Gravity, a fundamental force, plays a crucial role in various practical applications, including the detection of underground water reserves, the monitoring of glacier ice loss, and the tracking of tectonic shifts. While its effects are pervasive, gravity only entered human scientific consciousness in the 17th century.
Albert Einstein later theorized gravity as the bending of spacetime caused by mass and energy, rather than a direct attractive force. Despite its governance over large-scale cosmic structures like stars and galaxies, gravity is notably weak when compared to the other fundamental forces of nature.
This inherent weakness presents significant challenges for physicists attempting to quantize gravity and unify it with electromagnetism and the weak force into a “theory of everything.” Though unified theories for other forces exist, gravity continues to resist such integration at the smallest scales. Researchers are actively exploring theories like string theory and loop quantum gravity in an effort to bridge this conceptual gap, but experimental validation at microscopic levels remains elusive.
Source: indianexpress.com