On Tue, Dec 27, 2022 at 5:59 AM Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote:
*> There's an interesting relationship between the strength of the > electrostatic repulsion between two protons, and the gravitational > attraction of protons. It works out such that it takes ~10^54 protons > gathered together in one place before the gravitational attraction can > overwhelm the electrostatic repulsion. In other words, stars as as big and > long-lived as they are because gravity is so weak.* > That's true, and one of the biggest mysteries in physics is why gravity is so weak, after all the strong nuclear force can keep 100 or even 2 protons in one place. The only explanation I've heard is the hypothesis that there are other spatial dimensions besides the 3 that we're familiar with, string theory claims there are at least 9, but that all the forces of nature EXCEPT for gravity are confined to just 3 dimensions so they generally follow the law that says they decrease with distance according to the well known 1/r^2 rule, but gravity is free to radiate into all 9 dimensions so it decreases with distance according to a 1/r^8 rule; and the reason we don't see gravity behave this way in our everyday life is it the other 6 dimensions are curled up very tightly so the effect becomes apparent only at the ultra microscopic scale. It's a nice theory but there's not a scrap of experimental evidence to support it. John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> hfl > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2jR%2BUcPiSviVfghHmpzN7NN_yNURGiBKNcQvjYaD7y7g%40mail.gmail.com.
