Access Planetary | Information on planets and the universe

Know that I have little to no information or experience with computers more in depth than searching the internet and few other basic tools. But I have a lot of pictures saved on my laptop that take up a lot of KB and MB. I want to delete most of them so that my laptop has more space on it for other pictures and files. But if I recycle them, wouldn’t they still be somewhere on my computer taking up space?

Recycle them and the delete them.

I am going to build a kitchen Island for the kitchen in my "new" house. I would like the "bar" side to sit four people. How much space should I allow per person – 18 inches? 20 inches? That sounds like a really long island. If I don’t have the space in the room, I can always put seating on the ends. I just don’t know what the standard allowance is for seating.

Well, in an actual restaurant or bar the rule for capacity is 3 square feet per person (around here anyway). If you want to be comfortable, I would say have the "bar" side be about 8ft to seat four people along it. You can probably skim it to 7.5ft if you need to.

I got the following answer in a question I asked about curved space:

"General relativity says that there is "no" gravity force, the gravity is described via curved space. All objects move without additional external force along a straight line in curved spacetime and the geometry of the spacetime is dictated by the present mass/energy"

How would the curved space theory explain why an object falls to the ground when dropped from an altitude?

General Relativity: Another thought experiment: Einstein thought, "What exactly is gravity?" Newton described how gravity worked but could not figure out what it was. Example: The earth is attracted to the sun. But, how does the Sun do that? Where is the "rope" that allows the sun to pull on the earth? Newton ignored the question.

Einstein tackled it. And thought (My paraphrase): Suppose you were captured by aliens and drugged, you wake up in a sealed room. The room could be sitting motionless on the earth or you could be on the alien’s spaceship being taken back to their home planet. The space ship could have a soundless, vibration less rocket motor that we cannot tell if it is firing or not. If it is firing it is accelerating the room at 9.8 m/s^2 Is there any experiment that we can do that will allow you to figure out if the room is sitting motionless on the earth or accelerating through space at 9.8 m/s^2? Turns out there are no way to figure out if we are sitting on earth or accelerating through space? This means: If we cannot tell the difference, then there is no difference. ===> Gravity is not a force but acceleration that manifests itself as a warping (curving) of Space-Time. (A very profound conclusion. Newton caught a whiff of this insight, but missed its’ significants. F = MA To get a Force you multiply Mass times Acceleration).

Einstein knew from Special Relativity that acceleration would warp Time and Space ===> Gravity is mass warping Time and Space (Space-Time) ===> General Relativity

The warping of Space-Time is necessary for General Relativity. Einstein’s reasoning requires it. If it was a force as Newton proposed, then if the mass of the sun disappeared the earth instantly leave its orbit. But, Special Relativity says that nothing, not even gravity can travel faster than light ====> It must take about 8 minutes for the earth to leave its orbit after the sun disappeared. With GR there would be a "ripple" in the fabric of Space-Time that when calculated actually moves at c. All this would be conjecture except we can test GR and its predictions are accurate
Very nice graphic of the Gravity Ripple at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html

1st Hour – A New View of Gravity

The "proofs" are down in Section 4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introductio…

If Quantum Mechanics is correct and Gravitons exist, the answer to the original question remains the same: Gravitons travel at the speed of light ===> Still takes 8 minutes. But what is gravity? An acceleration due to the warp in Space-Time or a force "carried" by a Messenger Particle? The Graviton (if it exists) would be the "rope" linking the sun to the earth..====> The result of the Thought Experiment changes: We can now tell the difference because we can in theory detect Gravitons and tell if we are under gravity or acceleration. OPINION: Gravitons are NOT a foregone conclusion. Gravity is so different from the other 3 Fundamental Forces, its mechanism could easily be different. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. For now: Opinion – Gravity is an acceleration that results from the warp of Space-Time.

General Relativity is based on the concept of Potential Fields ==> By the 0th Law of Thermodynamics things move down gradient (toward mass) in a potential field. The acceleration of gravity is the slope of the gradient of the potential field created by the warp in spacetime.