I agree. Energy is in fact a source of gravity so if that was squeezed out then you’d also be squeezing out the gravity source as well. It’s a common misconception that the uncertainty principle allows for that. Most people/authors/physicists misread the so-called time-energy uncertainty principle. In fact it’s not really an uncertainty principle in the normal sense since it doesn’t give a relationship between two uncertainties since the delta t isn’t an uncertainty but a time interval. See http://home.comcast.net/~peter.m.brown/qm/time_energy_hup.htm
Isn't it the usual reason given for virtual particles, where the delta t is the very short existence that is "allowed", and the delta E is explained as energy "borrowed from" the vacuum? I've also seen virtual particles explained as amplitudes of half-waves, so that there are no full-waves.
Yes. It's a very popular reason. It also happens to be wrong. Griffiths explains this on page 51-52 in his text Introduction to Elementary Particles. It's too long to quote though buy he concludes He comments regarding the time-energy uncertainty principle. Lol!!
I'm having trouble with the bolded part. How can you not have an uncertainty in the time? You say it is a time interval, but you say \(\Delta t\) is not an uncertainty. But what if you know \(\Delta E\) to a high precision wouldn't that conclude an uncertainty in the time interval? I know that \(\Delta E \Delta t\) aren't true complementary observables, simply because time is not an observable.