3 ms·
>“Generally, if there’s a force carrier, the length scale over which it acts is inversely proportional to its mass,” How does this apply to gravity, if at all?
by pharke 5y ago
>“Generally, if there’s a force carrier, the length scale over which it acts is inversely proportional to its mass,”
How does this apply to gravity, if at all?
- svenpeter 5y agoIt’s been a while since my last physics lectures so this might be wrong, but the way i understand it: We don’t have a good model of quantum gravity yet but our best guess is that the force carrier of gravity might be a particle called graviton. This hypothetical particle has no mass and therefore the length scale of gravity would be infinite. This matches the Newtonian and the general relativity model of gravity. This is different from the source of gravity which would be the (gravitational) mass of an object (or more accurately the components of the stress energy tensor which describe the density and flux of energy but that’s also the point where I have to start with the hand waving because my knowledge becomes very fuzzy there) It’s also true for the electromagnetic interaction: the force carrier here is the photon which is also massless and the length scale is also infinite here.
- betterunix2 5y agoThat is the big question in physics today! There is the hypothetical "graviton" which, as you should expect, has zero mass. There are theoretical problems due to the poorly understood interaction of general relativity and quantum mechanics -- if you could resolve those problems you would have a "theory of everything."