Is gravity an illusion?

Question

There is no such thing as gravity, however there is the "Force of Gravity". So, my question is, Is gravity an illusion?

I do believe that gravity is an illusion. Based all on science/physics. What do you think?

Answer 1

Gravity isn’t an illusion, unless reality as we perceive it, is an illusion. And that may be the case, but I don’t know how to test such an hypothesis, except perhaps by dying. Maybe it is only after death that we realize it was all an illusion. Such discussions belong not here in the physics forum, where we deal with observable reality, but in metaphysics or philosophy forums where nothing is ever decided.

You can, however, test gravity and observe its effects. Explaining why gravity exerts a force is, in my opinion, pretty much in the same category as explaining why magnets and static charges exert forces on other magnets and other static charges, respectively. They just do. You can perform some hand waving, invoke virtual particles to “convey” the forces, postulate force fields and “spooky action at a distance” or whatever floats your boat. But the bottom line is all of these things (forces attributed to gravity, magnetism, and charge) are observable, repeatable, and predictable, although sometimes only in a probabilistic sense at the quantum-mechanical level of observation.

Answer 2

Gravity is a consequence of geometry.

Answer 3

Like was said in the first answer, gravity is an illusion, but not for the reason you gave. In fact, with the conclusions of Einstein's general relativity, it was shown that the idea of "force" is an illusion in itself. "Force" is just a deviation in the geometry of space or a field.

Think of space-time as a fabric, such as what a fireman uses to catch people jumping from burning buildings. It can be stretched and deformed if mass lands on it. Likewise with space time. A body with mass puts a dent in space time, a depression like if you caused it to sag a bit. The larger the mass, the larger the depression. When something gets close enough to this indentation, it gets stuck in the "gravity well," and it circles the rim of the indentation created by the mass or if travelling too slowly, rolls deeper down the incline towards the larger mass object.

I don't know if you ever saw at a planetarium how they had the coin drop thing where you dropped the coin in the well and it revolved around the center until it got sucked in. That's what gravity is like. And with something like a black hole, it warps space time so sharply that whatever gets on the "rim" or event horizon of the gravity well can't escape because the slope is so steep that to escape, you would have to travel faster than the speed of light!

Answer 4

you are correct when you said that there is the "force of gravity". but what we mean by gravity in daily science life is the gravity acceleration.

gravity acceleration exists as the result of the force of gravity. every single object in the gravity field, its movement will be affected by the direction of the gravity acceleration.

we might see that

Fgravity = G { (M)(m) / (R)(r) }

we know that

F = mg

hence, the acceleration itself is

g = { (G)(M) / R^2 }

whereas G = gravitational constanta and R = the distance of center of mass of the earth and the object on the earth surface.

thus, gravity does exist whereas known as gravitational acceleration.

that's we're talking about in our daily life as "gravity"..

thanks..