There is no gravity; the Universe is having a bad hair day
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Jeff,
I've come across this before. The theorist in question is suggesting that, rather than being one of the fundamental forces, gravity is more of a side effect of the interplay between the fundamental forces.
The change would be more one of degree than kind. Gravity would still exist or, rather, an effect known as gravity would still exist. What would no longer exist would be a fundamental force named gravity. Among a few other things, that would mean the concerns about linking quantum theory with general relativity disappear. There would be no need for a "quantum gravity" theory because gravity is instead a mere side effect of some other process.
It's akin to centrifugal force. That force doesn't actually exist, it's a type of centripetal force, but we still use the term "centrifugal".
Prior to Verlinde, I'd seen somewhat similar string theory postulates in which gravity, or the particles causing it, were simply passing through our "brane" from another. Again, it didn't change the fact than an effect known as gravity exists, it merely stuck it in a different category.
Regards,
Bill
I've come across this before. The theorist in question is suggesting that, rather than being one of the fundamental forces, gravity is more of a side effect of the interplay between the fundamental forces.
The change would be more one of degree than kind. Gravity would still exist or, rather, an effect known as gravity would still exist. What would no longer exist would be a fundamental force named gravity. Among a few other things, that would mean the concerns about linking quantum theory with general relativity disappear. There would be no need for a "quantum gravity" theory because gravity is instead a mere side effect of some other process.
It's akin to centrifugal force. That force doesn't actually exist, it's a type of centripetal force, but we still use the term "centrifugal".
Prior to Verlinde, I'd seen somewhat similar string theory postulates in which gravity, or the particles causing it, were simply passing through our "brane" from another. Again, it didn't change the fact than an effect known as gravity exists, it merely stuck it in a different category.
Regards,
Bill
I (and the Times) were using "theory" in the "common usage" mode, rather than the scientific mode - right now, scientifically, it's not quite even up to the "hypothesis" stage; when it's more developed, perhaps some experiments to test it will suggest themselves.
The viewpoint that my initial question was starting from was, basically, "OK, we accept that in the Traveller milieu, we can manipulate gravity. The details of how we do so are firmly embedded in a block of handwavium-tofu alloy.
I'm sure, though, that there are some folks that have overspecified the how, based on current ideas (let's avoid the scientific jargon) of what gravity is, isn't, or may or may not be. With this new idea in the pot, what sort of changes in the handwavium-tofu might we see?
The viewpoint that my initial question was starting from was, basically, "OK, we accept that in the Traveller milieu, we can manipulate gravity. The details of how we do so are firmly embedded in a block of handwavium-tofu alloy.
I'm sure, though, that there are some folks that have overspecified the how, based on current ideas (let's avoid the scientific jargon) of what gravity is, isn't, or may or may not be. With this new idea in the pot, what sort of changes in the handwavium-tofu might we see?
Gravitics is an entirely fictional technology, without knowing exactly how that works I think the most that we can say is that this new idea (and that is all it is, and for all we know may disappear by the wayside) can affect gravitics in Traveller in whatever way anyone sees fit, depending on how they think the technology works.
Jeff,
I see... Of course, this all depends on whether Dr. Verlinde's conjectures are correct. As HG_B wisely points out, all this seems non-falsifiable.
First, I'll point again to my centrifugal/centripetal force analogy. Just because what was first called centrifugal force was eventually categorized as a type of centripetal force, the manner in which we plan for, control, handle, or counteract with centrifugal force didn't change.
Second, I think to only real change to our handwavium technology would be that, because gravity is no longer a fundamental force, there is no longer a particle which carries that force. So, no gravitons. That means no more "graviton flux inhibitors" or other handwavium devices to manipulate/control those particles.
Instead, because gravity is a side effect, for lack of a better term, any gravity control technology would control gravity at one remove; i.e. by controlling whatever produces gravity as a side effect because nothing produces gravity directly.
We'd end up with "boojum interference manipulators" controlling gravity as the side effect of "boojum interference" instead of "graviton flux inhibitors" controlling gravity directly.
Really going out on a limb with analogies here, but the 19th Century aether theory might give us a handle on things. It was believed that light simply had to move through a medium because it acted like a wave. The "aether" was proposed and the belief it was required kept physicists screwed up for decades. When it was finally realized that light was both a wave and a particle, and that the aether wasn't needed at all, nothing changed with regards to the ways in which we handled light. Prisms still worked, telescopes, microscopes, all of it.
Light got re-labeled but the way we handled light didn't really change.
Regards,
Bill
