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The issue with electric forces is not getting the right amount of force together in one place, it's separating the positive and negative forces from each other.

by Cogito 8y ago

The issue with electric forces is not getting the right amount of force together in one place, it's separating the positive and negative forces from each other. They don't like being separated, and so it's difficult to isolate them and then put them to work. Importantly, if you look at any large amount of mass - at least everything we've looked at - the total electric charge is near 0. Gravity doesn't have this cancelling out problem; while it's weak, there is no negative gravity to cancel out effects, and so large scale interaction becomes possible. A really good breakdown of some of this is in the xkcd what if series https://what-if.xkcd.com/140/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/140/

oldandtired 8y ago
If it was so difficult to separate, we would not the massive lightning storms that we see around the world. > Importantly, if you look at any large amount of mass - at least everything we've looked at - the total electric charge is near 0. This is the assumption made. We can't actually check this at stellar, interstellar and galactic levels. We use proxies to determine this. Look at the solar wind, how much matter is being blasted away against the force of gravity? It's just a question and may give more insight into the complexity that our simplifying assumptions are not taking into account. > Gravity doesn't have this cancelling out problem; while it's weak, there is no negative gravity to cancel out effects, and so large scale interaction becomes possible. 37 to 38 orders of magnitude weak.
- Cogito 8y ago
  >> Importantly, if you look at any large amount of mass - at least everything we've looked at - the total electric charge is near 0. > This is the assumption made. It’s not an assumption. It’s measured and modeled, and if it didn’t hold in general then so many things we see around us would simply not work. Nothing we have seen behaves in a way that would look like a significant electric force imbalance. On a galactic scale, electric storms are nothing. They’re a blip. Everything we see interacts as if gravity is the only thing that matters. To say we should consider this to not be the case requires strong evidence.

by Cogito 8y ago

oldandtired 8y ago

If it was so difficult to separate, we would not the massive lightning storms that we see around the world. > Importantly, if you look at any large amount of mass - at least everything we've looked at - the total electric charge is near 0. This is the assumption made. We can't actually check this at stellar, interstellar and galactic levels. We use proxies to determine this. Look at the solar wind, how much matter is being blasted away against the force of gravity? It's just a question and may give more insight into the complexity that our simplifying assumptions are not taking into account. > Gravity doesn't have this cancelling out problem; while it's weak, there is no negative gravity to cancel out effects, and so large scale interaction becomes possible. 37 to 38 orders of magnitude weak.

Cogito 8y ago
>> Importantly, if you look at any large amount of mass - at least everything we've looked at - the total electric charge is near 0. > This is the assumption made. It’s not an assumption. It’s measured and modeled, and if it didn’t hold in general then so many things we see around us would simply not work. Nothing we have seen behaves in a way that would look like a significant electric force imbalance. On a galactic scale, electric storms are nothing. They’re a blip. Everything we see interacts as if gravity is the only thing that matters. To say we should consider this to not be the case requires strong evidence.