06-06-2006, 12:34 AM
Graviton. Gravitron sounds like some sort of action figure. 
One of the reasons gravitons, if they exist, haven't been detected is because they are very weak WIMPs (weakly interacting minor particles), even weaker than neutrinos. Some people think that to ever find one we would need a detector the size of Jupiter, and even that would only detect one very rarely.
But do we even need a particle? If ripples in space-time are manifested as gravity, would a particle even make sense?
And another thing, Newton's laws break down at a scale of around 10^-6 metres, and don't work nearly at all around 10^-9 metres. So something needs to be adjusted in any case. (Of course the law of gravitation has discrepancies on massive scales too, that's why astrophysicists came up with dark matter - but maybe it's a problem with the law itself.)
[EDIT] On what aga just said I thought as well - wouldn't the ball at the centre of the Earth move as close as it can get to the sun or moon? Or if you exclude all celestial bodies, then it would move as close as it can get directly underneath the part of Earth with the greatest mass (say, the tallest mountain).
One of the reasons gravitons, if they exist, haven't been detected is because they are very weak WIMPs (weakly interacting minor particles), even weaker than neutrinos. Some people think that to ever find one we would need a detector the size of Jupiter, and even that would only detect one very rarely.
But do we even need a particle? If ripples in space-time are manifested as gravity, would a particle even make sense?
And another thing, Newton's laws break down at a scale of around 10^-6 metres, and don't work nearly at all around 10^-9 metres. So something needs to be adjusted in any case. (Of course the law of gravitation has discrepancies on massive scales too, that's why astrophysicists came up with dark matter - but maybe it's a problem with the law itself.)
[EDIT] On what aga just said I thought as well - wouldn't the ball at the centre of the Earth move as close as it can get to the sun or moon? Or if you exclude all celestial bodies, then it would move as close as it can get directly underneath the part of Earth with the greatest mass (say, the tallest mountain).
f only life let you press CTRL-Z.
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Freebasic is like QB, except it doesn't suck.
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Freebasic is like QB, except it doesn't suck.