Force of Gravity

Dark matter.

 

Fwiw, I'm a bigger fan of Loop Quantum Gravity as opposed to String theory (M-theory).

 

It would take time I don't have to do some quality reading on LQG, but from the little I did.. I like that it centers around the idea of spacetime being granular. That's pretty much how I view spacetime.. that whatever it is at it's core, it's like a teeny tiny grain of space/energy. It takes up space, it is space.. and those teeny tiny grains more than likely have their own pull or force. So I think it's pretty likely that those "grains" of spacetime will react with one another.. and likely that they'd form chains, or strings, much like magnetic objects.

 

Gravity is actually not very well understood. It is just observed i.e. we know it exists. We know gravity is proportional to mass. That is about it. My understanding of physics is mediocre at best but they probably theorized photons had a mass after observing indirect gravitational lensing. I am not sure how they did this exactly but it probably has something to do with how light is affected by gravity. If light had no mass the it probably would not be affected by gravity and thus gravitational lensing would not exist. I could be wrong about this though.

 

Gravity is the color blue, leaving the vacuum of space void of light filtration.

Red is radio, green is the screen, gravity is the color in-between.

 

You are wrong about that. I already explained why it would move if it didn't have mass a few posts ago.

 

After doing a little research I found that you are correct. The general consensus is that photons have no relative mass while moving and gravitational lensing affects light because we are seeing the affects of gravity affecting space/time which is interacting with the light. However it is a hotly debated question and considered "advanced" physics (whatever that means). The question I am referring to is "Why does gravity interact with light if light has no mass?" Which would explain why I am confused by it. I only know enough physics to study our solar system so basically only Newtonian Physics, my knowledge of relativity basically comes from self interest and independent study which probably pales in comparison to an actual course on the subject.

 

The generally accepted view of it is that gravity distorts space. Imagine if you had a piece of paper laid horizontally in the air and held tensely by its four corners. If you roll a marble over it (and it's held tense enough to not deform) the marble would go in a straight line. Now imagine if you put a 2" diameter steel ball in the middle of that piece of paper (at the same tension), no matter how you roll the marble it's going to tend towards the steel ball. That's the effect gravity has, regardless if the object has mass.

 

I think that to avoid a lot of contradictions physicists think of gravity more as an observable effect than a force. Gravity is the effect objects with mass cause on space-time. But it is still hard to wrap my head around. I bet physicists started out discussing stuff like this then they eventually reached a confusing part like this and were like fuck it I know math sucks but it is the only way we describe this shit.

 

I wouldn't go as far to call it disenginous we have just reached a technological plateou where we cannot prove a lot of the new theories with current observations. Thats how theoretical physics has always worked. If a theory has good mathematics and it cannot be disproven through mathematics it is a valid theory. We will not know if all these theories are correct until out technology advances or we find proof with current tech.

 

Just my observations on how they do things. I am not saying its the way it is or always is. String theory for example was accepted as a valid theory because its math checks out. There is not a lot of observable data that backs it up it just has a solution for the contradiction of endless expansion which has never really been explained. However its not like you see headlines that say "String theory unsurps Relativity". Its becaude large portions are un-falsifiable at the moment. Or as you put it interesting conjecture. However large portions of science are just interesting conjecture, take archaeology and anthropology for example.

 

I'm not expert, but I'm pretty sure the consensus is that photons have no rest mass.. but they have relativistic mass while traveling.

 

I give up. lol

 

Honestly the more I read it seems that the concept that photons do not have mass is still hotly debated. Many people still think that photons have to have mass and that the concept that photons have mass and don't have mass is just a cop-out. i.e. the formulas fell apart so they just made a new variable/formula to accept both contradictions. I could be mistaken but wasn't the idea that photons can't have mass because according to Relativity when a object with mass accelerates to or faster than the speed of light its mass would increase infinitely. I was under the assumption that this along with all of special relativity relies on the speed of light as a constant. However even the assumption that the speed of light is constant is being debated constantly. In fact there is evidence that the speed of light can be manipulated even outside an inertial frame. If the speed of light is not constant then it could be assumed that the rule that mass can not travel at the speed of light could be wrong.

 

Don't.. lol.. I know this shit gets confusing. My understanding is that photons are said to have zero rest mass, which means that if you were able to get one to sit still, it'd have no mass. As a photon travels, it "gains" energy. I say "gains" because a photon is technically never at rest.. and the energy it "gained" was energy that it started with.. but if you could put a photon into rest and then sped it up to the speed of light, it would gain more energy the faster it goes. That energy is where its relativistic mass comes from. It's not technically mass.. but it gives it mass.