[lbo-talk] Evolutionary theory/Gravitation

[Matt]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 06:34:04AM -0800, Chris Doss wrote:
> 
> --- andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Soeey, Chris, the general theory of relativity does
> > explain the "mechanism" of gravitation. Toyr
> > understanding here is a littkle under 100 years
> > begind
> > thew timews. For a relatively easy introduction, try
> > Russell's The ABC of Relativity/
> > 
> 
> How? Curved space-time?

Yes, the dynamic nature of space-time and gravity as the manifestation
of the curving effects of matter is the explanation of the "mechanism"
as given by General Relativity.  It works very very well; in other
words the mathematical predictions have been experimentally confirmed.

However GR only deals with the macroscopic, and at the quantum level
the theory does not apply.  One of the fundamental issues is that the
dynamic space-time, a premise of GR, is in contradiction to finite
time, a premise of Quantum Mechanics.

The reconciliation of those two theories is a very current topic in
the field of theoretical physics and is burdened with the difficulty
of our current inability to perform extensive experiments that measure
gravity using quantized matter such as a single particle.

Matt

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