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 | | From: | JusUK | | Subject: | Theory of Gravity | | Date: | Tue, 30 Nov 2004 15:20:45 -0000 |
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 | Gravity by J Holme
The understanding of gravity has many prizes to offer. It can be hoped that
if gravity was understood then anti-gravity would not be far behind. The
great prize of anti-gravity would be space exploration and exploitation.
Escape from the Earth's gravitational influence, and the enormous cost and
inherent dangers of rocket motors, would open up the solar system to us.
This somewhat assumes that anti-gravity technology would be cheaper and
safer than controlled chemical explosions in a metal tube. As things stand
gravity is a mystery, so what is it?
The old analogy of gravitational effects on orbiting bodies, or particles,
is to imagine a heavy ball on a rubber sheet. This represents how a large
mass distorts space-time. Then we can imagine a marble being rolled towards
the ball. As it gets close it will start to fall faster and more directly
towards the ball. This would be the real-world equivalent of a meteor
falling into Earth's atmosphere.
If it is on a more oblique trajectory, with sufficient speed, it will go
past the ball but it will be deflected. This is seen in cosmology with the
way light is bent around large masses in space, in this way objects can be
observed that are actually behind another body. At exactly the right speed
and direction the marble will tend to go around the ball and fall in towards
it over a few rotations, somewhat like a marble on a roulette wheel. If this
was happening in a virtually friction free place, as a near-orbital vacuum
is, it will keep going round and round for a very long time. It will enter a
stable orbit such as the moon or satellites occupy in relation to Earth.
Of course this analogy relies on gravity itself to demonstrate gravity. It
is gravity that makes a ball deform a rubber sheet, gravity which would
maintain the marble's contact with the sheet and gravitational effects would
deflect the marble's trajectory. Also this example is only in two dimensions
and does not tell us whether gravity is pushing the ball down on the sheet
or pulling it down.
As we know in reality an object could come in from any vector, from any
point in the sky and at any particular velocity, and still experience all
these gravitational effects. So what we must in fact imagine is a massive
number of incredibly thin rubber sheets which the ball or Earth are
surrounded by. These sheets are ready to deflect a marble coming from any
direction in three dimensions. They wrap the ball perfectly in every
direction and only the sheet that is perfectly placed to deflect the marble
to the minimum will influence its path.
Essentially it can be imagined as a sphere of influence, and layers of
spheres of influence running out from the ball. After all the marble can
come from any direction and miss the ball at any altitude. The interlocking
sheets not only wrap the ball perfectly in every direction, like a sphere,
but also at every height away from the ball's surface. At each higher level
the sheets become flatter as they are wrapping, not the surface of the ball
directly but sheets below them in the structure. Like a giant Russian doll
each outer layer becomes larger and less defined and the deformation,
created by the ball's influence, becomes shallower and therefore less
deflective.
This model sounds more like an emanation or ripples in space-time spreading
out from the mass. Like some kind of electromagnetic wave, such as a radio
transmission, radiating out in every direction and gradually dissipating in
strength as it travels. Each individual particle in the mass must have some
influence, as a mass with more particles has a stronger emission. Also even
small objects have some gravitational influence in proportion to their size.
This would be true for all matter in all shapes.
If we look out into the universe there is really a mono-culture. There is
only one shape to be seen and one shape that demonstrates its gravitational
properties, a sphere or a ball. Admittedly they are not perfect spheres but
if gravity works like some kind of emanation from a collection of matter,
differences between different large close-spheres would be quite subtle on
this scale. The differences in shape may account for some of the slight
unpredictability of gravitational effects.
Gravity sucks! Or does it? If we again think of a ball on a rubber sheet we
could think of the ball pushing the rubber away from it rather than just
deforming it. In fact this is exactly the case as the Electro-magnetic
forces of the individual atoms in the ball push the atoms of the rubber
sheet away. If this was not the case the two materials would just
intermingle, as for instance during melting when the bonds within a solid
are weakened.
If we also think of the spheres of influence, emanating from bodies, these
may also be the result of matter repulsing, not other matter, but space-time
itself. Each particle in the mass pushing against each other and against
space time. After all matter does need to take up space and time. These
forces radiate out from the mass into 'empty' space but what happens when
they meet. When the ripples from two or more bodies collide?
Where these ripples of gravitational-push meet what may be going on? Is it
conceivable that as two ripples of repulsive gravity meet, both trying to
push away space-time, they in fact shrink it instead or force it away from
the area where those waves meet? This reduces the amount of space between
the bodies, which appear then to move closer towards each other. In fact the
amount of space-time between them has reduced.
On a smaller scale the ripples of 'gravity-push' from my molecules are
currently meeting the ripples from the Earth's gravity. Where they meet
there is a, thankfully, very small shrinkage or displacement of space-time.
This reduces the amount of space between the Earth's surface and myself and
keeps me in pretty constant contact with it. Once in contact with the solid
surface below me the Electro-magnetic forces of the molecules stop me going
any further. Other than the theoretical implications, of such thoughts,
there are practical ones as well.
It would seem fairly straight-forward to design an experiment that would be
able to test if there are indeed gravitational ripples of this kind. On the
ground the Earth's own ripples are very dominant but in deep space there
would be little influence from other bodies. Here a series of objects could
be tested to see if there were differences in the gravitational effects due
to their shapes. With the right shapes it might well be possible to show
that gravity is really a repulsing force. If then some way could be worked
out such that an aircraft's shape, or some other attribute, could be made to
work with gravity, rather than against its repelling effects, it would
appear to float. I will leave the rest to your imagination.
--
Personal site www.holmepage.co.uk/writings.html
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