Thread: Whats the difference between static electricity and gravity?

Today I was watching a QP (Quantum physics) documentry about how no matter how small the pieces they blast the bits of an atom off, they still cant findout where mass and gravity come from.

After watching it, I decided to light up a smoke, and opened a full pack of smokes (yes I know its bad for my health)... the thing clear plastic wrapper I have, instantly stuck to my monitor thanks to static electricity.

So here was a piece of non magnetic plastic, sticking verticaly to my LCD monitor.

This got me thinking to the magnetosphere generated by our molten core dyamo at the earths crust, and I got to thinking... what is the difference between static electricity and gravity, cause they both seem to do the same thing.

The electrostatic force is described as the transfer of quanta, which means that it can be described by quantum mechanics. Gravitation is described by the curvature of spacetime. At normal levels, such as the gravitational field of the earth and or the electrostatic field of your monitor, both appear to vary as the inverse of the square of distance. If taken to the extreme, the qualities of both forces start to diverge. Gravitation has things like frame dragging, perihelion shift, etc. Electrostatics has the magnetic field, which occurs when an observer sees and electron moving relative to himself. Finaly, in electrostatics, particles can have positive, negative, and null attractions, whereas in gravitation, all observed particles have a positve attraction to all other particles. (For all of the cosmology freaks here, notice i said "observed".) Ill tell why your plastic stuck to your monitor asap.

Also gravity is a hell of a lot weaker than your electromagnetic attraction.

Originally Posted by w1z4rd

Today I was watching a QP (Quantum physics) documentry about how no matter how small the pieces they blast the bits of an atom off, they still cant findout where mass and gravity come from.

After watching it, I decided to light up a smoke, and opened a full pack of smokes (yes I know its bad for my health)... the thing clear plastic wrapper I have, instantly stuck to my monitor thanks to static electricity.

So here was a piece of non magnetic plastic, sticking verticaly to my LCD monitor.

This got me thinking to the magnetosphere generated by our molten core dyamo at the earths crust, and I got to thinking... what is the difference between static electricity and gravity, cause they both seem to do the same thing.

Look up 'The grand unified theory' - though it may not be on sale for a few days yet......

At the moment it's at the stage where it should be called the 'Final Unified Collection Theory' , one of those rare occasions where the acronym actually reflects the current state of the subject!