An Explanation for Gravity

An Explanation for Gravity.

We know of Newton as the first person to ‘discover’ or describe Gravity and what it does (causes an attraction between masses), but Newton could not say how or why this attraction occurred.

Then Einstein, given his discovery of (special and general) relativity, refined the description of what gravity does, but still without an explanation of why gravity happens.

Einstein’s quest for the rest of his life was to find an explanation for gravity, and all physics, in a unified theory. He did not succeed - and the fact that Einstein did not find an explanation for gravity is highlighted by his introduction of the cosmological constant. Without yet an explanation for why gravity means an attraction between masses, there was no reason for him not to think that at long range it might repel masses (to make the steady state universe he believed in).

Still today, a unified theory that explains all physics (bringing together the apparently unrelated Gravity/Relativity and quantum physics) is the elusive ultimate goal.

Naturally then, before I arrived at the 1994 realisation that the visible universe should be accelerating apart (to explain a mystery that had not yet been observed) I was thinking about how to explain the mystery of gravity and the laws of physics – and more from the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’ perspective.

I actually came up with an explanation, in terms of concepts and principles, around 1989 and wrote it up as short book, ‘An Explanation of Physical Reality’.

So, this work, and its explanation of Gravity, provided a background with which I went on to reason/predict that the visible universe/our cosmos should be accelerating apart, due to gravity.

This explanation did not change the description of what gravity does, as described by Newton/Einstein, so from my perspective it was never necessary to introduce it as a part of my explanation for the accelerating expansion. That is done with the existent knowledge of what physics/ gravity does, not why it does it. I was not interested in creating ‘new physics’, but to explain the physics that we knew.

Having said that, I think it would be interesting and useful now to introduce my explanation for gravity, to show ‘where I am coming from’, to add some authority to the theory, and to demonstrate a certain crucial point; that you can have a theory based on extrapolation, of a description of observations, and you can have a theory based on a deeper understanding of the observations. Without a guide in a deeper understanding, the theory that is just based on extrapolation is prone to mistakes and pitfalls - hence the reason why cosmologists lost their way and failed to predict the accelerating expansion as an effect of gravity, in an infinite eternal universe. They did not have an explanation of the ‘why’ of gravity to guide them.

Descriptions of Gravity

Newton first described Gravity as movement caused by vectors of a force (caused by mass) – and that force overcoming the inertia of the object. This worked well for a limited number of masses but becomes impossible in an infinite distribution of masses in infinite space.

So Einstein (knowing that relativity did imply an infinite universe) saw that the idea of Gravity as motion being produced by vectors of force against inertia should be dropped and instead saw it as motion by means of the changing or warping of space-time (He used the scene of a lift to show that gravity was equivalent to being in a reference frame of accelerating space – in which straight paths of light may appear to curve.)

Using Einstein’s new General relativity, Friedman calculated that things in an infinite universe could be made to move apart, or together (to expand or contract) not by force vectors but by the expansion or contraction of space. (Note though that Friedman’s idea of a dynamic, expanding or contracting infinite universe did have a problem in terms of Special relativity, for if the universe was uniformly expanding then beyond a certain finite range, from any reference point, the masses would be exceeding the speed of light, which was the speed limit of reality).

In Friedman’s solutions, if the universe contracts, then not only does the density of mass/energy increase but so does the kinetic energy, and if it expands then the kinetic energy decreases along with the density of mass, so the density of (mass) energy can go from one extreme to another.

There is also a basic question mark over the validity of saying an expansion can be caused by the ‘expansion of space’ in an infinite universe, since there is no metric for the expansion of space. We only know of the so called ‘expansion of space’ by the moving apart of objects – but that is not true spatial expansion because we only see/describe things as moving apart relative to a non-expanding spatial context.

So Einstein did not like Friedman’s solutions. He clung onto the steady state universe for a while. Indeed, even when the universe was shown to be expanding, apparently agreeing with Friedman’s solutions of General relativity, Einstein came back with the idea that as the universe expanded, the density of matter it contained was kept steady by the creation of new matter. (The problem with that was he could not reasonably explain how new matter would be created from space).

In terms of my explanation for Gravity, I would say that Einstein was right in feeling that the universe should have a certain consistent/steady density of matter/ energy in it.

Since the discovery of the accelerating expansion, it has been realised that the loss of mass density from the expansion is made up for with an increase in the kinetic energy, so that the density of energy is close to constant (within the reference frame of the visible universe).

In my explanation of the accelerating expansion, due to gravity, the outward expansion of mass in our visible universe is equal and opposite in momentum to the inward pulling of the mass of the surrounding infinity, meaning that there is no change in the density of mass within any whole reference frame.

So, if the laws of physics look set up to maintain a certain overall density across the infinity, why would that be? This is where a mathematical approach cannot help, for, as Friedman showed, it leads to thinking the density of matter in an infinite universe could vary from zero to infinity.

Looking at the physics we can see that the distribution of matter/energy seems purposely slight. Even solid matter is composed almost entirely of nothing, atoms being relatively vast stadium sized spaces containing just a few pip or point-sized particles.

Why the next-to-nothingness?

Consider the original/background context of an infinite universe. Perhaps it could be a background of infinite formless energy, since there is no particular form that should exist within it. This is an indescribable context. All matter and energy that we can describe, has, by contrast, some form or order. As such, these occasions/bit of stuff/mass may be considered minor improbabilities within the context. And minor improbabilities here and there may be allowed, given the vastness of possibilities in infinite space, according to chance. Chance, however does not allow a high concentration of minor improbabilities to occur/exist on a grand/infinite scale.

So now, Why the Gravity?

Imagine you have one lump of ordered stuff /aka mass. Its continuous existence must be associated with a probability pressure that says it should not enduringly exist.

Now bring another lump of mass into the scenario; more probability pressure. Put them closer together and the probability pressure increases, for two improbabilities should not happen close to each other (like winning the lottery twice in the same week).

Gravity however seems to resist this probability pressure, not only maintaining the existence of things but in moving them towards each other.

What would happen if there was no gravity to resist and counter this probability pressure?

Maybe the mass would break down, its mass energy be split into a random impulse of movement/some kinetic energy and a diminished mass energy. Further random impulses of movement, in random directions would take from its mass energy until it no longer existed.

It disappears totally as a lump of formal energy (into the background of infinite formless energy).

How does gravity counter this (fundamental challenge for a consistent formal reality)?

Suppose now that the random impulse of movement (occasioned by probability pressure) is directly towards another reference frame. From that special reference frame the apparently diminished mass energy would be restored apparently, by the increased energy of going towards (a blueshift) and getting nearer.

So, so long as this fundamental random movement is defined as being towards something (gravity) then the apparent consistency of the object is maintained.

But if the movement is originally defined as random, then how can it always be in that special ‘towards something’ direction?

This is where the multiversal possibilities of the original background context may be considered necessary. We can say the mass can and does move in all those other directions, but in doing so it loses its consistency and disappears. Only the movements that consistently follow gravity form the thread that becomes/is reality.

And Inertia

According with the explanation for gravity, any movement that is not according to the special direction of gravity would normally diminish the energy /consistency of the mass, but the maintenance of the consistency of the mass is imperative to reality, so any such movement must be associated with a fundamental input of energy/force to allow this movement, hence inertia.

The Original context.

This explanation of gravity began with an original context of an infinite space with infinite formless energy. But one may ask where that comes from. And in an infinite eternal universe there should be no beginning, but rather things should be cyclic.

Well, if we have an infinite multiverse containing infinite other cosmoses like our own (not including infinite others unlike our own and not real to us) and then apply gravity to the infinite light from them that should emerge (according to Olbers paradox), then Einstein’s Gravity shift of light would go further than just making the infinity dark. The ultimate result of the equation suggests an unreal infinite frequency/zero wavelength background, which is the very same ‘original background context’ from which we derived the necessary existence/explanation of gravity.

So gravity brings a cyclic regeneration (of a certain infinite strand of reality) like the symbol of infinity itself.

Note that our own strand of reality has a certain specific speed limit, but the background context, in being associated with infinite frequency /zero wavelength means no specific speed (along with infinite formless energy) so therefore can be the background context of infinite other realities, and can be timeless, allowing the instantaneous pervasion of the laws of physics to all reference frames within a reality (and entanglement, which shows this enablement).

We know that a relationship of entanglement exits between two separate particles that started out together. Likewise, given the background context of formless infinite energy, for everything in a certain cosmos to be interrelated in sharing the same reality bubble, it should naturally all be traced to a shared point origin in space and time. The background context does allow all the energy of an entire cosmos to emerge from a point.

The most direct evidence we have of this background context would be the field of unreal/virtual particles and the deduction of infinite zero point energy.

The original context also underlines the reason for quantum physics (ergo the relationship between gravity and quantum physics) in that if you have a background of infinite energy then any reality, that is described by finite quantifications of energy, can only rest on minimal point/moments or the quantization of space and time. Anything bigger than a point of space and time means infinite unquantifiable energy.

But this last point, points to the ultimate implication, that the consistency of reality is essentially arbitrary or illusory (as finite numbers extracted from infinity). If one accepts the existence of the background context then all of reality is, as Shakespeare put it, the stuff that dreams are made of – and only made real by us sharing the dream. Hence the next to nothingness of matter; it can only be allowed as a superficial ripple on the surface of infinite energy.

Referring back to Einstein’s equation for the gravitational shift of light, the infinite background energy that it leads to is defined as unreal (therefore he dismissed it). But if considered real then it means, reflexively, that all reality and matter is defined as unreal. Naturally, given the scientific era he was from, Einstein could not go in that direction with his theory. To him matter was real and more real than space and time, so he could consider that the abstracts of space and time did not even exist beyond matter. And thus he also conceived of the idea of a finite unbounded universe, rather than the truly infinite (multicosmic) universe that special and general relativity ultimately imply. In his finite universe the infinite background energy of Olbers problem does not arise. But his matter-is-real-perspective did not help him to accept the implications of quantum physics, nor proceed towards the unified explanation he was hoping for.

Likewise those scientists and cosmologists of today; If I say that the ultimate implication of the ultimate theory of the universe (that it is infinite, eternal and multicosmic) is that the nature of reality here and now is essentially arbitrary - and therefore has to be associated with an ever present intent, then of course they will avoid going there. That has spiritual implications!