1+1=2, Dark Matter, and What the #@!$ is Gravity?

[Jyiber]

So... prepare for a rant that contains several theoretical arguments and positions.

Let me start with E=mc2. So most scientists have agreed that mass and energy are the same thing, just in different states. We know then that anything and everything made up of either is subjected to the same rules of positive and negative. They are attracted to each other and reach a balance of neutral when they exist in equal amounts. Protons and neutrons seem to have fixed points in space while electrons seem to be able to be in all places at once, wacky as quantum physics can be.

Mass and energy's interactions make up 3 of the 4 fundamental forces. The 4th force, gravity, while it's laws and effects on space and time are well understood, doesn't seem to have an explanation for it's existence and cause.

Some of the most brilliant minds there ever were have tried to create a unified field theory to complete the standard model have all stumbled in the same area, how macro physics ties to quantum physics, and how gravity ties to both of them. The only theory that has even come close is string theory, but is as of yet, unproven.

Then we find the existence of this troubling thing called dark matter. Annoyingly, the only way we even found it was with gravity (which we still don't get). It doesn't react much with our matter and energy, it seems to exist either on it's own standard model, or is part of a bigger model that we have yet to understand. We do know that the thing that ties it all together is gravity.


So there's my rant. Feel free to comment, elaborate, or correct me. I kind of tried to dumb down a lot of complicated subjects, and it's probably full of holes.

[CuCN]

Positive and negative only exist and attract under the electromagnetic force and plenty of particles (such as the neutron) have neither positive nor negative charge, so are not subject to it. There is also matter and antimatter, but both have positive mass; when they come together the mass is converted into energy, not neutralized. Protons and neutrons, just like electrons, are subject to wave-particle duality and can also with nonzero probability be in any location. (If its location was known exactly as a fixed point that would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.)

[Jyiber]

Sorry, I fumbled on that break down. Should I say that all particles and waves are subject to that rule to be:
   -Positive charge (+)
   -Negative charge (-)
   -No charge (n)
And yes charges do apply to matter because the breakdown of subatomic particles show that atoms to have many similar behaviors to energy. The laws that dictate them are in the Strong and Weak nuclear forces. Strong holds nucelus together, and weak causes beta decay.

I neglected to bring up antimatter because it wasn't relative to the theory, though it does have a lot to do with energy and mass conversion.

[UnderneathTheLens]

Actually, neutrons are just made of 1 up quark (+2/3 charge) and 2 down quarks (-1/3 charge each). Thus, they do have charges at different parts of the neutron, if that makes sense.
The only fundamental particles without charges are the gluon, photon, Higgs boson, Z, and the 3 neutrinos.

There are 4 forces:
Strong - Gluon
Weak - W+-, Z
Electromagnetic - Photon
Gravity - (Hypothesized graviton)

Some scientists theorize that it's actually impossible to combine the theories of gravity and quantum physics.

[andretimpa]

The only reason we "don't understand" gravity is that the mathematical trick that we do to "understand" the other 3 forces doesn't work.

The trick is:
-Quantize the fields
-Make a perturbation theory
-Renormalize

When you renormalize, you find that some parameters are needed to define the theory. These parameters need to be obtained from experiments, for the theory to be meaningful. For electromagnetism, for example, these parameters are the mass and charge of the electron. The problem is that when you try doing this for gravity you find that there are infinitely many independent parameters that are needed.

Actually, the only thing that you can conclude from this procedure is that you should get General Relativity, for small energies.

[MartyMo]

Come on bro take college physics.  Theories cannot be proven or unproven, they are theories and always will be.  Gravity is a scientific theory based on observation.  It's a force that is applied to something minute in relation to something much bigger.  There are dust particles that you are pulling in with your electromagnetic forces.

[Bloodshadow]

Also, your thing about "positives and negatives" makes little sense. You were only talking about electromagnetic charge, which has positive and negative; that only deals with the electromagnetic force. For example, there is "color charge" concerning the strong nuclear force.

That, and protons and neutrons have wavefunctions just like all other particles, but CuCN mentioned that already.

[eaglgenes101]

What we need to figure out now is how to get these separate theories about force together. We already have one for both EM and the weak force.

Special relativity was determined through application of a simple rule that says that all laws of physics apply in all intertial frames of reference, and I suspect general relativity was derived by analogy to circular motion. Quantum mechanics wasn't determined so much through these clean rules (though I read some group managed to derive it from 5 rules, including conservation of information)

[Jyiber]

Like I said before, I'm open to elaboration on my rant, and hope people correct me. I was born yesterday after all.

@MartyMo I'll take that coarse when I get there, you can be sure of that. Right now my knowledge and interest in these subjects is passive. I did say I was trying to dumb down complicated subjects.

I'm well aware what a theory is. Thing is--nothing in reality can be proven to be true or false if you want to break it down to that. I put my faith in scientific theories as that closest thing to truth as possible, but there's always more to learn about how the universe works. The unexplained parts are opened-ended and left to further expansion of a theory, or a completely new one.

Are you one of those people who just takes it as how others tell you it is, or one of those who seeks answers for the unknown? Your comment on how theories are just theories points to the former. I think of theories as pieces to the puzzle, even if I'm still not quite educated enough to understand the details of those theories.

@Bloodshadow, my friend, you caught my derp. I was mostly talking macro-physics and chemistry in terms of the positive/negative charges thing. It's true though that this applies to everything in those context. I'm not going to lie, quantum physics me a headache. I've only got superficial knowledge at best. Notice I didn't really elaborate on the quantum side, except to say that scientists still haven't fully tied quantum physics to macro-physics.

Oh, and I don't know where people thought I was arguing against wave functions, but most of what I know about it that confusing... and not just to me, alot of people have different interpretations.

[CuCN]

Protons and neutrons seem to have fixed points in space while electrons seem to be able to be in all places at once, wacky as quantum physics can be.

Electrons have a wave function that specifies a nonzero probability to be just about anywhere. However, the same is true for protons and neutrons, so they also have the ability to be in any place at once.

[Jyiber]

Electrons have a wave function that specifies a nonzero probability to be just about anywhere. However, the same is true for protons and neutrons, so they also have the ability to be in any place at once.

That I did not know. Everything I ever read or watched always applied the uncertainty principle to electrons.

Well, we all learn new things everyday... except me... I'm stubborn and actively in denial of reality.

[eaglgenes101]

Everything has a wave function. It's just that for the bigger stuff it's harder to detect.