Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- The Process of Measurement
- The Process of Progress
- Laws Ain’t
- Motion
- Huygens's Relativity
- Acceleration
- Gravity
- Absoluteness Theory
- Gravity Does Not Exist
- Reflections
- Jes’ Rollin’ Along
- Feynman's Web
- A Twist to the Tale
- Questions for the 21st Century
- Small Moves, Ellie
- Thanks
Small Moves, Ellie
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- The Process of Measurement
- The Process of Progress
- Laws Ain’t
- Motion
- Huygens's Relativity
- Acceleration
- Gravity
- Absoluteness Theory
- Gravity Does Not Exist
- Reflections
- Jes’ Rollin’ Along
- Feynman's Web
- A Twist to the Tale
- Questions for the 21st Century
- Small Moves, Ellie
- Thanks
Summary
During one of my visits to CERN, the European research institute for particle physics in Geneva, I met Elmajid Nath-Kaci-Uvutmar, a Touareg from North Africa. As a boy, he fell seriously ill and was nursed back to health by the ‘White Fathers’ in a desert monastery. They renamed him Majid Boutemeur while he stayed there for his education until he was about 14 years old. He found work on a small boat, cleaning fish, until one day in Marseille he decided to stay in France to be trained in physics. I met him at CERN where he was working on the development of software for particle accelerators. I asked him: ‘You were fourteen when you decided to become a physicist. Suppose that you meet a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy or girl, asking you: please give me one good reason to go and study physics. What would you reply?’ He looked into my eyes and said:
Physics is the most wonderful thing. You should be so lucky to go home in the evening and still have a problem to solve.
Brilliant, the true grit of the scientist knowing that the primary product of research is failure. ‘The conditions of nature give us no alternative’, Huygens warned us. Even a ‘failed’ experiment or theory is useful when mapping new land. How awful would it be if I were to come home one evening and say to my wife and daughter: ‘Darlings, physics is finished.’ Fortunately, such a disaster will never happen. We should be so lucky.
That which we call ‘gravity’ is one of the consequences of the structure of space-time. Einstein asserted that the mass-energy-momentum of matter contributes to that structure. But how? What is the interaction? What mechanism is hidden in the = of the Einstein equation? Or, more plainly: how does the Sun tell space-time around it that it's supposed to be curved, and by how much?
The present generation of physicists hasn't found an answer yet, or even a formulation that is clearly a good starting point. Possibly younger folk must give it a go. I hope that they will not have the wrong image of advancement in the sciences. Contrary to street wisdom, great advances in physics are not revolutionary but stepwise.
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- Information
- Gravity Does Not ExistA Puzzle for the 21st Century, pp. 103 - 109Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2014