What holds evenly bodies up

[p kirkes]

Pardon this silly question but I'm old and things sometime get lost or forgotten in my mind.

My question is: what's holding everything in space up? Why doesn't the universe just fall into a big heap?.

I saw a picture yesterday of the earth against a background of stars. The contrast was vivid. So I asked what's holding that beautiful globe in suspension? Is the answer gravity? Centrifugal force? Velocity or a combination of all three? Is it something else?

Thanks,

 

[Mr. H.]

Ask [MENTION=43400]OnePercenter[/MENTION]. He's into physics.

 

[flacaltenn]

Hate to tell you.. Sit down and grab the chair. I'm pretty sure NOTHING is holding the globe up in space.

Get a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy.. We are strapped into a pod at the end of the arm of a carnival ride. And the entire solar system (which IS held together by gravitational forces) is hurtling thru space heading for the far reaches of the Universe.

Feel shaky? That'll be fixed when OUR galaxy runs into ANOTHER galaxy about 20Bill yrs from now..

 

[Moonglow]

Pardon this silly question but I'm old and things sometime get lost or forgotten in my mind.

My question is: what's holding everything in space up? Why doesn't the universe just fall into a big heap?.

I saw a picture yesterday of the earth against a background of stars. The contrast was vivid. So I asked what's holding that beautiful globe in suspension? Is the answer gravity? Centrifugal force? Velocity or a combination of all three? Is it something else?

Thanks,

elastic

 

[hjmick]

Magic.

 

[idb]

I thought everything was on the back of a giant turtle...or something...maybe it's a tortoise...

 

[editec]

Turtles. Millions and millions of turtles

Its turtles, turtles and still more turtles ALL the way down, Kid.

 

[mamooth]

Yes, turtles all the way down.

And in regards to the OP, the initial outward blast of the big bang is so far overriding gravity trying to pull it all back together, so everything is still expanding outwards. Whether that will happen forever is an unsettled issue, with mysteries like dark matter and dark energy entering the equation.

 

[idb]

Turtles. Millions and millions of turtles

Its turtles, turtles and still more turtles ALL the way down, Kid.

Definitely not tortoises then?

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

Pardon this silly question but I'm old and things sometime get lost or forgotten in my mind.

My question is: what's holding everything in space up? Why doesn't the universe just fall into a big heap?.

I saw a picture yesterday of the earth against a background of stars. The contrast was vivid. So I asked what's holding that beautiful globe in suspension? Is the answer gravity? Centrifugal force? Velocity or a combination of all three? Is it something else?

Thanks,

String. String theory has it we are a mobile floating in some monster's bedroom

but seriously, look up this stuff...

 

[idb]

I've just studied the thread title more closely.
Is the OP Cockney by any chance?

 

[Old Rocks]

Pardon this silly question but I'm old and things sometime get lost or forgotten in my mind.

My question is: what's holding everything in space up? Why doesn't the universe just fall into a big heap?.

I saw a picture yesterday of the earth against a background of stars. The contrast was vivid. So I asked what's holding that beautiful globe in suspension? Is the answer gravity? Centrifugal force? Velocity or a combination of all three? Is it something else?

Thanks,

LOL. Well, when you ask a very basic question like this, an honest answer is that we just don't know yet. We have equations that describe what gravity does, we have nothing that describes what gravity is. Some very interesting hypothesis, but no real theories.

I suspect what I have already said has you wondering about what I mean. Welcome to real science and the knowledge of what we really don't know. If you really are interested enough to follow up on your questions, you have years of research ahead of you. If like most, you decide that you are not that interested, that is fine. Most are not. If you really think you would like to pursue this, then do so. You have the potential to be a real scientist. For that is what scientists do, research things not yet well understood. And for every Einstein, there are a thousand scientists that contribute just a few bits of new information or evidence that enables the Einstiens to make the paradigm shifts.

 

[Vikrant]

First of all, there is no up and down when it comes to space. You can latch on to any given point and from there you can go in any given dimension and only lord knows where you will end up. So once we have gotten 'up' out of the way then it is very easy to see that there is no need for anything to be held up. Our earth revolves around our sun because the earth and other planets in our solar system are within the gravitational zone of the sun. Sun itself revolves around the center of our galaxy. So the entire solar system is in the process of making one giant revolution around the milky way, which is our galaxy. The centrifugal force generated by the rotation of the galaxy balances out the gravitation force which wants to pull all the mass including our solar system inward. Our solar system travels at the speed of 729000km/hour in its orbit around the center of the galaxy. It takes 225 million years for our solar system to complete one orbital revolution. It seems astronomical. Right? Wait ... our galaxy itself revolves around some other point in the universe. There are other galaxies doing the same which means one day our galaxy may collide with some other galaxy. It sounds scary but there are so much spaces between each stars and other cosmic objects that it is highly likely that galaxies will pass through each other without much ado. But if the collision does happen, you can guess how violent it will be. The speed of our solar system is minor league stuff compared to the speed of our galaxy at which it is revolving.

It is fun stuff. Life is so fragile and yet it is here.

 

[abu afak]

The whole 'up' concept is mind-blowing even if you don't have advanced scientific knowledge.
Why?
Because even if you don't, it's Not hard to realize there are people on the Opposite side of This planet/ball/Sphere who when They look 'up' are looking 'down' relative to us.
Obviously They see stars too.
So there is no 'up' even by use of common sense.
And of course they don't 'fall' off the 'bottom' of this planet.

The Problem/Error:
Am amazingly myopic perspective imagines everything/the universe is controlled/"held 'up'" by, or subject to, Earth's gravity. (And I think he's suggesting only by the Northern Hemisphere's 'up'.)
IOW, classic Flat Earth.
Not the simple fact there are countless Galaxies/planets who all have their own perspective if you were on them. And of course merely that THIS planet has an opposite side/all sides.

Imagine if you will, 'The Big Bang' (!) with matter/galaxies moving away from a 'central' point in space in ALL directions: 'Up'/'Down', 'Left/Right', 'East/West/North/South'.
No one is 'falling' we are all (countless bodies) basically still moving away from that point/'explosion'.

And posts like this no doubt have other stunning ideas on Environment, Evolution/Creationism, etc.
The problem: politicians are elected to represent some similarly shocking Perspectives.
.

 

[Sunshine]

Pardon this silly question but I'm old and things sometime get lost or forgotten in my mind.

My question is: what's holding everything in space up? Why doesn't the universe just fall into a big heap?.

I saw a picture yesterday of the earth against a background of stars. The contrast was vivid. So I asked what's holding that beautiful globe in suspension? Is the answer gravity? Centrifugal force? Velocity or a combination of all three? Is it something else?

Thanks,

There is no up or down in space. It is all relative. Reference Einstein's Theory of Relativity. And nothing is holding the stars up. The universe is expanding. All the 'heavenly bodies' are moving away from one another via the 'big bang.' But groups of stars and planets are kept near to one another by gravity. The more massive the star or planet the more gravity it has. So it holds the surrounding bodies near to it. Think about our moon. It is earth's gravity that keeps it near to the earth and not flying off into the unknown. But for gravity, all the heavenly bodies would be flying around pretty randomly.

And then there is the school of though that there is no such thing as gravity, the earth just sucks.

Hope this helps.

 

[Katzndogz]

HowStuffWorks "What exactly is the Higgs boson?"

 

[Vikrant]

For a moment close your eyes and realize that we are on a journey, traveling with mind boggling speed covering mind boggling distance. Our travel around the Sun itself is huge but that is nothing compared to our travel around the galaxy. It takes the Sun (entire solar system including our blue planet) more than 225 million years close to 226 million years to complete one orbital revolution. Do you know what that means? It means that the last time the Sun (including the Earth) was in the same galactic spot was when dinosaurs were roaming on the Earth. Life as we know it on this planet has been wiped out many times by the time it took the Sun to complete just one orbital revolution. Not only that, in our galactic journey, our solar system swings across the disc of the galaxy, this motion itself takes about 62 million years to complete. Now hear is the interesting part: Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley found that marine fossil records show that biodiversity increases and decreases based on a 62-million-year cycle. At least two of the Earth's great mass extinctions-the Permian extinction 250 million years ago and the Ordovician extinction about 450 million years ago-correspond with peaks of this cycle. There is no explanation for this; even theory of evolution is blank on this. Further research shows that when our solar system swings back and forth across the disc of the galaxy, it ends up separated from the disc during the peak of the 62 million-year cycle. It exposes us to violent cosmic rays which can and did easily wipe out life from the Earth.

 

[whitehall]

"What goes up must come down, spinning wheel got to go round".....Blood Sweat and Tears

 

[Katzndogz]

For a moment close your eyes and realize that we are on a journey, traveling with mind boggling speed covering mind boggling distance. Our travel around the Sun itself is huge but that is nothing compared to our travel around the galaxy. It takes the Sun (entire solar system including our blue planet) more than 225 million years close to 226 million years to complete one orbital revolution. Do you know what that means? It means that the last time the Sun (including the Earth) was in the same galactic spot was when dinosaurs were roaming on the Earth. Life as we know it on this planet has been wiped out many times by the time it took the Sun to complete just one orbital revolution. Not only that, in our galactic journey, our solar system swings across the disc of the galaxy, this motion itself takes about 62 million years to complete. Now hear is the interesting part: Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley found that marine fossil records show that biodiversity increases and decreases based on a 62-million-year cycle. At least two of the Earth's great mass extinctions-the Permian extinction 250 million years ago and the Ordovician extinction about 450 million years ago-correspond with peaks of this cycle. There is no explanation for this; even theory of evolution is blank on this. Further research shows that when our solar system swings back and forth across the disc of the galaxy, it ends up separated from the disc during the peak of the 62 million-year cycle. It exposes us to violent cosmic rays which can and did easily wipe out life from the Earth.

If you think about it, we are actually moving quite rapidly and there's no standing still about it.

 

[Vikrant]

HowStuffWorks "What exactly is the Higgs boson?"

In 1920s, an Indian theoretical physicist by the name of Satyendra Nath Bose theorized a very interesting particle, which he termed 'God like' particle because it could occupy two distinct space at the same time. Later on, the particle was named by Paul Dirac as Boson to honor Satyendra Nath Bose.

There are two types of particles, Fermions and Bosons.

Fermions are any particle which have odd half integer spins like Quarks and Leptons and other composite particles like Neutrons and Protons. We do not know why but because of this odd spin, Fermions obey Pauli Exclusion Principle which states that particles cannot occupy two distinct space at the same time.

However, Bosons have integer spin like 1, 2, etc. Their ability to occupy two space at the same time is attributed to this spin. In 1920s when Satyendra Nath Bose proposed this theory, he was basically called lunatic. Many of the physicists who called him names were british. Ironically, Higgs who theorized a particular type of Boson happens to be british.