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July 13, 2010

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Does Gravity Really Exist?

Is gravity a fundamental force?

One expert physicist and string theorist, Dr Erik Verlinde, says the answer is very likely to be "no". check it out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13gravity.html?no_interstitial

TAo: Thanks for posting the link.

"You might wonder why a string theorist is interested in Newton’s equations. After all Newton was overturned a century ago by Einstein, who explained gravity as warps in the geometry of space-time, and who some theorists think could be overturned in turn by string theorists."

I guess whether a theory encompasses or overturns an other theory is more of question of opinion or belief. It is not because it is written in a book that it is a fact :) (just kiding)

As far as we can tell (based on facts) your claim of a almost truth (sic) is a belief at this point. Moreover, it rests on an ill-defined ideas of what a theory and truth might be. Let just say that a few hundred years is a pretty short period of time to evaluate if we 'finally (almost) got it'. Every period had its fools thinking we 'finally got it'. No reason to belief it is any different this time. Let just wait a few more hundred years to see if your 'encompassing' interpretation/conjecture pend out.


"We conscious beings are literally made of 'stardust'"

reminds me of Dr Darryl Reanney (molecular biologist), Australasian scientist, whom I met on one of his last lectures in 1993 : he died in 1994 (leukaemia). I still have the video recording of this lecture. He stated:
"There are millions of hydrogen atoms in our bodies. Thus the texture of our bodies and brains - the substance of our very being - is still continuous with an event that took place 15 billion years ago. We are still part of that 'great silent fire at the beinning of time.' Each of us.

Hydrogen is the start of the evolutionary journey. In a typical star like the sun, hydrogen is burned to helium, the next higher element. This is the pattern. As the fires inside stars get hotter, as the furnaces of creation glow more brightly, so ever more complex elements can be created: carbon, oxygen, iron and so on. Our bodies are made of star-ash. We are children of the stars. This is factually accurate. What we are 'now' is speaking to what we were 'then', each phase of our growth recognising the other in some dim way, below words.

These bones, this hand
star-ash
brain molten with genesis heat.
This quiet thought, that raging fire ..."

The above quoted from Reanney's book "Music of the Mind".

So what Primack and Abrams are saying is that 99.49% percent of what actually "exists" as the content of the universe is totally inaccessible to human beings, but nevertheless figures in significantly when it comes to the mathematical equations that allow us to manipulate the 0.51% of the universe that can be demonstrated to exist.

I'll sleep better now.

elizabeth w: "In a typical star like the sun, hydrogen is burned to helium, the next higher element. This is the pattern. As the fires inside stars get hotter, as the furnaces of creation glow more brightly, so ever more complex elements can be created: carbon, oxygen, iron and so on."

-- there is now some serious debate about that. there is another very plausible theory put forth by legitmate scientists that the sun is really not a nuclear furnace of hydrogen coverting to helium etc... but rather the stars are actually intense concentrations of electrical plasma formed by the intersection of huge interstellar elecrical fields. that the star globes are actually huge nexus points where vast electrical fields intersect and produce radiation.

you can easily find a lot more on this by doing a search for "the electrical universe" theory. i don't have the time right now to find and post the links. maybe later.


Yes, tAo, I have become conversant with the new theory stating the sun is not a hydrogen furnace converting to helium, this published fairly recently though I do not believe this negates Reanney's understanding as science, as you yourself with your erudite mind would know well, is a progression. 1993 is but a "minute" away (and the next "minute" and the next). I can only think how excited Reanney would be (he died relatively young) with this leap forward. Semantics also has its important place within this field so scientists tread warily.
It's all so interesting. Thanks your response.

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