tronvillain

Corwin:
It looked more like you were attempting to fool people into accepting it by sandwiching it between reasonable statements.

"It can't just sit there, or it would steadily increase over time until all energy in the universe was concentrated in a few points."

Give it some time. Of course, given the rate of the expansion of the universe, even time won't do it. Still, this has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

No one has ever denied it. It's also unrelated to your magical gravity energy.

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

tronvillain

I'm starting to think Baloo was right:

Corwin

And does the rock still exert a force on the table? Yes. In planetary gravity we call it weight. I believe the word I'm looking for here is, duh.


Well when I have a Nobel sitting on my mantle for having figured out a theory of Quantum Gravitation I'll let you know... &lt;/sarcasm&gt;

The fact that we don't KNOW how this force is transmitted does not erase the fact that it clearly is. What keeps us in orbit around the sun? (Actually since we're all being anal-retentive here, let me rephrase, what keeps us and the sun in orbit around a point between the two of us with its position based on our masses relative to each other?) Ah, that would be gravity and the energy transmitted through gravity.
The fact that we don't yet understand how this works doesn't make us fly off into space, now does it?

Corwin

Ok brainiac. If there's no energy being transferred then how do YOU explain the behavior of gravity?

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: Corwin ]</p>

NOGO

Actually not really.
The rock and table do exert a force on each other but this force is not significant here.
The two forces that I am talking about are
1. the force between the earth and the rock and
2. the electric/magnetic forces between the molecules at the surface of the table which resist penetration.

These two forces neutralize and the rock does not move. No movement therefore no kinetic energy.
No movement, no acceleration and therefore no net force is exerted on the rock.

Are you trying to rewrite the laws of physics?

Corwin

And what happens if you put something between the rock and the table?

Oh, that's right.... squish.

tronvillain

It depends on what you put between the rock and the table. Either way, you have to either lift the rock or lower the table, and as a result the potential energy of the rock before the "squish" (assuming one happens) will be lower than before.

There's nothing surprising going on here.

Corwin

Irrelevant. Regardless of the rock's potential energy, clearly there is enough kinetic energy to crush anything that can't support the rock's weight.

Clearly there is still a force in play here. Otherwise things wouldn't get squished and the rock wouldn't sit on the table, it would just float wherever you left it. (Remember that whole 'gravity' thing?)

tronvillain

Corwin:
It's not irrelevant - the kinetic energy depends on the change in the potential energy.

Again, no one has ever denied it.

tronvillain

Oh, and from the last page:
Energy is transferred - from potential energy to kinetic energy.