Gravity Articles

There are 2 accepted theories which describe, unfortunately at classical level, the gravitational interaction:

*Newton’s theory does not answer the question “why?”, but the questions “how?” and “how much?”.

*Albert Einstein’s theory answers every possible question (except the ones regarding behavior at quantum level) including “why?”.

He states that gravity is determined by (present whenever there is) a nontrivial (nonzero) spacetime curvature (for empty spacetime (no matter) the field equations for the gravitational field are:Riccie tensor=0).He asserts that in a flat spacetime (as the ones encountered in special relativity and quantum field theory) gravity is absent.

The logics is:curved spacetime->gravity and the other way around gravity->curved spacetime.

Tag Archive for: gravity

gravity collapse

Oppenheimer-Snyder Model of Gravitational Collapse: Implications

/
0 Comments
Part 1: OverviewPart 2: Mathematical DetailsPart 3: ImplicationsIn the last article in this series, we finished up with a metric for the Oppenheimer-Snyder…
gravity collapse

The Oppenheimer-Snyder Model of Gravitational Collapse: An Overview

/
0 Comments
Part 1: OverviewPart 2: Mathematical DetailsPart 3: ImplicationsMost people who have spent any time at all studying GR are familiar with the…
pressure is a source of gravity

Is Pressure A Source Of Gravity?

/
11 Comments
In a previous series of articles, I posed the question "Does Gravity Gravitate?" and explained how, depending on how you interpreted the terms "gravity"…
symmetric spacetime

Slowly Lowering an Object in a Static, Spherically Symmetric Spacetime

/
0 Comments
In the first two articles in this series, we looked at the Einstein Field Equation and Maxwell's Equations in a static, spherically symmetric spacetime.…
sun_getting_smaller

MESSENGER Detects Sun’s Mass Loss and Solar Expansion

/
36 Comments
Paper and context Paper discussion: Solar system expansion and strong equivalence principle as seen by the NASA MESSENGER mission. Antonio Genova, Erwan…
EdmondHamilton

The Second Satellite: Orbit, Gravity & Tidal Errors

/
2 Comments
Introduction This article won't contain much about physics that typical readers of this site don't already know. However, deconstructing improper physics…
SchwarzschildGeometry4

The Schwarzschild Geometry: Physically Reasonable?

/
33 Comments
 In the last article, we looked at various counterintuitive features of the Schwarzschild spacetime geometry, as illustrated in the Kruskal-Szekeres…
SchwarzschildGeometry3

The Schwarzschild Geometry: Spacetime Diagrams

/
12 Comments
 When we left off in part 2, we were looking at the metric for the Schwarzschild geometry in Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates:$$ ds^2 = \frac{32…
SchwarzschildGeometry2

The Schwarzschild Geometry: Coordinates

/
2 Comments
 At the end of part 1, we looked at the form the metric of the Schwarzschild geometry takes in Gullstrand-Painleve coordinates:$$ ds^2…
SchwarzschildGeometry1

The Schwarzschild Geometry: Key Properties

/
22 Comments
 Not long after Einstein published his Field Equation, the first exact solution was found by Karl Schwarzschild. This solution is one of the…
relativitygauge

Exploring General Relativity as a Gauge Theory

/
24 Comments
The fundamental interactions of the Standard Model are described by Yang-Mills theory. This is a gauge theory, which means the following: (1) Choose a…
spacetimecon

Struggles with the Continuum: Spacetime Conclusion

/
4 Comments
 We've been looking at how the continuum nature of spacetime poses problems for our favorite theories of physics --- problems with infinities.…
11dgravity

11d Gravity From Just the Torsion Constraint

/
17 Comments
 It is familiar that Einstein gravity may be formulated in terms of a vielbein field together with a "spin connection", subject to the constraint…
spacetime7

Struggles with the Continuum: General Relativity

/
2 Comments
 Combining electromagnetism with relativity and quantum mechanics led to QED. Last time we saw the immense struggles with the continuum this…
spacetime4

Struggles with the Continuum – Relativity and Quantum

/
5 Comments
 In this series, we're looking at mathematical problems that arise in physics due to treating spacetime as a continuum---basically, problems…
earthgravity

Learn All About Earth’s Gravity

/
18 Comments
Introduction Earth's gravitational field at the surface is approximately 9.8 Newtons/kilogram or 9.8 meters/second/second. But how does that change due…
gravity3

Does Gravity Gravitate: The Wave

/
17 Comments
 In the first two posts in this series, we looked at different ways of interpreting the question "does gravity gravitate?" We left off at…
gravitate2

Does Gravity Gravitate? Part 2

/
30 Comments
 In the first post of this series, I talked about two ways to answer the title question, one leading to the answer "no" and the other leading…
gravitate

Does Gravity Gravitate?

/
9 Comments
 The title question of this article is one that often comes up in PF threads, and I would like to give my take on it. This will be the first…
balloonanalogy

The Balloon Analogy Explained: Cosmic Expansion Without a Center

/
62 Comments
The balloon analogy uses pennies glued to an inflating balloon to show two ideas from modern cosmology: that unbound regions of the universe expand roughly…
gravityacceleration

Why Is Acceleration Due to Gravity a Constant?

/
5 Comments
This question has popped up many times. So here is an attempt to address it.To answer this question at the elementary level, several assumptions will…
planck

What Planck Length Is and It’s Common Misconceptions

/
30 Comments
The Planck length is an extremely small distance constructed from physical constants. Many misconceptions overstate its physical significance, claiming…
spacetime2

Struggles With The Continuum: Quantum Mechanics of Charged Particles

/
39 Comments
 Last time we saw that nobody yet knows if Newtonian gravity, applied to point particles, truly succeeds in predicting the future. To be precise:…
gravitywaves

How Fast Do Changes in the Gravitational Field Propagate?

/
20 Comments
Overview General relativity predicts that disturbances in the gravitational field propagate as gravitational waves, and that low-amplitude gravitational…
gravity

Understanding the General Relativity View of Gravity on Earth

/
102 Comments
Often students have difficulty reconciling the General Relativity (GR) view of gravity versus their own experience with gravity on the surface of Earth.…