erick I don't want to be a dick by getting into your and Bills conversation but to quote you;
Yes ovyus, gravity causes rain to fall only after it has been evaporated by the sun but the sun itself is powered by extreme gravity. No?
This looks like you are arguing for an idea that regardless whether it's energy from the sun or not that causes water to ascend, since gravity caused the suns fusion, its gravity that is responsible for making the water to ascend.
That is not the case. Gravity isn't energy, it's a pressure gradiant. Regardless whether the suns gravity is the cause of its fusion or not, gravity isn't the source of its radiant energy. That energy is already there as potential energy latent in the mass of the sun. Gravity is only causing an entropic " crush" to some of the mass, where by some of its latent potential energy is released as kinetic energy.
FWIW I think erick's line of reasoning is reasonable and Bill has been a little unfair with him.
I think Bill takes gravity for granted when he says it is "just a catalyst."
This outlook sidesteps some important questions which are so far still unanswered like what is the mechanism of gravity's force and where does it come from? How and why does it create pressure capable of unleashing atomic fusion? (N.B. to my mind Einstein did not answer these questions, he just moved them over and invented a new imaginary ether called the space-time continuum)
Bill's stance seems to be that the answers to these questions are irrelevant and I disagree.
Just my $0.02.
-Scott
(now let the sparks fly :-)
Last edited by scott on Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:30 am, edited 6 times in total.
I was simply pointing out that the energy from the sun is caused by its extreme gravity which causes the fusion reactions that power it. That however is not an example of gravity in it of itself creating a closed cyclical system since the aun is a separate extraterrestrial body.
In both the case of the suns light and heat energy and in the case of rain falling gravity is quite clearly doing work. It may not be a closed loop in either case but it is work. This alone proves that the idea that because gravity is a conservative force it cannot do work is false.
Ovyus,
What I mean by "powered" is that the fusion reactions that result in the suns heat and light energy are the direct result of gravity causing those reactions due to extreme heat and pressure. Fusion reactions do not happen spontaneously Ovyus.
Scott, questions like, "what is the mechanism of gravity's force and where does it come from" are clearly important and I do not think they are at all irrelevant and I certainly don't think I take gravity for granted :D
However, a false belief such as the sun is 'powered by gravity' doesn't require esoteric knowledge when it can be discounted with more mundane observational and experimental physics. Someone please define the term 'power' in physics. Then I guess we'll need to define and understand the term 'work', followed by...
People can believe as they please. But that's not necessarily physics :)
Bill, if you can't answer a question as fundamental as "what is the mechanism of gravity" then how can you say anything truly definitive about it?
Sure, we can come up with equations with predictive power. But we are as uncertain about the fundamental nature of gravity today as we were a thousand years ago.
Far be it from us count it out.
-Scott
Last edited by scott on Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Scott wrote:Bill, if you can't answer a question as fundamental as "what is the mechanism of gravity" then how can you say say anything truly definitive about it?
Without answering any fundament questions about gravity I can still say, definitively, that if I drop a brick on your toe it will hurt. Of course you might pretend that it didn't hurt because you don't understand the fundamental mechanism of gravity :D
Gravity had been for all intensive purposes been explained by general relativity which has recently been PROVEN. Gravity is a gulf in space time cause by its bending around an object in motion. Gravity itself is the result of the extreme velocities of matter rejecting from the big bang. There are volumes of physical evidence that all but prove this basic premise. Gravity is much like the vacuum created behind a semi truck driving down the freeway except in a 3 dimensional (as opposed to 2 dimensional) distribution. Just as in the truck driving down the freeway, you can use that vacuum to "draft" behind it.
It's recently been 'proven' that dark chocolate is good for your health. Most probably by a Cadbury food technologist.
It has never been 'proven' that cigarettes cause lung cancer - otherwise the tobacco industry would have been totally bankrupted and shut down by now.
If gravity is the result of the velocity of mass being (r)ejected from the allleged big bang - then wouldn't it have a fixed velocity, and wouldn't it have a fixed direction (outwards from the centre)? And how would you explain that the attraction between two masses is proportional to their mass, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them? If gravity is this big universal trailing suction effect behind matter, wouldn't both masses want to go in the same direction (not one towards the other) and wouldn't heavier masses accelerate slower than lighter masses?
What is this 'proof' that gravity is warped 'spacetime'? IMO - physics needs to bring back the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater ... the aether. Until we can all agree on what empty space itself consists of, we can't prove anything about particles, let alone the complete set of laws that they all follow ...
And No - Michelson Morley did Not prove that the aether does not exist. All they proved was that the medium through which light waves travel does not appear to be moving relative to the surface of the earth. So it seems unlikely that the earth is traveling through a stationary aether. It could however be surrounded by entrained aether. Or each particle of the earth could indeed be formed out of aether - hence no velocity difference at all ...
If space or spacetime is a pure empty void of nothingness - what "waves" as electromagnetic waves traverse through it? And how do you explain 'fields' (see my sig)? How do you explain the Casimir effect? How do you explain the operation of capacitors and inductors (which demonstrate forces being stored in the space around charged masses)?
I agree that it is not proven that gravity IS warped space/time, it is only proven that space/time is warped in a gravityfield ;-)
(This I believe has a missing link, a shortcut conclusion, and this missing link could explain the cause of gravity).
To break space/time down :
Atoms (making up matter) slow down their vibration/rotation when they travels through space or is close to another mass. I would not call it "warped spacetime", but it is a fancy word though.
Could it be that the overlooked is; that if you travel through space, it is equal to if space travels through you, while you stand still ?
Fabric of aether/space:
I really suspect that mr. Pier L. Ighina discovered the substance of this "Aether" already early/mid 1900s.
1. Pulsating "atoms" much much smaller than atoms making up matter.
2. These atoms interact with magnetic fields/light and atoms of matter/gases etc.
3. These "atoms", "explode" and multiply if not another of these atoms or atoms of matter is reached. Thus they will fill all "empty space".
4. They can transfer energy to an atom of matter, if this atom is in a low vibrating state.
5. He called this the magnetic/perpetual atom.
Could it be that he did actually see the very fabric of space?
I feel these thing are closely connected to quest for Gravity "engines" and Free energy in general.
If space or spacetime is a pure empty void of nothingness - what "waves" as electromagnetic waves traverse through it
Greendoor I had a post up but then removed it. Einstein showed mathematically that lightwaves need not an aether nor a fabric to propagate. This was a part of my argument why gravity is not caused by a velocity of mass relative to a field.
meChANical Man.
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