Hi I'm not a scientist but what if gravity doesn't exist?

[St✩rlight]

What if it is all just magnetism. Just a bunch of electrons pushing and pulling.

[MinionJoe]

Originally posted by Amuro0079:

Gravity is the curvature of spacetime.

The effect of gravity is the curvature of spacetime. We're still not sure what causes gravity though.

As a fundamental force, it's effects are unusual. A regular magnet can lift a paperclip in opposition to the entire gravitational force of the planet. Yet we can detect gravitational waves from lightyears away.

Most interesting theory I've heard about the source of gravity is that it's created by dimensional seepage from a dimension where ...

OK, I'm back from the rabbit hole. It seems that the GW170817 event shed some interesting light on the matter...

https://www.livescience.com/63666-gravitational-waves-reveal-no-extra-dimensions.html

I'll have to dig into this further.

[Pocahawtness]

Originally posted by zeke:

Originally posted by Pirate☠️Pocah:

Yes, we all know they are good theories, but the point that kingjames488's was making is perfectly valid, that we shouldn't take them as fact. It's easy to make a list of what they do predict but as long as there is a list of things they don't predict then they are still just theories. Good theories, maybe, but not fact.

It's people. Most people aren't scientists, including many scientists. They just accept what they read in a book without a second thought.

"It's easy to make a list of what they do predict but..." There's an irony in your statement there. It is precisely the fact that they make predictions that are testable that make them trustworthy. What's *actually* easy is to come up with a post hoc explanation of events. This is exactly what everyone (you, I, [insert your pick of scientist], or anyone else) do most of the time as we go about our daily lives. Instead, these theories are a bit like fortune tellers predicting the future but, unlike those frauds, these predictions actually come true. It is that chain of prediction and testing of those predictions that makes scientific theories pretty much the most reliable statements that can be made.

Most of the things (outside of scientific fields) that people call 'facts' are based upon nothing more than post hoc explanations or casual observation (often with incomplete knowledge and/or unknown variables present). But by you're statement (and kingjames'), it doesn't seem that you're entirely dismissing the notion of a 'fact' and/or of people having 'factual conversations'. And so, the problem arises in this: that the dismissal of talking about scientific theories 'matter of factually' (without entirely dismissing the notion of a fact altogether) can only be maintained by employing the evaluational parameters used in making that statement very selectively (in other words, only when you find it convenient) or by using a train of logic that is incoherent.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that keeping in mind what we think - or that what is called - a fact may in fact be wrong is a bad thing. Things we take to be true may very well turn out to be false or incomplete information. This is true both of the sciences and of life in general. But - and I'm sorry to be blunt - your dismissals in their accompanying contexts are illogical (as per outlined above).

No. What I am saying is not illogical at all. All I am saying is that if we have a "theory" that has known problems then you can't take that theory as fact or truth. You can describe it as a good theory, but you have to solve all the problems before you can say it's true and there are tons and tons of problems in physics both on the small and the large scale that we still have no solution for.

Frankly, you seem to be reading your science out of a book and just quoting it as fact, which is not how a good scientist should work. But then you probably aren't one. A scientist, I mean.

[zeke]

The known problems in physics is that we have yet to develop a theory that explains the [insert relevant problem]. But understand, these aren't problems with the content of QFT or GR themselves. Both QFT and GR provide very accurate and expansive predictions that have stood up to every test (of the many, many tests) that they have been subjected to. The other major issue is the fact that we have both QFT and GR instead of these two being united as a single scientific theory (the goal of developing a grand unified theory).

There is no one that has, and there is nothing about which anyone has, 'perfect knowledge' of in this universe. Every piece of knowledge or information anyone possess is 'imperfect knowledge'. But the argument you're making doesn't seem to be that there aren't things that we can talk about as 'fact' or 'truth'. As such, you're train of logic there is untenable when not applied selectively at personal whim. So again, I'm going to refer you to reread and reconsider what I wrote in my previous response regarding 'fact'.
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"you seem to be reading your science out of a book and just quoting it as fact, which is not how a good scientist should work"

I don't know where you're getting your preconceptions, but you've got that completely backwards. That is precisely what a good scientist does. When a scientist makes a statement of fact, they should be able to point and say "Here are the published results where the hypotheses were tested, the predictions this model made were verified, and the results replicated." That's basically the entire basis of empiricism in modern science. Anything else is generally just a person's own personal untested hypothesis, biases, or whims.*
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And no, for the record I am not a scientist nor have I ever claimed to be. I am an individual who is generally passionate about the sciences and who is well studied and read about the topics at hand (compared to the general populace - but let's be frank, that itself isn't a high bar as quantum physics isn't taught outside of the university level).



*When a scientist is talking about their own research or the research being done at the forefront of the field they will of course generally be talking about untested hypotheses and/or unreplicated experiments/results - and that is perfectly fine of course. All scientific laws and theories started off as a set of untested hypotheses; it is the early stages of scientific inquiry. They should, however, generally be more careful in how they state their assertions.

[BRRT]

density and buoyancy. you are denser than water, so you sink, but the air in your lungs gives you buoyancy, so you float now, but you are denser than air too, so you sink in that, but your legs have enough muscle to hold you up, so you can walk upright. water is denser than air, so it settles to a level, below the air. then how come the waters above are stuck up there? are they held there because they are less dense than the air? or are the waters above like that for another reason

[Fajita Jim]

Originally posted by MinionJoe:

Most interesting theory I've heard about the source of gravity is that it's created by dimensional seepage from a dimension where ...

Or most of the gravity seeps out of our dimension, which is why what's left is so weak. Or maybe it just moves into spatial dimensions only gravity can access because they're so small and curled up?

Or maybe gravity is just a weak ♥♥♥♥♥.

[talemore]

Originally posted by Save Windows 7:

density and buoyancy. you are denser than water, so you sink, but the air in your lungs gives you buoyancy, so you float now, but you are denser than air too, so you sink in that, but your legs have enough muscle to hold you up, so you can walk upright. water is denser than air, so it settles to a level, below the air. then how come the waters above are stuck up there? are they held there because they are less dense than the air? or are the waters above like that for another reason

There's a density in vacuum ?

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Munithe EXT:

What if it is all just magnetism. Just a bunch of electrons pushing and pulling.

It's simply not the case.

[St✩rlight]

Originally posted by Kargor:

Originally posted by Munithe EXT:

What if it is all just magnetism. Just a bunch of electrons pushing and pulling.

It's simply not the case.

Then what is it?

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Munithe EXT:

Originally posted by Kargor:

It's simply not the case.

Then what is it?

That's actually an interesting question; I don't know whether "we" know, but I'm certainly not the one to ask here.

Still, just a few years ago, I saw a movie that was "supposed" to explain gravity (they had a fulldome version of it, and among the ones that were shown, it was the one with an actual scientific theme). Unfortunately, it only explained some basics -- interesting, no doubt, but it never explained how it actually works.

[St✩rlight]

Yeah, no-one knows. People just assume it has something to do with "dark matter". i.e we know something probably exists but that's all we know.

[BRRT]

Originally posted by talemore:

There's a density in vacuum ?

What vacuum? space? that's made up, you can't go past the waters above

[Kargor]

Originally posted by Munithe EXT:

Yeah, no-one knows. People just assume it has something to do with "dark matter". i.e we know something probably exists but that's all we know.

Dark matter is an entirely different thing -- that's matter that ONLY interacts with gravity; it's not explaining gravity.

The reason dark matter was invented is because, based on other currently accepted theories, there's not enough matter in the universe to explain various observable structures. However, Einstein has been producing great results over the decades, and they still manage to validate predictions that have been made but never been observed even today, so they don't really want to ditch that and start at nothing -- instead, inventing dark matter to fill the gap was a much easier solution that didn't invalidate everything else. It's literally a "we don't see anything where it should be, so let's just assume it's there, but we can't see it because it has weird properties" solution.

Still, it's a bit of a matter-ex-machina solution, so everyone is trying to figure out how prove or disprove the existence of dark matter. Or find explanations what it is, how it came to be and stuff like that. Finding a better solution for the "not enough matter" conundrum would also put you on track for a nobel prize.

[St✩rlight]

Yeah, that's basically what I meant.

[Chesmu]

Then you need to ask, why magnets / electrons pull and push everything so differently? There are millions of different interactions. It makes more sense if everything had its own weight, therefore the gravity theory.

[Ni-Neith]

Originally posted by Fried Brains:

Gravity is the weight of space holding you down. But what is the weight of space? Einstein said it is an ether, an element found throughout the universe and completely connected to itself. Quantum theory says gravity is electromagnetism but some is lost to parallel dimensions. (or something like that)

Not true. Einstein denied the existence of the ether.
In his theory, gravity is the curvature of space.
We are not talking about any ether there.