6 ms·
Experiment finds that gravity still works down to 50 micrometers
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoIs the "Next: find old wardrobe." supposed to be a Narnia reference? If not I can't figure out what it is for.
- roessland 7y agoYup. Narnia is a "hidden dimension". A bit of a stretch to compare Narnia with spatial dimensions though.
- magicalhippo 7y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22797729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22797729
- gus_massa 7y agoNotre that it includes comments written by one of the members of the research group, that is one of the regular here.
- pjc50 7y agoGood, but on the atomic scale that's still a lot - as I understand it the key questions are how well it works on scales where the "strong" and "weak" forces also apply.
- munkiefish 7y agoDoes it matter though? If it will always be overwhelmed by the weak and strong force as distances narrow (except near/in a black hole or if extra dimensions actually exist)?
- adrianN 7y agoWhen energies are sufficiently high gravity can't be ignored anymore.
- luxuryballs 7y agoIf we find a small enough situation where gravity stops working I wonder if there will be an inverse square law observed as they approach that level of tiny. Like half way between the size where gravity works fullest and the tinier size where it doesn’t work anymore is 75% less gravity.
- cellular 7y agoOn very small scale the force would be very very high as the denominator, d^2, goes to zero. What limits the denominator going to zero? Could a close distance really be what leads to the strong or weak force?
- downerending 7y agoWas I foolish in thinking that gravity works at all scales?
- apoorvkumar 7y agoWell not at all scales. Gravity at quantum scales is still not well understood. Also the only way to claim it works as expected at any scale is to test it out. This allows scientists to claim that the theory checks out at this scale too.
- karmakaze 7y agoIf gravity is warping of spacetime and works differently/fails to work at very small scales, is it 'space' that really failed?
- yrro 7y agoAs a layman, no. "Our Ignorance About Gravity" at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTMELHUAzSM> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTMELHUAzSM> explains what we don't know about gravity at small and large scales.