Einstein is Right, again.

SLAM: debunk creationism, pseudoscience, and superstitions. Discuss logic and morality.

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Durandal
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Post by Durandal »

The Dark wrote:I thought they considered gravity to be a pseduo-force propagated by the warping effects of mass upon space-time.
Kinda. In fact, when I took modern cosmology, I wrote, in big letters in my notebook, "GRAVITY IS NOT A FORCE," after the section on general relativity. When I asked my professor, "If gravity is just warps in spacetime whose effects happen to be acceleration, then it's not really a force. So why is everyone wasting so much time looking for it?" Basically, he said that such a theory would imply that gravity was specially created, apart from the other forces, and those in the cosmological community weren't quite ready to consider that possibility yet.

However, there are reasons to think that all accelerative forces are the results of warps in spacetime, too. We could currently be putting the cart before the horse, if you take my meaning. Certain relativistic effects (like mass-energy equivalence) apply universally (when an object gains kinetic energy, it's mass increases by an equivalent amount given by Delta-m = KE/c^2), for example. Basically, the entire community isn't going to stop searching for the graviton because I told them to. :)
I'm loving this too; my HS physics teacher still tells me I should go into physics, but I dislike most math too much. Maybe after I've tried my current major, if I don't like it I'll go back to school under the Monty and get another degree.
Find me a physicist who likes math. :)
Damien Sorresso

"Ever see what them computa bitchez do to numbas? It ain't natural. Numbas ain't supposed to be code, they supposed to quantify shit."
- The Onion
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Colonel Olrik
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Post by Colonel Olrik »

Find me a physicist who likes math.
Well, I'm not quite a physicist, but I always loved both physics and math. Granted, I was a minority in my college class. :)
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