Name: george w mckenzie
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 1999
Question:
What causes gravity?
Replies:
Hmmm. Deep question. So far as I know the force of gravity
is something that is observed, but nobody can say what the
cause is. In other words, it is observed that by postulating
a force of gravity, we can explain the attraction of different
objects to one another and can compute orbits of the planets,
satellites, etc.
Gravitational force is proportional to the masses of the two objects
that are attracting each other, so that an object with twice
the mass will attract with twice the force. The gravitational
force also falls off as the square of the distance, so that
an object that is twice as far away will attract with four
times less force. These are postulations that Isaac Newton
made which allowed him to accurately predict the movements
of the planets and other physical phenomena, but is not
an explanation for the cause of gravity.
(You might get a different answer if you try the physics section.)
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