Timeline for Why do we still need to think of gravity as a force?
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| May 8, 2013 at 13:09 | comment | added | firtree | There might be some non-fundamental gauge fields, for example in condensed matter physics, but for the fundamental physics - yes, they are pretty much synonyms. The term "fundamental force" was coined earlier, and since it is not well-defined, there might be subtle differences. For example, the Higgs field is not a gauge field, but is it a "force"? At least it is coupled to fermion fields similar to the Yukawa meson force field (early model for inter-nucleon interaction). For the basic quantum view of gravity, you can read Feynman Lectures on Gravitation. | |
| May 8, 2013 at 12:13 | comment | added | ejrb | I like the comparisons between GR and QED tensors, I hadn't seen the similarity before. And the point about being able to view the other forces in terms of geometric quantities. So is the term "fundamental force" just a pseudonym for "gauge field" when modern physicists use it and there are only 4 known gauge fields, hence 4 forces? | |
| May 7, 2013 at 17:21 | history | answered | firtree | CC BY-SA 3.0 |