Originally posted by: mbass
Sorry. This is LONG but I would really like to hear some thoughts on this idea I had. This would be better with graphics, but I am no artist - so maybe it really wouldn't.
For some time I have been unable to completely accept certain basic theories of Physics pertaining to gravity and other principle interactions. Recently I saw a presentation of The Elegant Universe in which a visual aid was used in explaining the way in which objects of substantial gravity warp space-time (the image was that of sun and an orbiting planet causing a trampoline-like deformation in an otherwise two-dimensional grid) and how other objects of gravity are then caught in that deformation.
Not strange. There is a joke among physicists going around saying something along the lines of that in 1930 there were only 7 people in the world that understood general relativity - and none of them agreed with each other. This is patently not true, but funny nonetheless.
When grasping behavior characteristics of Physics, I generally try to form graphical models in my own mind that are as accurate as possible in how a situation scales up to more complex/all-inclusive perspectives. So, realizing the limitations of that model, I tried to view a similar two-dimensional ?sun? object that is located within the same two-dimensional grid. However instead of having the grid warp to represent gravity?s effect, I imagined individual dots (or pixels - infinitely small points) organized around my sun, with the density of those dots at any given region representing the strength of the effect of gravity in that region.
With my sun and the simulated effects of its gravitational field established in my model, I then included the additional complexity of an orbiting earth, also including it?s own gradient of gravity dots.
Viewing this model, it quickly becomes apparent that there is the greatest concentration of these gravity dots along the straight line connecting the sun and earth. So I noted the possibility that these gravity particles could potentially form a ?chain? or ?glue,? attracting each other more strongly as they become more densely packed. This pulling force would then extend from the sun to the earth delivering the resulting force we perceive as gravity.
Now, I have never been a fan of ?pulling? forces, and that discomfort led me toward considering the possibility that the exact opposite might be happening. That is, what happens to our model if we take every point where we just said there was a gravity dot, and we take every point in our model where there currently is NOT a gravity dot, and we reverse things? Essentially we end up with a scattering of (what has now changed to ?anti-?) gravity dots across the model (approximately uniform in density) except in locations near our two gravity objects. The closer we get to our sun and earth, the fewer anti-gravity dots we find, and along that same line - directly between the sun and earth - we find gravity dots to be least dense of all.
Problem number one. How do these "dots" interact with, say, the earth, when they're spread out all over the solar system? As Einstein said, "Spooky action at a distance".
To me, this model suddenly looks intriguingly natural. If we assume these anti-gravity dots to possess some characteristics of repulsion (where they not only repel each other, but they repel ALL objects of gravity also), then it would establish a system where this endless field of gravity dots exists and exerts a constant and surrounding force on any object exhibiting gravity. Likewise any object of gravity will push back against the field in all directions, and equilibrium will be reached in the form of a density gradient of gravity dots - increasing in density as the distance from the object increases.
If all of these little dots repell each other and are repelled by mass, they would all have ended up evenly distributed in interstellar space long ago. There certainly wouldn't be any hanging around in our very repulsive solar system, filled up as it is with mass and repulsive stuff. Well, actually, the density in the solar system would just be very low, but you get my point. This is not a flaw exactly, but is worth considering.
It also implies that there is a level of "maximum gravity" once all the "grass" is gone, although I suppose this could be identified with a black hole. But jumping ahead, how would light even enter the black hole if there is no grass there, since light is a wave in the "grass"? If it just disappears and the black hole is in an otherwise perfect vacuum, where would the energy go? This also implies that light would change its phase velocity depending on the density of the "grass". Basically it would propagate faster in denser media, so it would go really fast in interstellar space and super slow closer to large bodies of mass. For example, all our cable tv satellites would be in a lower gravity environment, and therefore experience faster light speeds. Not completely impossible, but complicated - and definitely experimentally disproven; the speed of light has always been the same in all conducted experiments. You would have to introduce time dilation effects to make it work, so you'd have to make an alternative theory of relativity.
(Here I will introduce the term ?grass? to replace ?gravity dot? ? grass because when this idea occurred to me, grass was everywhere I looked except in the shaded areas under trees where is was less dense. There is an impulse to use a term like graviton or some other currently proposed particle, but use of whatever particle I chose would almost certainly be wrong, and so I am going with a meaningless term that can be changed later. Surely someone else can come up with something better to call my gravity dots.)
Just as before, adding a second body of gravity to the model adds a new wrinkle. If we consider the line connecting the two objects, it is apparent that each object will feel a weaker grass-push from that region than each of the two objects feels from their other surrounding areas. The resulting sum of forces acting on each of them will drive them toward each other along that line of least density.
Inconsistencies Explained
If my claim then is that there exists a vast expanse of this grass, then we should be able to observe other properties that this explanation should exhibit. For starters, we would expect energy to be able to propagate through this field in the form of waves (in the same way energy can propagate through any medium ? just as sound will propagate differently along varying densities of matter). It so happens that electromagnetic radiation (hereafter referred to as light) behaves with many of the characteristics of a wave. Perhaps this grass is the medium over which light propagates. I personally have never been comfortable with the explanation that light sometimes is a wave and sometimes is a particle, so how can we explore this further?
Light propagates as a wave but interacts as a particle. The quantum theory explanation of, well, everything, including light, is that it is a wavefunction - or more accurately, a complex wave packet (with infinitely many components). The wavefuntion is "collapsed" when the particle interacts, basically the region where the particle *probably* exists becomes very small, and it's all darn complicated and it takes a couple of college level courses to just scratch the surface. But if you're really interested, take a class in Quantum Mechanics (but make sure your algebra and general math skills are up to snuff first). How would your theory explain the particle-like interaction of light with matter? In fact, how do you account for any light/matter interaction?
We know light travels at a set speed (a property of waves) in a vacuum. When light is forced to travel through air or water, however, it slows down. It will also exhibit bending characteristics as it travels through areas of matter where the density is changing.
If we shrink down to the scale of individual atoms and use billiard balls to approximate the locations of each atom in a body of water (I don?t know enough about string theory to make any approximation it might predict), we can assume a field of gravity exists around each individual atom similar to the previous model of gravity around the sun. This field acts just like the sun and earth did previously in that the field of grass is present in the region around each atom, but as you get closer to each atom it becomes less and less dense.
Fields are basically a way of NOT having to explain action-at-a-distance. Again we can posit that fields exists - but that just reduces the problem to: What is a field?
So considering that grass is actually present (though in lesser densities due to gravities repulsion) in and among all this matter, it becomes clear that its density will be significantly less when averaged across a larger volume of many water molecules. That lesser density explains why light would propagate more slowly when traveling through air or water or glass.
True. But this would hold true in a vacuum as well.
Can we then also use this explanation to account for extreme situations where matter outright prevents the propagation of light ? when traveling through a sheet of lead for example? Recognizing that each atom?s gravity repulsion will be significantly increased due to each individual atom?s larger mass, we might entertain the possibility that light (at least, the visible spectrum) requires some minimum grass density in order to be propagated at all. That is, once a wave of energy (propagating at the wavelength/frequency properties of visible light) tries to move across a specific region with a grass-density that is less than the minimum density over which it can propagate, the wave falls apart (the energy goes somewhere for certain, but from the viewpoint of this model, it appears to cancel itself out). As well, due to the gradient nature of the grass-density decrease around each atom, some parts of the wave on either side of any given atom will be redirected around the atom ? no longer in since with the larger wave and contributing to deconstructive interference. Each atom acts as a pit for parts of a light wave to be sucked into.
With this model, the blocking of light would be a continuous function of density. This is not so. Diamond is denser than snow, yet diamond is translucent and snow is not (in the visible spectrum). How would you explain spectral lines and absorption bands etc..., basically, how would you explain that all materials absorb some frequencies but not others in a seemingly arbitrary way?
Another issue this neatly addresses is the recent discovery that black holes spew superheated matter out their z-axis. This totally betrays our longstanding concept that black holes exhibit so much gravity that mass-less photons cannot even escape. Using this new explanation however, there is no problem. Black holes can still possess so much matter that their gravity field repels grass to such an extent that nowhere within some event horizon are light waves capable of propagating due to the region?s grass-density being below light?s minimum requirement for propagation. Superheated matter could then escape such a scenario without defying our understanding that nothing of mass can travel faster than light.
Again, you are positing variable speeds of light, unless you are prepared to introduce time dilation. In that case, time would "stand still" at the event horizon of a black hole (which is basically what general relativity tells us as well...)
As I mentioned, graphics would make much of this clearer and easier to read, but the concept as a whole makes so much more sense to me than certain complexities college science classes expect students to accept without question. The universe has proven time and time again to be very simple-natured...once we see past our own complicated explanations.
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