Eli5 if gravity is an illusion caused by the curvature of spacetime why do we need to reconcile it with the standard mode.

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I have heard it explained multiple time by different science educators that what we feel as gravity is a really just a consequence of curvature of spacetime and no real force is being applied. Why do we need to make gravity work with the standard model, and why are we looking for gravitons if there is no actual force and it is just caused by the geometry of the universe?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

The thing you gotta understand is the science isn’t in the business of seeking the fundamental truth behind reality. That’s the domain of metaphysics, philosophy, theology, etc.

What science does is come up with predictive models. In the end, all progress in science means is that our models become less and less wrong. We’re not trying to figure out what gravity “is”, we’re trying to figure out how it *behaves*.

Why is that important? Because right now we have two extraordinarily accurate theories on how the universe works: quantum field theory on small scales and general relativity at large scales.

The problem with reconciling these theories is that QFT is quantized, and our geometric understanding of gravity does not reconcile with this quantization at small scales. The goal is to come up with a way to integrate gravity into QFT that explains gravity at the particle scale, that on larger scales “averages out” our understanding of gravity as curvature.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The thing you gotta understand is the science isn’t in the business of seeking the fundamental truth behind reality. That’s the domain of metaphysics, philosophy, theology, etc.

What science does is come up with predictive models. In the end, all progress in science means is that our models become less and less wrong. We’re not trying to figure out what gravity “is”, we’re trying to figure out how it *behaves*.

Why is that important? Because right now we have two extraordinarily accurate theories on how the universe works: quantum field theory on small scales and general relativity at large scales.

The problem with reconciling these theories is that QFT is quantized, and our geometric understanding of gravity does not reconcile with this quantization at small scales. The goal is to come up with a way to integrate gravity into QFT that explains gravity at the particle scale, that on larger scales “averages out” our understanding of gravity as curvature.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The thing you gotta understand is the science isn’t in the business of seeking the fundamental truth behind reality. That’s the domain of metaphysics, philosophy, theology, etc.

What science does is come up with predictive models. In the end, all progress in science means is that our models become less and less wrong. We’re not trying to figure out what gravity “is”, we’re trying to figure out how it *behaves*.

Why is that important? Because right now we have two extraordinarily accurate theories on how the universe works: quantum field theory on small scales and general relativity at large scales.

The problem with reconciling these theories is that QFT is quantized, and our geometric understanding of gravity does not reconcile with this quantization at small scales. The goal is to come up with a way to integrate gravity into QFT that explains gravity at the particle scale, that on larger scales “averages out” our understanding of gravity as curvature.