A question about gravity
Offline OK, here we go...
I understand how the Higgs particle is supposed to give objects their mass. Massive matter interacts with the Higgs field and that's what "slows it down", "gives it mass"... Like an object passing through a dense liquid - it feels "heavier", "more difficult to pass through, (than in a vacuum, for example)"...
Also, I can understand that massive objects warp spacetime around themselves. I can imagine curved space around a star and the effect it has on planets, light, etc... They follow the shortest way around the star.
Using a 2-D analogy... When you put a billiard-ball (planet Earth) on an elastic surface (spacetime), the surface becomes curved and if you push a pebble (the Moon) in the right direction at the right speed, it will circle around the billiard-ball (well, before friction slows it down and it falls into the hole created by the billiard-ball).
In 2D:
But the 2-D analogy is flawed, because here Earth's gravity is what pulls the ball and pebble down...
In 3D:
So I understand why the moon follows the path it follows, the spacetime is curved... But what I don't understand is, what PULLS the moon to the earth.
In our analogy, if you were to stop the pebble in orbit around the billiard-ball, it would not fall onto the billiard ball, were it not for the Earth's gravity to pull it down.
So once again, to sum it up... I understand how an objects is supposed to get its mass, I understand that the massive objects warp spacetime around themselves, I understand why smaller objects orbit in circles (ellipses) around massive objects... But I still don't get how gravity "PUSHES/PULLS" an object onto another massive object. And since gravity and acceleraction are equivalent according to Einstein, what causes a massive object to accelerate towards another massive object.
Am I even making sense with this question?
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Hypothetical massless spin 2 bosons called "gravitons" and spin 3/2 fermions called "Gravitinos" do it. Beyond that, we're not sure. And really, we're not even sure about those systems.
Could it be that God is pushing us down?
Intelligent falling? Flying Spaghetti Monster?
LOL. Stop that.
I'm more inclined to go with field density variation. IF there is a Higgs then alone it will be everywhere something else is not.
A Higgs field will define spacetime and explain the curvature and gravity. It will give us the makeup of the G in gravity instead of just being a universal constant.
In reference to the Moon and Earth then between the two would be a field and each body would be continuously sucking up Higgs creating a minor vacuum that the moon continuously falls into (path of least resistance) while expelling other radiation and/or particulate matter to keep entropy 'satisfied'.
This gives you an idea why proximity and mass are the components of gravity. A big mass close to another big mass sucking up the field between them makes a great 'attractive' force, but the farther apart they are then that force is exponentially less.
Given that, if we figure out that is the missing piece then all of the forces will have to have a new subset 'g' installed in the equations. A square kilogram and square root of a second will make sense in physical terms rather than just mathematical.
That is my easiest explanation concerning the math.
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Hey, thanks a lot! That actually satisfies my primary need for at least a concept of how gravity could work!
The world makes sense again, hehe.
The Higgs (a scalar field) works fine as a cause of particle mass, but I thought LovE-RicH wanted to know how gravity was mediated (a matrix field). It's like asking how light works and replying by writing only about electrons.
A matrix field? You mean like a function that assigns a matrix to every point in space? I've never encountered that term before. Do you mean a tensor field?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
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Yeah, but most people don't know what a tensor is so I made up a term that I think is easier to swallow. Most people know what a matrix is, right?
Maybe I should have come up with something else for scalar too?
Like what? "Zeroth order system invariant under coordinate transforms"?
See. Much simpler.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
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In through the nose; out through the mouth, fellas.
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Is there a flaw with the rest of the explanatory post?
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Not really, I just thought you wanted to know something else.
You have a point there.
Always. Give us the 'matrix'
I did my best with this:
Thinking in multiple dimensions is up to the reader for now. Yes?
Quite often when we are asked what a scalar field is we go straight to definition without concept.
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