On Oct 23, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Mauro Lacy wrote:
OK here's Newton's law of gravitation defined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton's_law_of_universal_gravitation
When bodies are large with respect to the distance between them, or
even "overlap", forces on every tiny volume of a given body are
computed as the sum of forces over many small units of volume of the
surrounding space. This summation is an integration process, with the
volumes being examined in the limit where they approach zero volume.
In the limit the number of chunks of volume dV becomes infinite and
their volumes become zero - i.e. points. This is just basic
calculus. This is how Coulomb's law (and Newton's gravitational
equivalent) is applied for non-point objects. It works for ordinary
volumes, like spheres, even inside them, and it works for wave
functions.
Yes, but you seem to ignore that this working gives a different result
(rate of change or strength) in each of those cases you mention.
You ignore that *both* the Coulomb and Newton laws apply in every
case, i.e. for every pair of tiny volumes between which forces are
computed, and thus the huge *ratio* of forces remains at about
10^30. The fact that all kinds of wild fields and force equations
result from macro sized bodies is completely irrelevant to the
accuracy of the fundamental laws.
And particularly on the subatomic scale, as you said, this different
result is to be associated with a wave function. This wave function
then,
in the case of the Coloumb force, does prevent the electron from
collapsing into the nucleus, and prevents the protons to be
escaping from
it.
So what? The solar system runs for billions of years without
collapsing. Does this invalidate Newton's laws of gravitation? No.
There is no reason to expect the Coulomb force to disappear at small
radii just because it is balanced by other forces. The law is still
valid, there are merely other forces at work at close range which
have to be added also. Even if it did, similar effects would happen
to the gravitational force as well, so it is *remains* insignificant
compared to the Coulomb force. The two forces are coupled to a given
volume in very similar ratios, not varying in ratio by anything like
10^30 for any pair of charged particles at a given distance r.
If this very particular wave function(supposing this is so), or
another
factor, at those scales has effects so dramatic on the strength of the
Coulomb force,
You confuse the fundamental force at work with macro effects.
why it could not have effects also on the gravitational
force?
However the forces are summed, they remain in about the same ratio.
Where there is charge there is mass, and they remain in roughly the
same ratio. Fusion is about overcoming the Coulomb barrier, thus is
an issue of forces between charges.
Particularly: Why are we going to accept that the comparision
between the
strengths of these forces is valid at those scales, when at least
one of
these forces clearly suffers alterations,
The fundamental force does *not* change, as noted before. You have
to distinguish between what is fundamental law and the sums that are
result of the application of that law and thus merely the result of
any whimsical body shapes and motions desired. It still sums nicely
across small volumes, though relativistic adjustments have to be made
if the speeds involved are high enough. Even so, when things get
relativistic, there is not a large difference in interacting particle
gammas because the mass ratios are only 3 orders of magnitude apart,
so the interactions keep the gammmas in a similar range, not varying
anything like 30 orders of magnitude. Gravity remains insignificant
when it comes to overcoming the Coulomb barrier, and that is the
point of my posting.
Here is an analogy. We can say F = m*g for every particle in the
body. We can't say that law breaks down, is invalid, just because
every person does not weigh the same, or just because we each have
centers of gravity located in various places, or some of us have very
different weight distribution from others. In all cases the whole is
the sum of the parts, but the sums are not necessarily equal. We also
can't say the law is invalid because we weigh less on a mountain top,
because that just changes g, so the sum of the masses of all our
atoms changes there. The law remains valid. Further we can't say
that law breaks down just because we want to sum over the parts of an
atom, or quantum waveform. It still applies to the parts.
even independently of the fact
that these alterations are explained or associated (or not) with a
wave
function?
Best regards
Mauro
You have raised so many red herrings that we are in need of a pickle
jar. 8^) There may well be some valid criticisms of my point that
gravity is irrelevant to fusion, that gravity is insignificant
compared to the Coulomb force that prevents fusion, but I can't see
that they have been raised yet.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
