Thread replies: 13
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1
File: metaphoricalart.jpg (182KB, 822x719px) Image search:
[Google]
182KB, 822x719px
Has a pull ever been observed as opposed to a push? When an object moves, is it being pulled or pushed.
Examples:
>Gas pressure equalizes due to more pushing in greater concentration.
>The sun pushes out photons.
I ask the question in regards to gravity. If a pull has never been otherwise observed, why is the scientific consensus that it is an attractive force? Isn't it more logical and empirical to conclude that mass creates a vacuum toward which some unseen force pushes other mass?
How could gravity reach out and attract something without reaching behind the object and pushing it?
Like so: O -----o<
O = large mass
o = small mass
- = gravitational effect
< = direction of force
No matter how you look at it, mass must create a negative force in order for mass to display attractive qualities.
Thoughts?
>>
>>8381132
Feynman already talked about this in detail.
Newton and others before him struggled with the idea.
What it actually is doesn't matter, only that we can predict the motion.
>>
>>8381175
Can you tl;dr what Feynman said about it? What was his conclusion? "I don't know"?
>>
>>8381175
Feynman is over-idolized.
He was really smart, but people accept too readily that everything he said was 100% true/right.
>>
>>8381180
It was in the context of planetary orbits.
The point was that the mechanism could have been angels pushing the planets around.
The conclusion is that ideas like yours are meaningless unless you can state explicitly how a pushing motion, for example, could be modeled mathematically. Just saying the idea isn't enough.
>>
>>8381188
It was part of his messenger lectures, and not overly profound. He was just saying how annoyed he was with people mailing him hypotheticals without justification.
>>
>>8381193
It's merely a matter of perspective.
To say that gravity is a fundamentally attractive force has the same truth value as saying it is a fundamentally repulsive force.
The math is the same for both.
Attraction is what is observed, yes.
However, movement has never been observed to occur from anything aside from an imbalance of force wherein motion occurs in a direction AWAY from the stronger force.
Why is the prevailing perspective the less empirically sound one?
>>
>>8381132
The field gradient is a pseudo force, there are no 'gravitons'. The dogma of locality is a trap.
>>
>>8381201
What are you talking about? The direction of the force is the direction of the observed movement and it's always attractive.
If you're arguing about semantics then it's a moot point because the convention doesnt change the physics.
>>
>>8381132
Nujabes is awesome, listening to a triphop playlist right now.
>>
Honestly who cares, the model works just as well either way. It makes more sense to me to say it is an attractive force though because you are talking about two bodies which are clearly coming closer to each other. The easiest way to generalize it is to say they're attracting one another. If you wanna go out of your way to make some scenario where they're being pushed into each other, more power to you, but there's not really a reason to.
>>
>>8381132
>Has a pull ever been observed as opposed to a push?
Yes. Magnetic pull.
>>
>>8382714
Check out The Architect
Thread posts: 13
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1