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Chiron

- 3 years ago

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Why isn't gravity explained by atomic forces and vice-versa?

Take a look at the picture: is it a solar system? Is it an atom? That's my point. For centuries scientists have been confounded by this unseeable, undetectable force (gravity) that must be inferred mathematically from all other phenomena. Yet, they have measured and believe to completely understand the atomic forces of neutrons and electrons. Why can't these two phenomena be the same thing but on different scales? I.e., the old stoner question of: "O.K., so that means our whole solar system could be one tiny atom in the fingernail of some other giant being...." Could someone explain to me why the postulate doesn't work?

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I wonder if there might be a need for a some great physical unknown -- like the grand unification theory -- that always needs to be unsolved on the books? Sort of like a cosmic pressure valve that keeps us from becoming so full of ourselves that we quite literally will not be able to live with ourselves? We all know how insufferable a person can be who simply thinks they know it all. Will we be able to handle ourselves when we actually do? What will our fate be, when there's nothing left to study, research, or explore?

I think we -badly- need a physicist to inject some reality into this thread. I have a very limited knowledge of the topic but will respond to the bits of the question I feel I can. Ok, Gravity is not undetectable - jump into the air and you will detect it by the way it makes you fall on your a*s. What is debatably undetectable is that which allows two bodies of mass to exert an attractive force on one another. i.e. We haven't (yet) detected a 'graviton', a particle that can be said to mediate gravity. This may be because we lack the technological ability to do so, or it may be physically impossible to do so, or it may simply be that such a particle does not exist. As for the pictures ambiguity - it doesn't have any. There are so many fundamental differences between a solar system and an atom that comparing the two is all but superficially preposterous. For one thing, electrons do not orbit the nucleus of an atom like little balls of electricity. The currently accepted model describes an orbiting electron as a 'cloud' of negative charge - the electron does not have a precise position within this cloud. The reality is far more complicated then this simplistic explanation has the scope to cover - if you want to know more, take up Physics or Chemistry.

Scientists can't seem to find a mathematical system that works out both on a micro and macro scale. Gravity is strange because it's one of the weakest forces but has one of the widest areas of effect, whereas magnetism is one of the strongest forces, but has one of the smallest areas of effect. Maybe atomic forces are mostly magnetic, while celestlial forces are mostly gravitational, though the interplay is as-of-yet unexplainable. They're starting to get some realistic unified solutions with String Theory, but that's a discussion for another thread, if not forum altogether

Who says that these two phenomena are NOT the same thing on two different scales? In fact, there is a strong likelihood that this is exactly the case. I don't know about fingernails of giant celestial beings, but Einstein's observance (at least I think it was Einstein) that, #1- Matter can neither be created nor destroyed; and #2- particles can be infinitely cut into smaller particles (i.e., there is not such thing as a "smallest particle"), lends itself to the conclusion that everyone and everything is, in its origin, made of the same cosmic dust that was present at the inception of the universe itself, notwithstanding the fact that man has no possible way of knowing for sure whether or not the universe ever really "began" at all. In terms of explaining gravity, it is probably safe to assume that, since everything, everyone, and all forces that dynamically impact everything, are purely energy in varying concentrations, the atom and solar systems mirror one another precisely because they are made of identical stuff (energy), which would explain why they both behave in the same way. Or not. One never knows.

I somehow edited out the biggie: planets follow the elliptical orbits predicted by gravity. Electrons follow orbits of a completely different sort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital

Well for one thing, so far as we know electrons are not reducible to smaller particles like protons and neutrons are. Whereas planets and stars are made of fundamentally the same stuff and thus behave according to the same basic principles. Planets, like protons and neutrons, don't display the same wave/particle duality that electrons do. (Also: how is gravity not detectable? Do the makers of accelerometers know this?)

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Why isn't gravity explained by atomic forces and vice-versa?

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I somehow edited out the biggie: planets follow the elliptical orbits predicted by gravity. Electrons follow orbits of a completely different sort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital

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Why isn't gravity explained by atomic forces and vice-versa?

I somehow edited out the biggie: planets follow the elliptical orbits predicted by gravity. Electrons follow orbits of a completely different sort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital

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