Gravitons and Gravity

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AlternateGravity
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Gravitons and Gravity

Post by AlternateGravity »

I was just wondering if Gravitons exist would they be affected by Gravity and interact with other Gravitons?
Gravitons would be my favorite particle as their existence could prove extra dimensions.
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robly18
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Re: Gravitons and Gravity

Post by robly18 »

From what I know, gravitons ARE gravity. Then again, I could be wrong. So I googled it!

"In physics, the graviton is a hypothetical elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitation in the framework of quantum field theory. If it exists, the graviton is expected to be massless (because the gravitational force appears to have unlimited range) and must be a spin-2 boson. (...) Additionally, it can be shown that any massless spin-2 field would give rise to a force indistinguishable from gravitation, because a massless spin-2 field must couple to (interact with) the stress–energy tensor in the same way that the gravitational field does.[4] This result suggests that, if a massless spin-2 particle is discovered, it must be the graviton, so that the only experimental verification needed for the graviton may simply be the discovery of a massless spin-2 particle.[5]"

So, yeah. From what I can tell gravitons are what causes gravity in the small scale: while bending of space-time causes it in large scales, gravitons cause it in small scales!

I don't know much about this stuff though. So if someone is willing to correct me!
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exfret
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Re: Gravitons and Gravity

Post by exfret »

The graviton v bending of space time thing confuses me, but I do remember reading somewhere that the reason why Mercury's orbit was strange was because the gravitons pulled on each other, creating strange effects and leading to flower patterns. The reasons gravitons can still act on each other even though they're massless is that gravity actually doesn't depend on just mass when it comes to relativity. Well, that's all I know.
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testtubegames
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Re: Gravitons and Gravity

Post by testtubegames »

Ah, gravitons... an interesting little particle.

First off, gravitons are a particle that sit right at the edge of unexplored physics. Because they are the particle we think carries the gravitational force, but since we're talking about a single, tiny particle, quantum mechanics is really important. And as you may have heard, Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity don't work well together. That's one of the big mysteries in physics -- trying to figure out how these two very different (and very accurate) models overlap with each other.

That said, you can still think about gravity as the bending of spacetime. That's a really helpful and useful way to talk about gravity. If you want to talk about what individual particle carries the force of gravity, then you'd be talking about gravitons instead. Two sides of the same coin.

A similar situation exists with the electric force. You can talk about two like charges repelling by thinking about Coulomb's Law, or drawing field lines. (That's like thinking about curving spacetime). But if you look at electricity in another way, and ask "what particle *carries* the electric force from one proton to another", your answer would be the photon.
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