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Talk:Essay:Quantifying Openmindedness (view source)
Revision as of 23:29, February 14, 2009
, 23:29, February 14, 2009→The gravity question
: Open your mind and you'll never want to go back.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 14:13, 14 February 2009 (EST)
: Open your mind and you'll never want to go back.--[[User:Aschlafly|Andy Schlafly]] 14:13, 14 February 2009 (EST)
:: Just to clarify, as the above user mentioned, the law of gravity is an inverse square law for a specific geometric reason. If you envision a gravitational field as a series of concentric spheres radiating outward from a body, you will see that as the surface areas of the spheres become progressively larger, the gravitational force must be spread over a greater area, and will therefore be weaker. The fact that the exponent is 2 comes from the fact that the surface area of a sphere varies with the square of the radius, not with the 2.00001th power of the radius.
:: I agree with you that observations do not always agree perfectly with theoretical models, but this is because the universe does not behave in an ideal mathematical way. Other forces (such as the gravitational fields from other planets) require that correction factors be introduced to adjust the result given by a physical equation. This does not mean the equation is wrong, only that it isn't complex enough to account for everything that is at work. Hope this helps. --[[User:Economist|Economist]] 18:29, 14 February 2009 (EST)