graviton martini
The idea of gravitons
emerged in the early part of the 20th century, after Einstein’s
general theory of relativity introduced the concept of gravity waves into the
scientific arena. The recent quantum mechanical development of the
wave-particle duality of light and matter (which holds that both photons
and the basic elements of matter exist dually as waves and particles) was
extended to the idea of a gravitational wave, which, the theory predicted,
should behave as a particle, as well. Thus, the idea of a graviton- a
massless particle that transmits gravitational force- was born. These
unobserved particles would travel at the speed of light (the fastest that
information can possibly be carried, a result of Einstein’s special theory
of relativity). They also have two units of spin (a property of most
subatomic particles which describes how the particle will behave in a
magnetic field). Spin is assigned in units: some units of spin cause the
particle to act repulsively, while others are attractive. A proposed spin
of 2 in the graviton means that there is no repulsion between gravitons,
only attraction, which supports our observation of a solely attractive
gravitational force (any other spin value would imply that gravity could
work as a repulsive force, also).
Gravitons can interact with each other as well as other particles:
when two gravitons interact with each other they exchange a third messenger
graviton. The ability for gravitons to affect other gravitons complicates
the mathematical aspect of graviton interactions, and thus the potential to
measure the graviton, a great deal.
