Comment by john_moscow

Comment by john_moscow 13 hours ago

13 replies

Space exists around things with mass. Also, above-absolute-zero temperatures cause particles to jump around randomly.

Now if there is "more space" around particle A, particle B will have a slightly higher statistical chance of randomly jumping closer to it, than farther.

Rinse-repeat. Gravity as we know it.

meindnoch 12 hours ago

>Also, above-absolute-zero temperatures cause particles to jump around randomly.

Does it? A single free particle won't "jump around randomly". Thermal motion is plain Newtonian motion with an extremely high rate of collisions. There's nothing random about it (let's put quantum things aside for now).

  • AlexandrB 2 hours ago

    This made me think of Norton's Dome[1] and how a particle would choose a direction to move when warmed from absolute zero to above absolute zero. Though I guess, "warming" in this context would mean a collision with another particle and that would determine the initial direction?

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton%27s_dome

strogonoff 10 hours ago

If space existed around things with mass, then what would you call the emptiness that replaces space the further you go away from things with mass?

bravesoul2 12 hours ago

> particle B will have a slightly higher statistical chance of randomly jumping closer to it,

Why?

Also how do you explain acceleration due to gravity with that model. How do you explain solid objects?

  • MaxikCZ 11 hours ago

    My guess would be the answer is right in the part before you quote? If theres more "space" (imagining more space coordinates possible) for me on the left than on the right, me jumping to a random location would statistically move me left.

    Repeating results in movement, getting closer to the object intensifies this effect, results in acceleration.

    Solid objects are products of electric charge preventing atoms/particles from hitting each other, I dont think that has to have to do anything with gravity in this example?

    • bravesoul2 7 hours ago

      I don't understand the more space thing then. Is this more space due to spacetime curvature or something else.

      E.g. if we have earth and moon:

          O   o
      
      Why is there more space from the moon towards earth than away?
      • jblezo 6 hours ago

        Spacetime curvature.

        Like if you dropped the earth on a giant sheet, it would stretch the sheet more than what the moon would have.

enriquto 13 hours ago

Sounds fun!

Would this imply that cold objects have weaker gravity?

  • psittacus 13 hours ago

    Isn't this something we already know from the mass–energy equivalence? In the same way that a nuclear reaction that produces heat must cost the object mass (and therefore gravitational pull)

  • Quarrel 11 hours ago

    It does, but because you have to divide the energy change by c^2, it is really really hard to detect it, and mostly overwhelmed by other effects of the heating/cooling.

    • enriquto 11 hours ago

      why do the units matter here? Under this theory, will a body at absolute zero have no observable mass? No attractive field around it, no inertia if you try to move it.

Woansdei 12 hours ago

sounds more like the reverse to me, movement away from denser areas (less space), so like water leaking out of a container.