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If we can't figure out gravity, what hope have we of doing ANY science? I mean stuff falls. Everything falls. The orbits of the planets aren't that complex, but
by xhkkffbf 7y ago
If we can't figure out gravity, what hope have we of doing ANY science? I mean stuff falls. Everything falls. The orbits of the planets aren't that complex, but gravity pretty much predicts them close to perfectly.
- gumby 7y agothis pop sci article does address that: we have a good theory of gravity at macroscopic scale but none at the quantum level.
- jdkee 7y ago"Science is magic that works." -K. Vonnegut
- Koshkin 7y agoThere'also Clarke's Third Law.
- hannob 7y agoI don't understand a lot about how the computer in front of me works (ok, I know more than the average person, but still I don't know a whole lot). Yet I'm still able to use it. We understand enough of the effects gravity to describe most phenomena that are relevant for most other parts of science. From my lay understanding what physicists are missing is how to tie in gravity with all the other theories they believe are true. However the effects, whatever they are, are so small that we can in most cases just ignore them.
- dwaltrip 7y agoWe have a working model of gravity that is very accurate in an incredibly broad array of circumstances. You acknowledge this in your comment. This is a scientific result. What are you trying to say?
- empath75 7y agoHow does gravity impact photons and quarks? That’s the part that’s missing.
- Koshkin 7y agoHow? If I understand the question - just like everything else. (Bends light, for example.)
- jes5199 7y agoyess, but then the numbers that power quantum physics stop working. something about the renormalization group? My incorrect understanding is something like: quantum models imply a uniform layer of “virtual” particle/anti-particle pairs popping in and out of existence. but if the space they’re in is curved like general relativity describes, then the pairs don’t find each and annihilate each other reliably and all your math trends towards infinity instead of towards zero. or something vaguely like that.
- xenocyon 7y agoIt's not that we can't model gravity at planetary-orbit scales; that's been done. The issue is that relativity (which addresses gravity) is a good model at large scales and the quantum "Standard Model" (which addresses the other three forces) is a good model at small scales, but these two models are incompatible with each other and no falsifiable theory that works at all scales has yet been found.
- Koshkin 7y agoThey cannot be "incompatible with each other," otherwise Nature would be "incompatible" with itself.
- bobcostas55 7y agoModels are not nature.
- tsimionescu 7y agoThe models are incompatible with each other, which means that one or both are somehow wrong, or there is some boundary we can't fathom between the small scale and the large.
- Koshkin 7y agoWrong - we do know that the models are not incompatible. (There exists a consistent mathematical framework that includes both.) Me, I was referring to a simpler fact that these models are both pretty damn close to what Nature itself tells us.
- hinkley 7y agoI'm still trying to recover from learning that gravity waves can be curved by gravity.