An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
quantamagazine.org
An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
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Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#2Url changed from https://www.wired.com/story/why-an-old-theory-of-everything-..., which points to this.
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#3I think it is relevant to consider gravity from a more abstract standpoint as well by looking at Le Sage's theory and particularly Hyugens' comments. [1]
Whether gravity is mediated by a graviton, and the intricacies that QM brings to bear, one interesting idea I took from the above hundreds of years of thought on the subject -- gravity may be a pushing force mediated by constant spherical wave emission (quantized as the graviton if necessary) from all mass/energy. Since every bit of mass-energy is releasing gravitons, the whole of space is rather isometrically filled with gravitons. The reason two objects would then appear to attract via Newton's inverse-square law is one of a shadowing effect. The graviton would apply a pushing force normally to any mass-energy it interacts with, and therefore any blockage/shadowing of one object by another, would end up looking like attraction.
Le Sage's theory is more exacting and supposes gravitons are of similar substance to regular matter. I don't agree with most of these notions but what I said above is what I gained.
1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Sage%27s_theory_of_gravitat...
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#4> "In other words, gravity would be asymptotically safe if the theory at high energies remains equally well behaved as the theory at low energies. In and of itself, this is not much of an insight. The insight comes from realizing that this good behavior does not necessarily contradict what we already know about the theory at low energies (from the early works of DeWitt and Feynman)."
But what are the actual expected changes at high energy that would differ from what is seen at low energy?
I kept waiting for her to explain what differences would be observed if this theory is correct, but she never did.
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#5I'm not a particle physicists by any means, but doesn't any theory of gravity have to deal with 'real' infinities at high energies from the physics we already know?
We have some idea that black holes are a type of singularity (something that could possibly called an infinity). With E=MC2 we have an idea that if you apply enough energy to a particle it can become massive enough that it becomes a singularity itself.
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#6I think it is relevant to consider gravity from a more abstract standpoint as well by looking at Le Sage's theory and particularly Hyugens' comments. [1] Whether gravity is mediated by a graviton, and the intricacies that QM brings to bear, one interesting idea I took from the above hundreds of years of thought on the subject -- gravity may be a pushing force mediated by constant spherical wave emission (quantized as…
That’s a really interesting way of thinking about it. Gravity resists space.
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#7I'm not a particle physicists by any means, but doesn't any theory of gravity have to deal with 'real' infinities at high energies from the physics we already know? We have some idea that black holes are a type of singularity (something that could possibly called an infinity). With E=MC2 we have an idea that if you apply enough energy to a particle it can become massive enough that it becomes a singularity itself.
A singularity popping out of the math is almost always an indication that something else is going on.
According to general relativity, at the center of a black hole there might be some kind of "singularity" - but in reality what that means is GR is probably inadequate, when used alone, to describe the center of a BH.
"Singularity" really means "your math broke and you need to fix it" by bringing in another theory that can fill in the gaps - or, rather, extending the current theory in a way that eliminates the division by zero.
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#8I think it is relevant to consider gravity from a more abstract standpoint as well by looking at Le Sage's theory and particularly Hyugens' comments. [1] Whether gravity is mediated by a graviton, and the intricacies that QM brings to bear, one interesting idea I took from the above hundreds of years of thought on the subject -- gravity may be a pushing force mediated by constant spherical wave emission (quantized as…
This is one of the many kinetic theories of gravity. It's very old. No scientist nowadays believes that kinetic theories could really work in this realm. This is mostly of historic interest only.
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#9I'm not a particle physicists by any means, but doesn't any theory of gravity have to deal with 'real' infinities at high energies from the physics we already know? We have some idea that black holes are a type of singularity (something that could possibly called an infinity). With E=MC2 we have an idea that if you apply enough energy to a particle it can become massive enough that it becomes a singularity itself.
No, not really. A singularity in a quantized theory would simply be a place where gravity is strong enough that you can't move more than a Plank distance away from it.
Re: An old theory of quantized gravity is gaining new life
#10I think it is relevant to consider gravity from a more abstract standpoint as well by looking at Le Sage's theory and particularly Hyugens' comments. [1] Whether gravity is mediated by a graviton, and the intricacies that QM brings to bear, one interesting idea I took from the above hundreds of years of thought on the subject -- gravity may be a pushing force mediated by constant spherical wave emission (quantized as…
There's no particular need for a special explanation of how particle exchange could produce an attractive force: as unlikely as it seems in classicical physics, it's how the forces (electromagnetic) arise in QED. The exchange of virtual photons can transport momentum any way you like.