I was talking to my Dad one day about gravity, and I have a question for those who know a lot about physics.


If there was a pane of glass that was 1 x 1 light years across, and a planet with significant gravity magically popped into existence next to the pane, would it break or bend?

to extrapolate, what I am wondering is if gravity is physical force, or the literal warping of space time?
This question is totally out of curiosity


oh and another thing I want to know, is if the moons gravity has an effect on air pressure, as well as water pressure. Like, is there a tide to our atmosphere?

If you haven't guessed I smoke a lot of pot and love physics. I posed the former question to an astronomer at the space museum in LA (forgot what its called) and he couldn't tell me, because no one had researched it yet.

So what are your thoughts?

Since this has nothing to do with light and penguin diagrams we can rule out any special and/or strange interactions of light and matter. Quantum Physics or more specifically Quantum Electrodynamics doesn't apply at all here, and there isn't a solid quantum theory of gravity. Or a solid theory of gravity for that matter (compared to the other 3 fundemental forces).

However you must take into account that glass is an amorphous solid, meaning that given a few decades the panes in an old house's window will be thicker at the bottom than at the top. As the atoms arranged hastily in the pane of glass will slowly flow downhill under earths normal gravity, 9.8ms^2, given enough time.

yes pot+physics = great

let me give you a very nice tip.. do watch this documentary from bbc called parallel universe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_vpEyE6rug

this is part one, the links to the other parts are on the right

you wont regret I promiss

That is a great video, I've seen it on TV quite a few times and love watching it.

M Theory is so facinating, and actually makes a lot of sense.

There is some Russian scientist who discovered what he called Torsion Fields(Waves) which are waves that travel faster than the speed of light and crisscross the entire universe. This could be the basis of the membrane. Interesting things to think about.

Sciente and Spirituality are getting closer and closer every day.

I believe that the glass and the planet would both effect each other. If the glass was a light year across it would have a significant amount of mass and gravity. Einstein said that gravity is the literal warping of space/time and that description works for it's behavior. About the moon's effect on the atmosphere. I think that it would effect the atmosphere but it would appear quite different in that the atmosphere isn't bounded by something like water is and so the impact on water is much more noticeable since you can see the tide moving up and down the land that the water is bound by. The atmosphere probably bulges due to the effect of the moon. I'll just Google that....Here's a link:
http://www.sciam.com/art...oes-the-moon-have-a-tida

Maybe the glass would collapse under it's own gravity and weight, and otherwise it would crack because of the planet's gravity, because space-time is never bend to exactly the same degree as the glass is.

There is a quantum theory of gravity; 'quantum-loop-gravity' theory. It's not unlikely that it will replace string or 'M' theory eventually.
It contains some quite challenging concepts like space and time being made of tiny bits.