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[–] The_Cat 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

What you're describing is not gravitons as they're hypothesized. What you're saying is called Le Sage's theory of gravitation and has long been discredited.

The way an interaction through particle mediation works is a little different. When a proton and an electron exchange a photon, they attract each other. The way you have to visualize it is not that these mediating particles "push", because that would just move the concept of force a level down.

How you have to consider it is that such a virtual mediating particle carries a bit of energy and momentum between two particles. This can be any amount of energy and momentum, and in any direction. The nature of the interaction determines what kind of energy and momentum values will dominate, making the interaction attractive, repulsive, or something else entirely. Feel free to ask more if you want.

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[–] Morbo 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

Didn't you ask this same question a few days ago under a different alt account?

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[–] 8853245? [S] ago  (edited ago)

Deleted this question from Ask Voat and put it in Ask Science. Currently writing a reply to the Unibomber, that will take a while.

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[–] Kael_thas_Sunstrider 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

So how does this work with gravity?

That is the problem isn't it?

Also, I would deepen myself in quantum mechanics and uncertainty relations etc. This will help you understand it a bit better.

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[–] 9147908? [S] ago 

I checked out the wikipedia article on Le Sage's theory. Even after reviewing the concepts of elastic/inelastic collisions and momentum transfer in my old copy of Halliday and Resnik, which is a model of clarity by comparison, I can't understand the article.The section on Fatio's pyramid needs a better illustration. The figure P6 needs to be redone to show more clearly where the pyramid is. And I can't understand how a plane can be both infinite and small. Without this the following discussion based on the pyramid configuration is incomprehensible, at least to me.

The section on Le Sage's basic concept is also muddled. I can't understand what sort of interaction occurs in the tangential direction to the object. The rest of the discussion is equally opaque. Maybe this is one reason the theory was dropped. So basically the "corpuscular" theory of gravitons as particles pushing things around is inadequate.

I agree that reliance on the notion of particles pushing on things begs the question of how the push transfers any force to the pushed object. But doesn't saying that the virtual particle exchange transfers energy and momentum also beg the question of how the energy and momentum get transferred and so result in attraction or repulsion? It looks to me like the logical form of the two statements is the same, with the concept of force transfer being replaced with the idea of energy and momentum transfer. Are you saying that Le Sage's theory should not be thought of in terms of particles pushing each other around but instead in terms of energy and momentum transfer? If so, I don't see how the new terminology adds anything to Le Sage's theory.

One of the clearest books I've found on this and other subjects is Richard Morris' The Edges of Science. He explains this momentum transfer using the analogy of two ice skaters tossing things between them. If the skaters are facing each other and one tosses a ball to the other, the tosser will move in the opposite direction of the throw and two skaters will move apart, apparently "repelling" each other. If they are facing away from each other and one throws a boomerang away from himself he will move toward the other skater and they will appear to "attract" each other. In each case the receiver catches or "absorbs" the object the other throws and it's momentum is "transferred" to him. In each case we still don't know what accounts for the momentum transfer, any more than we know how the force is transmitted by Le Sage's corpuscular push. Also, in Morris' analogy we have two different particles following different paths. Do these different interactions somehow warp the space-time around the particles, somewhat like space-time warping described by general relativity?

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[–] Kael_thas_Sunstrider 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago 

If you want me to comment on that article, you could link it, because there is no way I can be sure I got the same version without you sourcing it.

Also I am not familiar with the theorem, or maybe I do know it, but do not know the one who taught of it. Anyway, I quickly read the opening part of wikipedia on the subject, and I am not the correct man to explain you the inner workings of gravity; This is because I am not knowledgeable enough in the particles physics field. If there would be a quantum gravity that was connectible to the macroscopic particles / Einstein's relativistic mechanics, I would be a bit more knowledgeable on the subject.

For your preservation of momentum / energy, there is no clear explanation why it does this, it just does. The clearest explanation is preservation of energy and momentum. Probably there are some fields that hold this together.