Really, this is one that stumps many scientists–I guess no one can say ALL, maybe SOMEONE out there knows. What is force? We know what it does, but what causes it? Why is there gravity or electromagnetic force? What do you think?
eh?
i take it you are after more than a physical account of how these things work (which most scientists do know) but if so, what exactly are you after?
I’ll give it a go though:
Its that which flows through you, it binds us, you, the rock, the tree, the ship…
This is a tough one. Force is a construct humans have devised for quantifying and gaugeing the strength of interactions between extended objects. There is no reason to really believe in force in a corporeal way but having said that, it is difficult to take it otherwise. Force governs the movement of mass (and therefore also energy) through space-time.
In the case of gravitational force, it was proposed by Einstein in his theory of general relativity that all objects of mass create a warp in space-time itself. If another object encounters this warp, it will ‘feel’ a gravitational force, but this ‘force’ actually is proposed to be just the movement of the object through a distorted space-time.
It is difficult to know whether other sources of forces such as the electromagnetic field are due to similiar (but fundamentally different) distortions in space-time. Firstly, the electromagnetic field only acts on charged particles, so it’s effects are somewhat more selective than gravity. Secondly, the electromagnetic field is a quantum field (we are not sure if gravity is also a quantum field yet) and many complications arise from this at small size scales.
The unification of all forces into a single force is essentially the grand unified theory quest. It is my opinion that this unification will involve multi-dimensional theories, such as superstring theory. These types of theories tend to suggest that all forces are essentially distortions in space (essentially nothingness), which is indeed an un-intuitive and perplexing idea.
screw force, NEVER EVER force anyone to do something…coax them= peace on earth!!! =D>
To the dagoba system you must go to learn of the force…
haven’t you seen space balls?
it’s the farce…
-Imp
use the schwartz, imp…
right
-Imp
Hi to All:
Ok I’ll play the straight guy. I know, I know, I do it so well!
Force, classically, is the instantaneous change in an object’s mass multiplied by it’s velocity at a given time.
Without Force things will just continue on their merry way.
The standard forces are:
Gravitational
Electromagnetic
Strong &
Weak.
Because we have equations for these forces we should, theoretically, be able to determine an object’s velocity and, since velocity is the change in position with respect to time, we should be able to determine an object’s position at a given time. At least this is true with respect to the first two forces.
The theory, of course, is much easier to say than do. Frequently it does not work at all.
There are more advanced theorys but they pretty much pale in comparison.
my last name is schwarz, ive heard that spaceballs crap so many times…
somebody wrote a bunch of math and crap about how the zero point field causes inertia. bombardment on all sides by various messenger particles holds an object in place because the pressure on the outside of the object is lower than the pressure on the inside because many of those force-creating particles are bounced away by the border of the object and there are a much smaller number of zpf messenger particles on the inside of the object trying to force their way out.
i think this logically leads to my theory of shadow gravity. so what? you say. well shutup im not done yet.
its been found that the weak force and the electromagnetic force are the same thing. when you make the universe really hot, like near the big bang, the effects of the these two forces are literally indistinguishable. the strong force is just slightly off at that point. nobody knows why, but the graph of the strong force superimposed on the weak and electromagnetic force shows that it follows the same trend, and truly appears to coincide (but doesnt) with the other two forces at the same exact intersection point. (probably the point where the laws of physics change and after which, we cant explain with our current ideas)
additionally, the force of gravity is nowhere near this, it is 10^40 less powerful than those. so what?
if it turns out that the strong force really does coincide with the electro and weak (the one electroweak force as it is now technically called), and it was just a dumb problem with the current theories, then that means that gravity is the only one out, and ive explained it as merely the product of the other three.
so there is only one force. one single thing that ever happened and then distributed itself out among a ton of other particles. and that same, one, single force is still pushing every single particle in the same exact way with the same exact ONE push.
the difference is that those different particles have slid onto a dimensional plane that has grooves and bumps and holes that correspond to the different “crystallized” effects of this one force at lower temperatures. the different particles respond to this ONE force in different ways because the particles themselves are different.
i should have made my own thread for this. im trying to say that god zapped one single zap and every subsequent piece of force has been a direct result of that one zap and can only be explained by the way that each individual particle reacts to this one zap, as opposed to explaining the many different zaps that each particle makes as it reacts with other particles. they just do one thing because thats the thing of the universe! so at that point its not “what is force” but “what is the universe”
drink a shot glass of acid and, before you go insane, this post will sound soo cool.
it sounds so much better in my brain without words. but oreso and i think ed3 will back me up: i know exactly what im talking about, especially the long division, and that stuff is hard.
Ed3, Force is mass times acceleration, not velocity.
Future man, perhaps because force is so fundamental, it does not have a category, and thus cannot be defined then?
Hi to light_eclipseca:
I actually wrote:
“Force, classically, is the instantaneous change in an object’s mass multiplied by it’s velocity at a given timeâ€.
The instantaneous change in velocity at a given time is the definition of acceleration. I wrote it this way so that you could get a more intuitive feel for force. This also is the way Special Relativity approaches the subject. Additionally it could lead the perceptive person to question whether or not mass is a fixed quantity.
Ed3, sorry I read your post wrong. I didn’t realize you wrote instantaneous CHANGE in velocity. Next time I’ll read your post properly before I start typing.
That’s what screwed me up. You said instantaneous change in mass multiplied by its velocity at a given time. It’s not the instantaneous change in mass, but instantaneous change in velocity. I knew something was wrong here.