I Doubts about the relativistic description of electrical interactions

Hak
Messages
709
Reaction score
56
I would like help with an issue that I have not yet fully mastered.
Consider a particle resting on a plane, it is subjected to a gravitational force, which can be interpreted as the result of a deformation of space-time.
It remains at rest due to the upward binding reaction provided by the plane. Could the electrical interactions that constitute this force be interpreted as a local deformation of space-time? I say this because it seems natural to me that two phenomena that elide each other can in fact be traced back to the same nature, and it seems quite simple to interpret how a particle is at rest if it is in a space with locally zero space-time deformation (no local curvature). Am I wrong?
Then, electric forces act over smaller distances than gravity, but equilibrium should occur where the two space-time deformations overlap at zero, no? This would explain the action-reaction principle, as the shape of space-time cannot be curved at sharp angles (second derivative less than infinity) and therefore around the equilibrium point, the limit of the first derivative on either side would tend to the same value. Therefore, from an experimental confirmation point of view, can a strong electrical interaction locally deflect a beam of light?
Thank you for any clarification.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Hak said:
Could the electrical interactions that constitute this force be interpreted as a local deformation of space-time?
Not unless you can explain why uncharged particles aren't affected by the "electric spacetime curvature". The whole reason you can model gravity as spacetime curvature is that all objects follow the same path given the same initial position and velocity in the absence of other forces and that is not true for electric forces.

Attempts to include EM in GR have been made, such as Kaluza-Klein theory. None has worked - Kaluza-Klein adds a fifth dimension, but ends up predicting the existence of a strong scalar field that we don't see.
Hak said:
electric forces act over smaller distances than gravity
No they don't. They're both infinite ranged.
 
  • Like
Likes PeroK and Dale
This thread is closed.
There is little to be gained by discussing a half-baked speculative idea like “Could the electrical interactions that constitute this force be interpreted as a local deformation of space-time?”; @ibix’s answer above explains why.
 
  • Like
Likes PeroK and Dale
I asked a question here, probably over 15 years ago on entanglement and I appreciated the thoughtful answers I received back then. The intervening years haven't made me any more knowledgeable in physics, so forgive my naïveté ! If a have a piece of paper in an area of high gravity, lets say near a black hole, and I draw a triangle on this paper and 'measure' the angles of the triangle, will they add to 180 degrees? How about if I'm looking at this paper outside of the (reasonable)...
From $$0 = \delta(g^{\alpha\mu}g_{\mu\nu}) = g^{\alpha\mu} \delta g_{\mu\nu} + g_{\mu\nu} \delta g^{\alpha\mu}$$ we have $$g^{\alpha\mu} \delta g_{\mu\nu} = -g_{\mu\nu} \delta g^{\alpha\mu} \,\, . $$ Multiply both sides by ##g_{\alpha\beta}## to get $$\delta g_{\beta\nu} = -g_{\alpha\beta} g_{\mu\nu} \delta g^{\alpha\mu} \qquad(*)$$ (This is Dirac's eq. (26.9) in "GTR".) On the other hand, the variation ##\delta g^{\alpha\mu} = \bar{g}^{\alpha\mu} - g^{\alpha\mu}## should be a tensor...
Back
Top