What creates gravity? in The AnswerBank: Science

boxtops

does this help? http://www.livescienc...ysteries-gravity.html

bibblebub

distortion of the space-time continuum by virtue of mass http://essontour.file...acetime_curvature.png

kawakiri

Gravity for kids:
http://coolcosmos.ipa...ids/def_gravity.shtml

kawakiri

http://www.gravityms.com/page1.html

douglas9401

What creates gravity?

God. :)

JonnyBoy12

There is no such thing as gravity......................................
.the
Earth sucks!

vascop

mass.

thenry

Your question just weighs me down !

methyl

There is a Wikipedia on Gravity which establishes that some famous scientists with better brains than ours do understand Gravity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity
What is fascinating to me is that the gravitational force varies according to the mass of the object you are standing on. Thus the gravitational force on the Moon is roughly one-sixth of that on the Earth. If you are not influenced by a body with large mass, there is no gravitational force - hence why astronauts float around on their space craft when clear of the influence of the Earth and the Moon until they reach some other large-mass body like Mars.

Clanad

For a number of reasons, some thoretical mathmaticians are moving to the theory that "Gravitation is not an attractive force between masses, but a pressure force exerted by spacetime on closed volumesthat tends to bring them closer to each other". (Source: Jacky Jerome The Higgs Boson and the Higgs Field )

The recent seeming confirmation of the Higgs Boson may establish a theory that unifies Mass, Gravity and the Curvature of Spacetime in a single 4D model. In other words a "net" that supports all of spacetime and produces, not an attractive force between objects but a pressure force pressuring them together. "... this new theory, the Spacetime Model, also explains several enigmas of physics such as the time dilatation, E = mc², the increase of mass of relativistic particles, black holes, black matter... The association "Spacetime Model + Higgs Field" solves a large part of enigmas of modern physics." (Source: Ibid.)

SumBod

Gravity is the force which attracts two bodies, and which is defined by the general equation "F=GxM1xM2/R^2". The force is proportional to the product of the bodies' masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
We know how to calculate it, but I don't think we really know what it is.
If we did understand it, then interplanetary travel would be a lot more simple than it currently is.

vascop

Clanad
Jacky Jerome is a nutter.

Graham-W

Although the Higgs Boson particle has been postulated for a long time, only recently do scientist believe they may have found it. There has been no real explanation for mass without the Higgs Boson.
Without mass there can be no gravity so this is a very important discovery.
So, to answer your question, gravity is not fully understood but may be caused by the Higgs Bosonparticle.

whiskeryron

// If you are not influenced by a body with large mass, there is no gravitational force // so making love to a very large lady becomes increasingly interesting.

WR.

jake-the-peg

OK - this question has different answers at different levels

Level 1/

Newton under the apple tree - ya de ya - comes up rather brilliantly with a description and understanding of gravity which was good enough to send men to the moon

Level 2/

Although Newton is good enough for Apollo there are some issues it's not good enough for - the orbit of Mercury famously cannot be described by Newton's Gravity.

Einstein's General relativity describes gravity as bodies moving through a warped space time.

This is spectacularly effective - explains not only Mercury's orbit but sucessfully predicts that a star's light will be bent during a solar eclipse

Level 3/

Still issue not yet worked out - all other forces are explained at the microscopic level by the exchange of virtual particles. It is believed by most that Gravity has a similar underlying form and that relativity is if you like an approximation of this.

Currently when you try to marry these two up it doesn't work.

People are looking for a theory of Quantum Gravity which would fix this problem - There would be a particle called a graviton - we'll never be able to detect a graviton though as you'd need a detector the size of a star and even CERN isn't going to get funding for that.

However people are looking for Gravitational waves which would imply their existance.

So to cut a long story short - we have a pretty damn good understanding (Einstein) but it's not quite there yet

wildwood

I believe every person has a gremlin like representative that lives under the Earth's mantel and has a human magnet to keep us from flying into outer space. Sometimes the gremlins have a party and get a bit sloshed, that is when we on the surface are said to 'walk around aimlessly'. When they get careless and try to jump over each other we get car accidents, so it is not our fault! Some of the gremlins are real little devils and sometimes turn their magnet on full blast, that's when we fall down, so again - not out fault.

naomi24

Question Author

Thank you very much everyone.

LazyGun

I think Wildwoods answer seems the most plausible explanation, and the most evidence supporting it ;)

Old_Geezer

Been I while since I visited the Science Section 'on spec' (as opposed to seeing something in the "Latest Posts" lists).

Aye, best explanation at the moment is the classical one put forward by Einstein. As I understand it space is warped by mass so the path of least resistance for anything attempting to pass by a massive object is one that spirals into the object. This is experienced by us as if it were a pulling force that we have named gravity.

However we are in need of a quantum theory of gravity so we can tie gravity into a Grand Unified Theory and explain everything. It's being worked on.

AliceTickband

ask Mary Poppins....she seems to have it sussed.

Topics

What creates gravity?

Gravity

He is one hell of a Santa!!

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