Experiment finds that gravity still works down to 50 micrometers

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/gravitys-inverse-square-law-tested-at-scale-of-a-human-hair-and-passes/

by sohkamyung • 6 years ago

54 13 6 years ago

arstechnica.com

bryanrasmussen• 6 years ago

Is the "Next: find old wardrobe." supposed to be a Narnia reference? If not I can't figure out what it is for.

roessland• 6 years ago

Yup. Narnia is a "hidden dimension". A bit of a stretch to compare Narnia with spatial dimensions though.

magicalhippo• 6 years ago

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22797729

gus_massa• 6 years ago

Notre that it includes comments written by one of the members of the research group, that is one of the regular here.

pjc50• 6 years ago

Good, but on the atomic scale that's still a lot - as I understand it the key questions are how well it works on scales where the "strong" and "weak" forces also apply.

munkiefish• 6 years ago

Does it matter though? If it will always be overwhelmed by the weak and strong force as distances narrow (except near/in a black hole or if extra dimensions actually exist)?

adrianN• 6 years ago

When energies are sufficiently high gravity can't be ignored anymore.

luxuryballs• 6 years ago

If we find a small enough situation where gravity stops working I wonder if there will be an inverse square law observed as they approach that level of tiny. Like half way between the size where gravity works fullest and the tinier size where it doesn’t work anymore is 75% less gravity.

cellular• 6 years ago

On very small scale the force would be very very high as the denominator, d^2, goes to zero. What limits the denominator going to zero? Could a close distance really be what leads to the strong or weak force?

downerending• 6 years ago

Was I foolish in thinking that gravity works at all scales?

apoorvkumar• 6 years ago

Well not at all scales. Gravity at quantum scales is still not well understood.

Also the only way to claim it works as expected at any scale is to test it out. This allows scientists to claim that the theory checks out at this scale too.

karmakaze• 6 years ago

If gravity is warping of spacetime and works differently/fails to work at very small scales, is it 'space' that really failed?

yrro• 6 years ago

As a layman, no. "Our Ignorance About Gravity" at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTMELHUAzSM> explains what we don't know about gravity at small and large scales.

Experiment finds that gravity still works down to 50 micrometers

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