The Defiance of Gravity
Einstein theorized that gravity was not a force, but a property of space. This sounds bizarre, and, in my view, it is both bizarre and incorrect.
Nevertheless Einstein’s theory of gravitation can be intellectually supported using the following argument…
Consider a chamber floating in space in a region where there is no prevailing source of gravitational attraction. It is alone and motionless in space. A passenger inside the chamber will feel no weight on his feet. If he tosses a ball in the air it will continue to rise until the viscosity of the air halts it’s motion or until it encounters the roof of the chamber. If a weight hangs from the ceiling on a spring, it will not stretch the spring.
Now suppose that suddenly the chamber accelerates in the “floor to ceiling” direction. Suddenly the floor will exert pressure on the passenger’s feet. He will begin to sense his weight. The ball will now appear to fall and the weight on the spring will now extend the spring. Everything will behave as if the chamber were simply a room on the Earth. There is nothing that anyone in the chamber can do to demonstrate whether he is on the surface of a planet or accelerating through space (aside from looking out the window).
With this idea, (referred to as Einstein’s ‘Theory of Equivalence,’) Einstein demonstrated that gravity can be explained in more ways than one. The other popular way of explaining gravitation was created by Newton. Newton proposed that objects have a ‘gravitational attraction’ to each other. And thus a large object, like a planet, keeps us all on its surface because it attracts us and we attract it. In Newton’s universe, this mutual force is referred to as the force of gravity. This is problematic as it doesn’t explain what gravity actually is, it just decalares its existence.
Curved Space? Really?
I don’t buy the idea of space being curved, in fact I see it as an idea that pretty much contradicts itself. Sure it’s intellectually cute, and you can play with the idea mathematically. Nevertheless, I can’t help but envision space as space — a conceptual partitioning of reality according to three lines that are mutually perpendicular. Space is a consequence of man’s attempt to model reality. Reality, no matter whether some part of it has more or less mass, does not interact with space because it does not even know of its existence.
This Einsteinian view has had scientists seeking to assemble evidence of gravitational waves. Einstein’s mathematics suggested that massive accelerating objects would disrupt space-time so that ‘waves’ of undulating space-time would propagate in all directions away from their source.
The point to note here is the term “space-time.” By rolling up the three dimensions of space with time, Einstein invented a whole new concept with which to perform mathematical miracles.
In my view gravity is actually a plasma effect, but I’ll save that idea for a different article.
The mathematical models of space time don’t help with understanding the world of quantum physics. Ever since Einstein and the birth of Quantum Mechanics physicists have been searching for and failing to find a means of reconciling these two branches of physics.
One of them is wrong and quite possibly both of them are.