hello everyone, i recently learned about this forum and it was suggested to me by a member of a different forum i frequent that this forum may be more appropriate to post my theory and get some feedback. i'm not sure if he uses the same screen name but in the other forum he's known as "Common Sensei". i would appreciate any honest feedback you guys feel like providing and feel free to be as brutally honest as you possibly can. *************************** Some of you may be familiar with Newton and Einstein and their respective gravity theories; however what you may not realize is that neither man's work actually explains the mechanics that make gravity work. For instance, Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation merely describes the behavior of objects under the influence of a gravitational field, but it treats gravity as it does all forces, as instantaneously acting at a distance, something that we know now to not be true. Einstein's theories go a long way toward explaining gravity, specifically describing it as a curvature in space caused by the presence of mass but like Newton it fails to answer 2 fundamental questions: 1) Why should an object caught in a gravitational field under go constant acceleration? 2) Why does it start accelerating in the first place? An answer (note I didn't say "the answer", because I'm not sure we will ever know the real answer) came to me years ago as I was studying for a calculus test and was solving some problems involving damped sine waves. It occurred to me that if we were to have a hollow transparent tube, shaped in the form of a damped sine wave and within the tube we placed a marble, as the marble moved from the end with the larger curves to the end with the smaller curves, thanks to the laws of conservation and relativity, not to mention the very definition of acceleration, the marble would undergo constant linear acceleration, in relation to a straight line that ran through the wave, even if their was no change in the velocity of the marble. To understand what I just said, consider this: if you have an object that is traveling at a constant velocity, say 1 m/s, then in 1 sec the object would have traveled 1 meter. But what if the same object, as it was transversing the meter found that the ground underneath it suddenly "shrunk"? In other words, what if we marked out a start and finish point exactly 1 meter apart, and as the object moved the ground underneath it crumpled, much like an accordion. From the point of view of the object and outside observers, the object would have accelerated despite the fact that no additional force was exerted by it (or on it) to increase its velocity. Conceptually this is similar to driving down the road at a constant velocity and a constant distance from the car in front of you and finding that you suddenly are gaining ground on the car because the car in front of you suddenly slowed down. You experience acceleration by virtue that the distance between the car in front of you and your car has decreased despite the fact that you are still traveling at the same velocity you were before. Keeping the above in mind, here is how I think gravity works: basically Einstein was correct, mass does deform the space around it, but not in the way that most scientists envision. In the classic Einstein view, gravity is viewed as akin to having a rubber sheet and placing an object in the middle. In much the same way that the rubber sheet is deformed (and forms a cone like shape), so to gravity is shaped. This view is incorrect. The correct way to view gravity is via what I call the Archimedes Law of Gravity, basically an object displaces the space around it much like an object submerged in water displaces the water around it. But the nature of the displacement is much more complicated in the case of gravity. I believe space gets displaced in the form of concentric circles, with placement of said circles being denser the closer to an object and spreading apart as we move away. With this view of gravity and the above explanation of acceleration we can finally answer the first question "why should an object caught in a gravitational field under go constant acceleration?" The answer is because the distance it travels as it gets closer and closer to the other object gets foreshortened. Think of running on a rug at a constant pace and someone pulling the rug under your feet, you run the length of the rug in less time (thus undergoing acceleration) without having to put forth any extra effort. Now I will be addressing the second of the unanswered questions concerning gravity, specifically why an object starts accelerating under the influence of gravity in the first place. The answer, which came to me while drinking a Pepsi, while a bit more complicated also is elegant as it doesn't require any theories involving quantum gravity, all it requires are some basic reasoning skills. It is my belief that as a rotating object drags the space it occupies, it deforms the series of concentric circles that the crumpled space is shaped like, so that the space around a rotating object ends up being shaped like a continuous circular inclined plane, similar to the shape that the ridges on a screw are shaped like, only the distance between ridges of the gravitational field is relative to the distance between the concentric circles of the crumpled space when the object isn't rotating. If we combine the explanation I put forth for the first question with the above view it now becomes clear why an object starts accelerating when in the presence of a gravity field; basically the frame dragging effect caused by a massive rotating object breaks the other objects inertia and then my other explanations cause it to continue accelerating. But, I can already hear you asking, does not the explanation you have put forth imply that if we have a none rotating object and another object with zero kinetic energy (basically a stationary object) that zero gravitational attraction will take place, which means that your theory is incompatible with the Law of Universal Gravitation? Not really. The Law of Universal Gravitation implies that any two objects in the universe will attract one another, but it doesn't explain why they attract one another, that missing element is one last component needed to make the second part of my theory work. All these years that I have been contemplating the nature of gravity I have repeatedly asked myself 2 questions: 1) What if we have the cause and effect backwards, what if mass doesn't crumple space but rather what if crumpled space gives rise to mass? I eventually abandoned this view of space as I could find no model that would allow it to work. 2) If the universe began with a "big bang" and the universe is not a static one (which we know that it isn't), then can there ever really be a truly stationary object, i.e. is it possible to have an object with zero kinetic energy? After much thought I have concluded 'no', it's not possible to have a universe that began with a "big bang", a universe that is constantly expanding and have an object, no matter how large or small, that is truly stationary, all objects must be in motion, even if that motion is imperceptible to us. Thus, my view of gravity obeys Newton (as any new view of gravity must) and in fact explains why the Law of Universal Gravitation holds true, to wit, any two objects will attract one another, even if one or both of them are not rotating, because all objects in the universe are in motion by virtue of being created in The Big Bang and being part and parcel of an ever expanding universe and the mechanism of their attraction is the shape of the gravity fields as described above and before. ******************************** the above was my initial posting, what you guys will find below are some of my responses to some posters questions/objections that expand on the above theory and flesh out some of the details: ***regardless of whether or not the outside observer was able to tell that the ground had crumpled, they would still conclude that the object had accelerated since it took less than 1 second to cover the 1 meter distance...and they would be correct.*** ***what i described is a verbal representation of an inverse square law.*** ***if the space around an object is crumpled and said crumpling is shaped like a series of concentric circles and the distance between circles gets bigger as we move away from the object then the mathematical model that would apply would be an inverse square law and even more importantly, this view of gravity fits in nicely with newton because it takes into account the gravitational constant (which in my theory would be the ratio between the mass of an object and the amount of crumpling it does to space).*** ***when you combine his verbal explanation with the calculus view of an infinite series and you have the math background to understand that infinite series go hand in hand with integrals and you have the physics background to understand that integral calculus is the branch of mathematics used to solve gravity problems, then you understand how a rotating continuous inclined plane, caused by "frame dragging", i.e. a rotating mass dragging the space around it, coupled with archimedes principle about a floating body displacing it's own weight of fluid and the currently accepted view that the universe expands as an ideal gas (i know you guys won't believe it but my brother was the first to write a paper, in college, with math proof, that if the universe started as a big bang then it must be obeying boyle's law, i.e. it's expanding as an ideal gas, about 10 years before nasa released it's paper), then the only logical conclusion becomes that mass displaces space in such a way that it can be viewed as an series of concentric circles, with said circles being closer and closer to each other as you get closer to the object but it's important to note that "circles of space" are not transverse waves (like in the ocean) more like ridges on a record and in fact that is the perfect visual for how it works in practice with a rotating object.*** ***acceleration is defined as a change in velocity over time, a change in direction or both. if you have a marble, passing through a tube that's shaped like a damped sine wave then by the very definition of acceleration it's accelerating; basically you need to expand you definition of acceleration to include changes in direction, then it should make (more) sense. perhaps it will be easier for you if you picture the tube shaped like a cork screw with one end's circles having a bigger diameter then the other end, if you have a marble in the tube and attach an air hose that supplies a constant psi at the end with the bigger circles, can you understand why the marble would pick up speed as it gets to the narrower end?*** ***however if you stop and think about it, we are constantly in motion, even if we don't perceive it, if the universe is expanding, as we strongly believe it is, then we must be moving with it; furthermore if newton is correct (an object in motion tends to stay in motion) and all matter started from a bose-einstein condensate that we call a singularity and said condensate exploded and resulted in the universe we see today, without anything to stop it (and nothing did stop it, the universe is still expanding) then everything must still be in motion.*** ***keep in mind that einstein, as a consequence of general relativity, predicted the existence of "ripples" in space, i.e. gravitational waves. fundamentally i think this is correct, and more importantly leads to a number of possibilities, including that gravity is a consequence of action/reaction; i.e. the presence of mass displaces the space it occupies, causing waves to propagate in space away from the source, and since it is a wave it would be subject to wave mechanics such as shifting. this in fact was the original explanation i came up with but i had to abandon this model because i had no explanation as to why the waves would continue being created. but i liked the visual and tried to picture what such a field would look like to an outside observer. that's when i realized that if an outside observer were to view the emanation of gravity waves from an object like a planet it would appear as a series of concentric circles, with the circles being closer together the closer to the object they were. then i asked myself what if there is some property of space that once it's displaced, it stays displaced. if this were true then action/reaction couldn't be used to explain gravity but it would fit in nicely with the phenomena known as frame dragging. since any new theory must agree with what we currently know to be true i decided to follow this road and see what such a field, where space is crumpled, like a car after an accident, by the presence of mass and where an object is rotating, the field must behave according to the mathematics governing a continuous inclined plane and could be imagined to look like ridge on a screw.*** ***well for one thing the strength of anything increases in discrete steps, we simply treat the calculations as "smooth gradients" but in reality the increments are discrete in nature. are you familiar with planck length? in the simplest terms planck length is the smallest unit of measure possible that has any meaning for us. planck length can be defined in terms of G, c and planck's constant, with G being the constant of proportionality (or the gravitational constant) and c being the speed of light.*** ***first and foremost it's an attempt to describe the shape of the gravity fields that arise by the presence of mass and more it gives a purely geometry based explanation of gravity that effectively eliminates the need, and the possibility of being right, of all of the more fringe theories, like quantum gravity, gravitons and the like. the next step is to show how such a view can be used to unify gravity with light, as i view light to also be nothing more than a ripple in space caused by oscillating particles. i believe that the particle/wave duality nature of light can be explained with simple mathematics; i.e. much like when we watch tv from a distance the picture appears to be contiguous but when we look closely we can see the individual pixels that make up the image, i think light follows a similar principle, i think the particle/wave duality of light speaks more about the nature of our experiments and less about the nature of light itself.*** ***interesting question; i suppose we may be able to, someday, perform an experiment, whereby we release a large number of colored particles in the space surrounding earth and we could have observers on the moon to see if the particles orient themselves along gravitational lines and if so what that pattern looks like. the pictures i link to above certainly seems to suggest that i am on the right track.*** ***actually what i was trying to describe was a combination of the two: the space around an object is compressed by virtue of the space being displaced by mass and that compression can be conceptualized in the manner i described. for a few minutes i thought that you had completely ripped this theory to shreds with your neutron star comment, but after much thought i realized that if the displacement took place on a particle level, rather than a classical level, then the total displacement would be equal to the sum of each individualistic displacement and more importantly this view would still be consistent with newton, i.e. Fg = G*M1*M2/d^2*** ***einstein called the inclusion of a cosmological constant the biggest mistake he ever made; in my theory of gravity, relativity becomes a consequence of an expanding universe, i.e. relativity isn't the reason the universe is expanding rather relativity holds true only because the universe is expanding and the reason the universe is expanding because of the newton's first law. as such, the fact that you can't have an absolute frame of reference, "absolute rest", is due to an expanding universe, in a static universe you could definitely have an absolute frame of reference. furthermore, since an event horizon is the point in space at which light can't escape what you pointed out doesn't represent what is actually happening, just our limited ability to observe what's happening within the event horizon, in fact since light can't escape to an observer outside the event horizon i would expect that a falling object would just seem to disappear but in reality there is nothing in the laws of physics that requires that a falling object should stop falling*** ***needless to say that i believe the smart money would be on my being more right than wrong and as far as mercury is concerned frame dragging caused by the sun's orbit explains the precession of it's orbit (again picture the shape of the gravitational field as a record with ridges that have irregular spacing between them, with the ridges being closer to one another as you get closer to the center.*** i wish to thank you if you read this far and i apologize if this post is too long. any feedback will be greatly appreciated and if you feel like saying "that is the dumbest thing i ever read" i only ask that you explain why you feel that way. thank you, -deadrats.
Yes, that is an incorrect view because it is a simple 2 dimension representation of 4th dimensional space-time. The simplistic model is more designed to help layman understand the basic concepts. Maybe you could put down your idea in a 2 or 3 line summary so the members could see if your idea has merit. Personally I am not going to slog through such a big post. There are some very bright people here (not me) and I am sure you will get plenty of feedback. Enjoy
Agreed, too long didn't finish. From what I did read though you seem to have frame of reference and acceleration mixed up. If no energy is added to or taken from the object then no acceleration occurred.
1) Why should an object caught in a gravitational field under go constant acceleration? 2) Why does it start accelerating in the first place? 1. Einsteins equavlence principle. 2. Newtons F=MA
What is your evidence for this? What evidence is there for spatial displacement that differs from spatial curvature? What predictions arising from relatively would be different under this view? What experiments could be run to falsify the notion of spatial displacement? Also, if space is displaces, then how is the path of the nearby particle foreshortened? It still have to travel through just as much space, apparently, just that the space is now (in some sense you haven't described) "denser". Also, by what mechanism would matter (which is mostly empty space to start with) displace space in concentric circles (and why not in three dimensional spheres)? Is this a crazier than usual "Einstein was wrong" argument?
It occurred to me that if we were to have a hollow transparent tube, shaped in the form of a damped sine wave and within the tube we placed a marble, as the marble moved from the end with the larger curves to the end with the smaller curves, thanks to the laws of conservation and relativity, not to mention the very definition of acceleration, the marble would undergo constant linear acceleration, in relation to a straight line that ran through the wave, even if their was no change in the velocity of the marble. Did you lose your marbles?
We do have someone on here with a name very similar to Common Sensei. I wonder if it's Common Sense Seeker.
OP: 1) Why should an object caught in a gravitational field under go constant acceleration? 2) Why does it start accelerating in the first place? ========================================================== Despite your VERY wordy attempt to claim that Einstein's work cannot explain those two facts, it handles them VERY well !!! In fact, it handles them SO well that even a newbie studying relativity easily understands the answers. All one has to do is visualize the old rubber-sheet image and they can clearly see how those two conditions exist. :bugeye:
Technically it doesn't. Tidal forces can be written off as "negligible" but that's not the same. As far as I can tell, the answer to this would probably answer everything about gravity. To me, there is no sensible mechanism which would allow a relatively stationary point particle to be influenced by the gravitational field of a local mass. I believe oscillations and/or internal movement are required, which is why your thoughts have some merit to me. Basically you're saying there exists a "measured space" which is the realm of applicability of our instruments, and a "canvas space" through which bodies actually travel at a constant rate. Mass causes "measured space" to crumple. What about two large orbiting masses? Your analogy would crumple space between the bodies much more than either one of them would, yet a passer-by could travel between the two without being greatly affected by either. In other words, crumpling is bi-directional while your pulling of carpet analogy is not.
