Colossians 1:17
"We enjoy the warmth of sunshine on a beautiful fall day, or the red, orange, and yellow leaves adorning the trees, or the silver light of the moon in its various phases. These, and almost every manifestation of physical nature and life, form a tapestry that sustains and nurtures our souls. The plot thickens, however, when we examine the underlying forces between particles that cumulatively shape all that we see and experience.
If we think of gravity, we often relate it to the weight of something
Q: What causes this?
A: Apparently not just the mass of the moon, since its mass is about 81 times less than the mass of the Earth.
Sir Isaac Newton discerned the correct relationship for the force of gravity — not only is it proportional to the masses of the attracting objects, but it’s inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The moon is only about 27 percent of the size (radius) of the Earth, so an astronaut standing on the surface of the moon is nearly four times closer to its center than if the astronaut was standing on Earth. Put it all together, and according to Newton’s law of gravity, the weight of the astronaut on the moon is (1/81)/(0.27)2=1/5.9 (or about one sixth) of their weight on Earth.
Einstein’s theory of general relativity extends our understanding of gravity beyond Newton’s classical theory and introduces us to some of the most bizarre physical effects in the universe. General relativity shows that mass (and even the mass-equivalent of energy) bends space itself, so that light rays following the curvature of space can deviate from a straight line and can even undergo “gravitational lensing.”
Perhaps even more unbelievable is the effect of gravity on time. Einstein’s theory shows that time slows down in a stronger
As a force of nature, gravity is the ultimate weakling. Astrophysicists have calculated that the extreme weakness of gravity compared to the electromagnetic force (to the tune of about a trillion times a trillion times a trillion times weaker) is necessary for the gravity-pressure balancing act to make a star like our sun shine and support life on a planet like Earth. To get a stable stellar balance at all requires fine tuning the ratio of the strengths of these forces to one part in 10 to the power of 35.
However, in determining the livability of an atmosphere, a balance must exist between the loss rates of gases that are favorable for life and those that are not. For example, consider methane, ammonia, and water vapor, with nominal molecular weights of 16, 17, and 18, respectively. The average velocity of an atmospheric molecule is inversely proportional to the square root of its molecular weight, and so it’s more likely that methane and ammonia would escape into space over time than would water vapor.
If gravity were slightly different, our atmosphere could either see a build-up of these unhealthy gases over time, or a higher loss rate of essential water vapor.
Life requires a number of different constants to be related to each
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Without gravity, life would be nonexistent in our universe, and the more in-depth we study the effects of gravity, the more evidence we find for its remarkably finely tuned properties to support life."
Science&CultureToday
