Little did I realize the hornet's nest which would get stirred up by my initial question "How then does it (gravity) cause a spring to stretch? However I feel I have learned much form the various exchanges. It seems to me that things can be summed up by saying that the latest understanding of...
@A.T. I am sorry you feel that way. I do object to assumptions regarding what I do or do not understand.
I am sure there are many who would say that philosophy and logic are not irrelevant to physics.
@Dale I thank you again for your patience. I do not agree that my initial question has been...
Indulge an ageing juvenile and let's consider a gedanken experiment.
I am sitting on a chair which rests on the Earth's surface and enjoying the security that sensing the contact forces give me. Suddenly the Earth disappears into nothingness in the same way that Douglas Adams's whale appeared...
Thank you @Dale for your patience.
Your table does not constitute evidence that gravity has no part in the stretching.
Just because stretching of the spring happens in situations where there is no gravity does not mean that gravity does not cause stretching.
Consider taking the spring and the...
OK someone is standing on my shoulders. I feel the downward radial force of their feet. I know from experience that this radial force depends on the mass of the person above me. Thus I am experiencing the result of being in proximity to the earth. I also know by people's accounts that this...
A.T. you seem to have an aversion to the notion of cause and effect.
The universe is replete with one thing causing another thing ("The fundamental interconnectedness of all things" [Dirk Gently], the Butterfly Effect etc).
Also what about the floor itself, why are the atoms of my feet trying...
So what causes the EM-repulsion to be greater when I'm standing on the floor on Earth compared with standing on the floor of the International Space Station?
Let's have a look at those spring scenario force analyses...
1) spring is stretched horizontally attached to two walls, supported by a frictionless table to keep it straight
There is a tension in the spring acting horizontally through its whole length;
The spring is touching the table so there...
Going back to the spring hanging from the ceiling...
When the mass is on the point of being hung on the end of the spring, that is the surface of the material of the hook of the mass is in contact with the surface of the material of the spring there are balanced electrostatic repulsions and...
OK Before the mass is put on the end of the spring the spring is unstretched. When the mass is put on the end of the spring what causes the spring to stretch?
My question is quite genuine. I think there is a real conceptual problem here.
Springs stretch because an external force pulls the constituent atoms away from each other.
If gravity is not a force how does the spring get deformed by a hanging mass.
GR says that it's the warp of space-time...
OK, more detail.
Spring hanging from a hook on a ceiling.
A 1kg mass on the end of the spring held by a human hand such that the spring is at its natural length unstretched.
You let go of the mass slowly avoiding any adiabatic changes so that the spring smoothly attains its new equilibrium...