Gravity: after Einstein, is it really a force?

Phenylflux
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I'm not a great scientist or math guru, I was in the naval nuclear power program and only pursue physics as a hobby. My question is this: according to Einstein gravity results from the curvature of space. If that is so wouldn't it be reasonable to say that gravity is an effect resulting from the curvature of space? Just like centrifugal force isn't really a force at all, but an APPARENT force resulting from the laws of inertia? If that is correct, why try to unify gravity with the other three forces? We don't try to unify centrifugal force with them, or am I way off base? Any replies would be appreciated.
 
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Phenylflux said:
I'm not a great scientist or math guru, I was in the naval nuclear power program and only pursue physics as a hobby. My question is this: according to Einstein gravity results from the curvature of space. If that is so wouldn't it be reasonable to say that gravity is an effect resulting from the curvature of space? Just like centrifugal force isn't really a force at all, but an APPARENT force resulting from the laws of inertia? If that is correct, why try to unify gravity with the other three forces? We don't try to unify centrifugal force with them, or am I way off base? Any replies would be appreciated.

You are right about the GR picture of gravitation as an apparent force. However, unifying gravitation with the other three forces really comes down to reconciling GR and quantum mechanics. You may be interested in this recent thread.
 
Thank you for the clarification I will check out the thread
 
New question: with m theory they look to higher dimensions to be able to include gravity. With relativity relying on four dimensional coordination, if we do discover an additional dimension, how will that impact the relativistic equations?
 

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Thread 'Hawking After 54 Years Confirmed: BH surfaces don't shrink'

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Thread 'Dirac's integral for the energy-momentum of the gravitational field'

Thread 'Dirac's integral for the energy-momentum of the gravitational field'

See Dirac's brief treatment of the energy-momentum pseudo-tensor in the attached picture. Dirac is presumably integrating eq. (31.2) over the 4D "hypercylinder" defined by ##T_1 \le x^0 \le T_2## and ##\mathbf{|x|} \le R##, where ##R## is sufficiently large to include all the matter-energy fields in the system. Then \begin{align} 0 &= \int_V \left[ ({t_\mu}^\nu + T_\mu^\nu)\sqrt{-g}\, \right]_{,\nu} d^4 x = \int_{\partial V} ({t_\mu}^\nu + T_\mu^\nu)\sqrt{-g} \, dS_\nu \nonumber\\ &= \left(...
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