GRAVITATIONAL FORCE IS A SUCCESSIVE RESULT OF ELECTRIC CHARGE FORCES
Han Erim
1 October 2013
GRAVITATIONAL FORCE IS A SUCCESSIVE RESULT OF ELECTRIC CHARGE FORCES.
According to Coulomb’s law, particles carrying electric charge exert forces on each other which are either repulsive or attractive. If the particles carry the same electric charge the force is repulsive, and if they carry opposite charges the force is attractive. As you know, the particles responsible for electric charge are the electron (−) and the proton (+). Although the fact that a proton is composed of quarks deepens the subject (a proton is composed of two up quarks with charge +⅔e and one down quark with charge −⅓e), I will take the proton as the basic source of (+) electric charge here. Since there is no evidence to the contrary, we assume that Coulomb’s law holds even if the distance between the charge-carrying particles is infinitely large.
If an atom carries an equal number of electrons and protons, we regard it as electrically neutral. However, the neutrality of an atom does not mean that the protons and electrons of that atom do not exert electric forces on the protons and electrons of another neutral atom. Because according to Coulomb’s law, every particle that carries electric charge must exert a force on all other charge-carrying particles in the universe. In summary, Coulomb’s law means that each electron or proton, wherever it may be, is in interaction with all other electrons and protons in the universe and exerts forces on them. The fact that they are inside a neutral atom and the largeness of the distance between them does not change this situation.
But is it not possible that such a wide-ranging interaction should have some special consequence? To understand this, I decided to write a program. I investigated how freely moving equal amounts of (+) and (−) charged particles move according to Coulomb’s law. Interestingly, after the program had been running for a while, I saw that the particles began to gather together. When all the particles were considered together, they behaved as if there were a gravitational force between them. Therefore, this result suggests that gravitational force may be a successive (secondary) result of electric forces.
I think I should give a few explanations about the program here. First, I know that the program I wrote is not perfect. The values I used for electric charge, mass and Coulomb’s constant are not the real values for the electron and proton, because when the real values are used, the computer cannot perform the calculations. Normally, the calculated values should not be rounded, but due to its nature the computer rounds values that are beyond its numerical capacity. To reach the final result, an enormous number of operations has to be performed. However, as a consequence of rounding, the error increases a little with each loop of the program. In spite of all these drawbacks, this simple program can give rather useful ideas about what might be happening. Another interesting result I observed while working with the program is the following: depending on the chosen values for mass, electric charge and Coulomb’s constant, the resulting force either brings the particles together or drives them apart. You can see the program I wrote below and access the source code.
With so many uncertainties, I thought for a long time about whether I should write this article or not. In the end I decided to write it, because when one reflects on the subject, one realizes an important detail: suppose we put many atoms together. If we assume that, because the atoms are neutral, no force arises between them, then the atoms should not move at all. But you quickly see that this is impossible. The absence of any force between two neutral atoms is only possible if the protons and electrons in those atoms are arranged in very special positions relative to each other. However, the fact that the electrons are mobile disrupts this equilibrium (even the motion of any quark inside the protons would disrupt this equilibrium). Moreover, even if we assume that such a special situation occurs for two atoms, these atoms will not be in equilibrium with respect to other atoms. Therefore, when the overall situation is considered, a state in which the net force is zero is in no way possible, and there must inevitably be some force effect between neutral atoms. Whether this force tends to separate the atoms from each other or to bring them together, it inevitably brings with it a different point of view on gravitational force: the question arises naturally: Do the electric-charge-based forces between neutral atoms constitute the whole of the gravitational force, or only some portion of it?
I am compelled here to make the following proposition: “Gravitational force is a successive result of electric charge forces.” Of course, this proposition does not have to be correct. But if one is to claim that the proposition is wrong, I think this should be demonstrated. It must definitely be investigated whether or not there is any successive force effect between neutral atoms arising from electric charges. I hope that my proposition will serve as a starting point for serious research on this subject. If electric charge forces give rise to gravitational force as a successive effect, I believe that this can in some way be detected with the means at our disposal.
With my best regards.
Han Erim