifies quantum mechanics and classical physics - not to mention the fact that mathematically, a very large number of previously accepted theories fall out of it - make it our closest approach to a unified theory since the beginning of the field.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Gravity is one of the basic forces of the universe. It came into being at the same time universe came into being, some 14 billion years ago.

It may go deeper than that. Scientists wondered why gravity is so weak compared to say, EM. Some 39 orders of magnitude less strong, and now some say it's because its the glue that binds dimensions, it is so weak because we only see a tiny portion of its true value, the rest being stuck in other dimensions, maybe 11 dimensions if string theory is correct.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Gravity is one of the basic forces of the universe. It came into being at the same time universe came into being, some 14 billion years ago.

That doesn't make much sense. Assume that the Universe was formed by the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, all the matter in the Universe was condenced in a singularity. If no gravity existed before the Big bang, then what was holding the singularity together. Or, better yet, what formed the singularity in the first place if there was no gravity? Singularities are formed in the first place becase of overwhelming gravity. Furthermore, why would the Big Bang suddenly cause the concept of gravity to spring into existence if such didn't exist before that.

There is an answer, of course, to the OP's question. But, in the interest of staying out of controversy, I will leave it be.

Originally posted by sh76
That doesn't make much sense. Assume that the Universe was formed by the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang, all the matter in the Universe was condenced in a singularity. If no gravity existed before the Big bang, then what was holding the singularity together. Or, better yet, what formed the singularity in the first place if there was no gravity? Singularities are ...[text shortened]... to the OP's question. But, in the interest of staying out of controversy, I will leave it be.

The BigBang theory predicts nothing at the time t=0, nor the time before of BigBang. At this points in time there are only speculations, so far.

There were no gravity, nor any other forces as we know them today, in the first moments after BigBang. They were merged into one and the same force, which later split into the four known today, a fraction of a second after t=0.

Why I said that gravity came into being at BigBang, is according to BigBang theory, that everything came into being at that moment, everything, with all its energy and forces and laws of physics. According to BigBang theory there were nothing before the BB. Any questions about the 'before of BigBang' are therefore meaningless.

Originally posted by sonhouse
It may go deeper than that. Scientists wondered why gravity is so weak compared to say, EM. Some 39 orders of magnitude less strong, and now some say it's because its the glue that binds dimensions, it is so weak because we only see a tiny portion of its true value, the rest being stuck in other dimensions, maybe 11 dimensions if string theory is correct.

That's one interpretation.

Another interpretation is that if gravity was about as strong as the EM force, there would be no life in the universe to be able to ask the question at all.

And noone to answer the question...

Originally posted by FabianFnas
That's one interpretation.

Another interpretation is that if gravity was about as strong as the EM force, there would be no life in the universe to be able to ask the question at all.

And noone to answer the question...

I've always hated that tautology. While no one can argue that life as we know it (or life at all for that matter!) would exist if gravity were stronger, it doesn't address the question of why it's like that.

Originally posted by PBE6
I've always hated that tautology. While no one can argue that life as we know it (or life at all for that matter!) would exist if gravity were stronger, it doesn't address the question of why it's like that.

Yes, I don't like that explanation either, but still...

Q: From where did the gravity came from?
A: From that era of BB when the unifide force was split in, first gravity and the other three, then ...

Q: Why is gravity as it is?
A: that question is not answerable within science yet.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
The BigBang theory predicts nothing at the time t=0, nor the time before of BigBang. At this points in time there are only speculations, so far.

There were no gravity, nor any other forces as we know them today, in the first moments after BigBang. They were merged into one and the same force, which later split into the four known today, a fraction of a ...[text shortened]... nothing before the BB. Any questions about the 'before of BigBang' are therefore meaningless.

Are you really intellectually satisfied with any answer that includes "t=0"? Come on? What does that even mean? How could there not have been anything before that? What placed it there? Why was it there?

I'm not saying I can answer those questions. Those questions are simply beyond the scope of human intelligence to comprehend. However, t=0 is a meaningless concept to a human mind that, IMO, cannot be used as an answer to anything.

Originally posted by PBE6
I've always hated that tautology. While no one can argue that life as we know it (or life at all for that matter!) would exist if gravity were stronger, it doesn't address the question of why it's like that.

The universe just is. One can understand how it functions, but not why it functions exactly like it does. If/When we improve our understanding of gravity, the 'why' will either remain or be transposed into 'why' the 'how' that explains the weakness of gravity is as it is.

Originally posted by sh76
Are you really intellectually satisfied with any answer that includes "t=0"? Come on? What does that even mean? How could there not have been anything before that? What placed it there? Why was it there?

I'm not saying I can answer those questions. Those questions are simply beyond the scope of human intelligence to comprehend. However, t=0 is a meaningless concept to a human mind that, IMO, cannot be used as an answer to anything.

If we believe in BigBang as the truth, then t=0 does not exist. Everything happens when t > 0. At the point t=0 BB Theory says nothing. Im alright with that.

Intellectually I'm not happy, because I want the answer of everything, even how uniuverse looked like at t=0, and even t < 0.

But what we don't know, we can speculate. But we cannot do that within science, because it is not science anymore.

However - String theory gives us glimpes of the Pre Bangian era, even more the Loop Quantum Gravity theory. But it has no answers yet. Within a decade perhaps we have some answers.

Well, I don't think BigBang is the definite theory, For example, I don't think the universe began as a singularity, it is a mathematical simplification. But it works for the universe at t > 0, but not at t=0, and certainly not when t < 0.

So what is the truth, the Truth? I say, we're getting there, but asymptotically. He, who says, I know the Truth, he's lying. Therefore I 'always' say, 'according to the BigBang theory, blah blah'. Or 'according to science so, blah blah'. Because I don't know more than the true scientists themselves.