This article discusses how gravity is related to other forces.
I will only discuss my model, because I think it is right and also I might misrepresent other models (including superstrings) that I don't like as much.
First, I would point out that (generally, not just in my model) the strength of any force is roughly the square of the amplitude of a force-carrying particle to emit or absorb a gauge boson of that force, and the amplitude itself is the charge of the force-carrying particle.
For instance (this is also conventional Feynman et al stuff), the charge of an electron is e, which is the amplitude for an electron to emit or absorb a photon, and the electromagnetic force strength (fine structure constant) is e^2 = alpha (here I am incorporating some factors like 4 pi into the definition of charge, etc.).
For another example (also conventional), the weak force has charged W bosons, where the charge is the amplitude and the FUNDAMENTAL weak force strength is the square of that amplitude.
Actually, the FUNDAMENTAL weak force strength is a lot stronger than the electromagnetic force, but the weak force APPEARS to be weak (at our usual energy levels) because, for there to be a weak force emission or absorption, TWO things must happen: 1 - (as with electromagnetism) it only occurs with the fundamental amplitude and 2 - also, not only must you wait out the "fundamental amplitude) time, but you must also wait until a massive weak boson (of characteristic mass around 100 GeV) is created by a quantum vacuum fluctuation to carry it.
Since the weak boson mass is on the order of 100 GeV, and since the vacuum fluctuation time is of the order 1 / M^2, requirement 2 suppresses the (inherently stronger) weak force by a factor of about 1 / 100^2 = 1 / 10,000 (in terms of GeV, or proton masses).
Now, as to gravity, in my model gravity is FUNDAMENTALLY the STRONGEST of the four forces, but its strength is SUPPRESSED (as in 2 above) by the requirement for the creation by quantum vacuum fluctuation of a Planck Mass. Since the Planck mass is about 10^19 GeV, that means that gravity APPEARS TO US to be weaker by a factor of roughly 1 / M^2 = 1 / (10^19)^2 = 1 / 10^38 (in terms of GeV or proton masses).
OK, so you might ask, why is the Planck mass what it is ?
That is something that my model has (that I think is not dealt with in any other model, AFAIK). Here is how it works:
THE PLANK MASS IS ROUGHLY THE SUPERPOSITION OF ALL POSSIBLE COMBINATIONS OF QUARKS AND LEPTONS (therefore in some sense it is the sum of the other forces, sort of in the spirit of Sakharov's idea that gravity might be formed by the sum of other forces, but formulated from a different point of view (my point of view)).
A detailed calculation is on my web site at
http://www.innerx.net/personal/tsmith/Planck.html#combinatorial
Here is an abridged version:
Consider an isolated single point, or vertex in the lattice picture of spacetime, and the superpositons of the states of first-generation fermions that can live on that single vertex.
There are 8 fermion particles and 8 fermion antiparticles for a total of 64 particle-antiparticle pairs.
A typical combination should have several quarks, several antiquarks, a few colorless quark-antiquark pairs that would be equivalent to pions, and some leptons and antileptons.
A typical combination should have a mass in the range of 0.66 GeV.
Summing over all 2^64 combinations, the total mass in the one-vertex superposition should be roughly in the range of mPlanck = from about 1.217 x 10^19 GeV to about 1.550 x 10^19 GeV.
The value for the Planck mass given in the Particle Data Group's 1998 review is 1.221 x 10^19 GeV.
Therefore, gravity is inherently VERY strong, and inherently "includes" all other forces and charges, but only appears to be weak to us (from our limited perspective).
It is sort of like the Taoist concept of strength appearing to be weak, which is interesting because the combinatorial basis of the Planck mass is related to the I Ching, which itself is a subset of VoDou IFA.
Since Planck-mass black holes are (in my opinion) just big superpositon/agglomeration of quark(lepton) - antiquark(antilepton) pairs, sort of like a big agglomeration/superposition of pions, perhaps a Planck-Mass Black Hole could be built using a pion laser.
21 June 2001