h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I suspect that instead of being deep, it was rather shallow and wrong-headed, but written in such a fashion so as to obscure its essential lack of substance. Or on the other had it was too deep for me, but seeing as I happen to have a PhD in physical chemistry, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the readership.

A question... is this a 'philosophy of science' sort of entry? Are you saying something like, 'all we know about gravity is that it gives rise to a force, but we don't know what it actually *is*'? Or are you making a claim within the realm of science, e.g., that gravity is 'whatever', e.g. a pseudo force? I ask this because the basic point is not at all clear to me.

Enough! I know what should be done here: I'm waiting for people in a position of influence to act.

The basic point, Andrew, is that made by Galileo some four centuries ago, that weight is not inherent in matter and therefore the force creating it, and acceleration in free fall, is external to it. Bohr saw it as resulting from a universal gravitational field which integrated a number of natural forces, all dependent for their source of energy on the neutrinos released in nuclear fusion on countless stars which would otherwise be wasted. Because collisions are so rare, it is suggested that the energy is transferred by magnetic inductance which Faraday had been convinced was the process involved.

And there you have it in a nutshell.

It sounds like utter twaddle to me: the four forces were only unified during the initial stages of the big bang and then separated out as the temperature cooled.

You think, but the evidence is by no means conclusive.

The basic point is that *weight* is not inherent to matter? Who in this day and age is claiming that it is?

It makes no sense to me whatsoever, and I'm no stranger to physics either. I've tried to go through it several times and didn't even know what your point was until your summary in post 44. It is either sheer quackery based on a few psuedo-scientific terms and mis-quoting of major names, or a very speculative alternative to the standard model, but based on forces carried by neutrinos and transferred by magnetic inductance to matter - for which there is zero evidence as far as I'm aware.

How could neutrinos impart forces to matter in such a way without anyone ever having noticed the necessary energy reduction? And how could Faraday possibly have been convinced of this process given that he died in 1867, some 50 years before neutrinos were even thought of? I suspect you're just making this up.

Whatever the point of this entry, it is very poorly written. It jumps straight in with major assumptions about readers' prior knowledge and then goes on to skirt around various conjectures made by with a few notable physicists with apparently unrelated anecdotes as backup. Nowhere does it describe a viable theory, and nowhere does it state how this could be compatible with a GUT.

Not suitable by a long chalk.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention - the theoretical partical responsible for gravity is the graviton, and all it does is generate a pulling force.

In fact, it's unique among the four forces by being the only one that doesn't generate a repulsive force. Also, it's the only boson with a spin of 2.

I'm wasting no more of my time upon this rubbish.

If only you would read what I have written.
Hooke's argument, which convinced Newton, was that zero weight in free fall meant there was no pull (for which there is zero evidence), but the force arose from a dynamic external force he described as a `flux'.
It was Bohr who suggested neutrinos performed that function, not Faraday. Faraday had proposed inductance but admitted his inability to verify it experimentally. Nevertheless, with no electric charge, neutrinos are able to interact with other atomic components without colliding with them by whatever means left to them.
My entry was intended neither as a primer nor as an exhaustive treatise, but as a stimulant to informed debate by people who had sufficient previous knowledge of the development of the theory of gravity to see if there was any explanation for its failure to integrate with other forces.
There seem to be no such people reading h2g2, and so I have to agree with FM that, as it turns out, it is the wrong platform for discussion.

...and your evidence for that is what? Can you even define a pull in physical terms?

Good

>>>>>as a stimulant to informed debate by people who had sufficient previous knowledge of the development of the theory of gravity to see if there was any explanation for its failure to integrate with other forces.<<<<<

A: Peer Review is still the wrong place for this, then.
B: If that's the sort of thing you were trying to write, then why did you write this instead?

Bye bye.

True.
A. Peer Review was the wrong place for want of peers to do the reviewing.
B. I had no idea how obtuse the responses would prove to be.

>>Hooke's argument, which convinced Newton, was that zero weight in free fall meant there was no pull (for which there is zero evidence), <<

Does the fact that a body in free-fall experiences no forces count as evidence?

If neutrinos were responsible for gravity, you would expect gravity to be in some way proportional to neutrino flux, as well as mass. If the coupling was via inductance, then you would also expect it to vary with external magnetic fields. In fact how can a particle with no charge induce anything anyway? Where is the evidence for any of this?

That said, this ought to be removed from PR.

Thank you for explaining it concisely. Some of the responses have been a bit aggressive, but it isn't an easy entry to follow. I also have some scientific background. I agree with one aspect of what you seem to be saying, which is that one mustn't mistake the model for the reality. But the rest of the piece demands too much in the way of, well, lateral thinking, for this forum.

Well, too much for me anyway.

Of course a body in free fall experiences forces. It is they that give it acceleration. What Hooke (and before him Galileo) were saying was that weight was similarly the result of those forces, not the cause.

The theory is that neutrinos may generate a gravitational field in which gravity occurs from a marginal imbalance in the flux across a massive body. It is not the neutrino that induces the force, but its susceptibility to inductance by the electric fields it traverses that fleetingly creates drag, and gravity is not the only function it performs by this means. There are several integrated functions making each difficult to identify.

If you are asking for evidence before you will believe anything, where is the physical evidence for a pull of gravity? It is still all theory.

Please read the writing guidelines! Peer review is NOT a place for peers to review opinions or scientific theories and then debate them.

Peer review is the area on h2g2 where proposed entries for the edited guide section on h2g2 are placed to be refined by the rest of the community. You obviously wrote the entry to generate debate not for it to go into the edited guide hence it should not be in here. If you do want it to go into the guide it needs to be totally rewritten as it doesn't follow the guidelines at all. Try the Science forum...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A4108330