We live in a bubble. Seriously.

[Sqrl]

ssj12 said:

Rath said:

ManusJustus said:

Of the four fundamental forces, strong force, weak force, and electromagnetic force are attractive and repulsive.  Gravity is only attractive, or so we think, as it is very difficult to measure the effect of gravity over long distances.

But its their attraction or repulsion doesn't depend on distance does it?

I'm fairly sure that strong interaction doesn't change from attraction to repulsion depending on distance (because strong interaction remains constant over any distance), electromagnetic force is only repulsive/attractive depending on the charge of the particles. The only one I'm not sure about is weak interaction which I really know almost nothing about.

Your example of the nuclei coming together is explained by the fact that at short distances the attraction from residual nuclear force is more powerful than electromagnetic repulsion, rather than a reversal within a force due to distance.

Edit: @SSJ. The orbit of the planets can be (and has been) explained without having to have a repulsive gravitational force. Its simply centripetal force.

 

ok but what keeps the centripetal force constant? There has to be an underlining energy that keeps things running. This is where my theory can be placed. The underlining reason why it doesnt collapse on itself.

 

The earth's atmosphere is the cause for confusion here.  The reason orbits decay around earth is the rarified atmosphere still causing friction.  Our orbit around the sun encounters significantly less friction and the earth being much more massive than any earthly satellite is signicantly less effected by any such forces. The result is a stable orbit.

As for what keeps the centripetal force constant?  Newton's First Laws of Motion is the answer.  For those who don't remember "An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force." is a good summary of it's application here.

In short a massive object in a near perfect vaccuum combined with the concept of centripetal force is sufficient to keep an object already in an elliptical orbit in that elliptical orbit with stability...at least until it is acted upon by another force.

@topic,

It should be interesting to see what comes of this, the article understates a bit our reliance on the homogeneity of space in regards to some of our theories that deal with areas beyond the theorized bubble.  Luckily theories like the Big Bang should be fairly safe from such a revelation as there is no longer a single location that we can say it occured at and the theory is based on information that would be agnostic to such differences.