Do we understand gravity as cavemen understood fire?

[Snowdog]

Ok, this might sound silly, but just how well does mankind (us, not Mick Foley) currently understand gravity?
Sure, I know we recognize the effects of gravity and where to find it (and why that is), but do we know what it is?


Early man certainly found uses for fire and knew many of its properties along with requirements needed for its creation (a fuel, access to open air, heat, etc).  However, they couldn't have known the smoke was a composition of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon (since they hadn't a clue what that even was) or the chemical reaction involved with the "fire" itself. At their level of understanding, they couldn't possibly have known.

Are we at this same stage in understanding gravity?   If so, when we do understand gravity at the same level that we currently understand "fire", would it be so enlightening that it could usher in a new era for mankind?

Just curious.

[bedlamite]

Are you trying to say we don't understand the gravity of the situation?

[seeker_two]

Ok, this might sound silly, but just how well does mankind (us, not Mick Foley) currently understand gravity?

This statement lacks gravitas.....maybe you should have Dick Cheney ask it.... 

[Brad Johnson]

Personally I think there is a fundamental element of physics yet to be discovered, one that will 'splain lots of stuff we currently don't really understand on a fundamental level (gravity, dark matter, etc).

Weighty matter, that.

Brad

[Snowdog]

Very well, but don't make him ask twice....


Thanks Brad, that's the conclusion I'm leaning towards as well.  I do find it fascinating that something we see every day isn't understood if that's true.

[Hutch]

Pay no attention to the low humor, 'Dog.  Morgan Freeman explained it to me very well a week or two ago.  Watch "Through the Wormhole".  Basically, from my limited grasp, we know the "particles" that provide the energy of light (photons), the weak force (bosons) and the strong force (gluons) I may have mixed up the last two, whatever.  There's a lot of head scratching among the really, really smart kids as to what particle, analagous to the first three, provides the energy we describe as gravity.  If we can cook that up, and come up with the Unified Field Theory, aka the Theory of Everything, it'd be, like, way cool.

[Snowdog]

Hutch, I have heard of that show and I could have sworn I had it saved on the DVR to record, but now looking through the gobs of stuff that's been saved, no dice.  You're the second person I've seen bring that up today, so I'll certainly give that a shot.  I already watch the one with Stephen Hawkins, which is quite intriguing as well. 

Thanks!

[Brad Johnson]

Everyone - scientists and such, that is - are scratching their heads over which particle or which wave does what, and how to resolve the continuous "is it a particle or a wave" question in terms of, well, lots of stuff.  I firmly believe there will be a discovered another form of matter-energy, one that we live in/around/with every day but are scientifically unable or logically incapable of recognizing.  Yet.  It will be such a fundamental shift from the science we currently know that it will bring on a radical shift in how we view reality itself (quantum physics has alread hinted at the possibility). 

Just as quantum physics did over the last century, this new discovery will send us scrambling back to the proverbial drawing board and usher in an entirely new age of science and mankind.

Brad

[280plus]

Gravity and magnetism have always struck me as being very similar so I wonder if it's based in electricity somehow. Like all mass emits a certain weak electrical field that is amplified by the size of the mass ans creates a natural attraction for mass to mass.

Like I was just watching two ice cubes melt in a cup of hot coffee the other day because simple things fascinate me. They danced around each other for a while being driven by the outflow of water and finally they got close enough to each other that you could watch them kind of just "see" each other and then suck themselves together until they were touching. To me it seemed like a miniscule gravitational attraction but at the same time it could have been related to the surface tension of the liquid. Either way it was a great way to kill ~ 5 minutes. 

[Monkeyleg]

I've seen people study their coffee that way, but they were usually very drunk.

I suspect once science has a thorough understanding of gravity, there will be ways found to modify it. That could lead to some interesting work.

[280plus]

I've seen people study their coffee that way, but they were usually very drunk.

Nope, just sitting in a booth killing some time before the next appointment. I did my best not to drool while I awas so entertained.

I suspect once science has a thorough understanding of gravity, there will be ways found to modify it.

Hellooo, it's called the "airplane". 

 

[Doggy Daddy]

Do we understand gravity as cavemen understood fire?

Did someone get up early, realize it was Sunday and there was nothing needing to be done, so they hit the bong before breakfast?   

DD

[freakazoid]

Everyone - scientists and such, that is - are scratching their heads over which particle or which wave does what, and how to resolve the continuous "is it a particle or a wave" question in terms of, well, lots of stuff.  I firmly believe there will be a discovered another form of matter-energy, one that we live in/around/with every day but are scientifically unable or logically incapable of recognizing.  Yet.  It will be such a fundamental shift from the science we currently know that it will bring on a radical shift in how we view reality itself (quantum physics has alread hinted at the possibility).

The force is an energy field created by all living things, it surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together

[Brad Johnson]

The force is an energy field created by all living things, it surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together

According to quantum theory, that's a tantalizing possibility.

Brad

[tyme]

Last year Erik Verlinde went quite far in describing gravity as an entropic force relating to the information about a system encoded on the holographic screen (think bounding surface) surrounding that system (also see: for why this "holographic screen" idea was initially cooked up, inspired by black holes).  I don't know whether that speculative theory of gravity has been viciously dismantled by now, but I think it would be really neat if gravity turned out to be an emergent phenomena like he described.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_as_an_entropic_force
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/01/gravity-is-an-entropic-form-of-holographic-information/

[HankB]

Everything can be explained by particle physics.

For example, time is explained by the flow of time particles called chronons. These are omnipresent, but only those traveling in the same direction as you are at a rate of speed higher than yours cause the apparent passage of time. As you increase your velocity, fewer chronons pass you by, so time appears to slow. (This effect really begins to manifest as you approach the speed of light.)

Friction? Explained by particles of friction called frikions. Some substances (rubber, for instance) have large number of frikions on the surface, so rubbing two pieces of rubber together will meet frictional resistance. Other items like Teflon have fewer frikions, so they tend to slide over things. Now, oil will reduce friction, but that's just because oil washes the surface layer of frikions away . . .

An explanation of gravitons is left as an exercise for the reader.

 

[Ryan in Maine]

Does science really understand anything fully?

[drewtam]

Does science really understand anything fully?

No expert understands fully his own topic of expertise.

[S. Williamson]

Science knows more about how things do not work rather than how they do work.    Simple, single-variable process of elimination, as it were.  Not saying anything against Science, mind you--it's just that the methods we use lend themselves more to this line of thought better than any other.

[tyme]

Does science really understand anything fully?

s/understand/describe/
No, but it's the highest form of human activity that keeps trying to reduce errors between reality and our conception of reality.

[Nitrogen]

Does science really understand anything fully?

Fully? no.  We think we understand, and we keep testing to see if we really understand.  The more we test, the more we realize that we understand some things, and not others.  The more we test, the more questions we answer, but then again, it leaves even more questions to ask.

As far as particles, we THINK we know all the particles and what they do, we just havn't observed the higgs boson yet. 

[grampster]

I'm still trying to understand what the definition of "is" is.

[tyme]

As far as particles, we THINK we know all the particles and what they do, we just haven't observed the higgs boson[s] yet.

Maybe we have...
http://www.physorg.com/news195885620.html

[Monkeyleg]

Hellooo, it's called the "airplane"

The airplane is aerodynamics. Gravity is when the airplane isn't designed right.

[Perd Hapley]

Hellooo, it's called the "airplane". 

pwnd


Maybe cavemen understood gravity, but didn't know that their science books were flammable?  What a loss.