ACUFOS - Reflections on Gravity by Martin Gottschall

REFLECTIONS ON GRAVITY
Part 1
Martin Gottschall PhD © 2004

GRAVITY IS A FORCE AFTER ALL

This article explores some new and some old ideas about the nature of gravity and its use in space travel. It draws together a number of diverse Physics topics, and for this reason I decided to provide some explanation of their essential nature. It will also consider information from ostensibly ET sources. This made an already large article even larger, so it is presented in a number of parts, each concerned with just one aspect of this theory of gravity. Part 1 presents gravity as a force, much as originally conceived by Isaac Newton, and will explain it as a force we have all experienced in apparently unrelated contexts.

PART 1. GRAVITY IS A FORCE AFTER ALL

In 1666 Isaac Newton conceived his "Law of Universal Gravitation" as a force extending from one body to another in space, dependent on the product of the two masses involved and decreasing inversely as the square of their separation. For his day this was a way-out proposition since "action at a distance" of millions of miles of "emptiness" was hard to accept. Consequently, he did not publish his calculations and the way they so precisely described the motions of the planets around the sun, until 1687 in his "Principia" which also laid out his laws of motion - how the motion of bodies is affected by the forces acting on them - without which his law of gravitation would have been unuseable anyway. Newton developed the concept of a physical force that we still use today.

In 1916 Albert Einstein published his Theory of General Relativity. It was his theory of gravity, and was to replace Newton's. In this theory gravity was regarded as a property of an entity called space-time which made all objects to just naturally move in the way we see when they are in "free fall". These objects experience no force until their natural tendency is resisted, as for example an object resting on the ground, when it experiences a force known as its "weight". Now Einstein's idea is very elegant (or "beautiful", because it avoided inventing a new force - gravity), but the mathematics involved is difficult and complicated.

In 1918 the Swiss Physicist Hermann Weyl published "Space - Time - Matter" in German. The book was an early textbook on Relativity and apparently much sought after, so that by 1921 it had already come out in its fourth edition. An English translation published in 1921 was republished by Dover in 1952. Weyl's chapter 4 is on General Relativity, and in various places he uses the notion that the space-time equations of Relativity can be executed with much greater mathematical simplicity by assuming that the speed of light changes in a gravity field in a certain way. His clearest version of that formula is in a box on page 255 of the Dover edition. Since then other writers have referred to this formula, and that is how I was able to trace it back to Weyl.

In 1980 after trying for years to get a "handle" on gravity, I came upon the idea that the speed of light decreased in a gravity field. The idea was not immediately useful and seemed to lead nowhere. This may be why it has lain dormant for so long. Eventually I did find a way to make this idea work, and it became the basis of the theory of gravity presented here. This took years and about a decade or more later I discovered Weyl's work on this subject. By following his lead we discover that gravity is a force after all, and furthermore it is a force with which we are already familiar in other contexts.

Since the formula for the speed of light in a gravity field has already been found by Weyl and others to fit in with General Relativity, we can defer deriving it until later, and we need not be particularly worried about it being "right". Our theory is not going to agree with Relativity in all respects, but we can defer that until later as well. This difference will ultimately decide between the two theories. According to Weyl's formula, the speed of light in a gravity field, "c" relates to the speed of light "C" at infinity (outside the gravity field) and the gravity potential "P" as follows:

       c.c   =   C.C   -   2.P         (1)

The potential "P" is a positive number which is zero at infinity and increases as we descend into a gravity field. It is a way of measuring how much energy it takes to lift a unit mass out of the field. Thus c = C when P = 0 (at infinity), and "c" decreases as "P" increases, becoming zero when "P" equals C.C/2. The relationship between "c" and "P" is "curved", in fact a circle. A decade ago a zero speed for light may have seemed heresy, but in recent years light has indeed been "stopped" and restarted again in the laboratory, so this notion is not so wild anymore. If a changing speed for light still worries you, note that if you were to measure the speed of light anywhere from within a gravity field you would always get the value at infinity, but if you observed from infinity, you would see light slowing according to this formula.

THE NATURE OF THE GRAVITY FORCE

We can now explore the nature of the gravity force, and spell out exactly what it is. On the way we are going to make a sweeping assertion about the constitution of all matter, without which our theory can not work. It corresponds to the "Principle of Equivalence" of Relativity.

To discuss this force, we need to become familiar with two properties of space. They are the electric and the magnetic constants of space. To do this we have to visit the work of Clerk Maxwell who cast the equations of electromagnetic theory in the form (though not the notation) in which we use them today, in 1863. Maxwell found that the magnetic constant "u" and electric constant "e" of space are related to the speed of light, "c" according to the equation:

        c.c.e.u = 1                  (2)

Thus, if "e" and/or "u" increase then "c" must decrease, and we see that the decrease in the speed of light in a gravity field is accompanied by an increase in "e" and/or "u". In fact, we will show later that "e" and "u" increase in the same proportions, so that a 1% increase in one is accompanied by a 1% increase in the other.

To understand the physical meaning of "e", consider Figure 1(a) where two flat metal plates are almost touching. A small voltage difference from a battery for example will charge the top plate positively and the bottom plate negatively, and because the spacing is so close, the charges are quite large. In Figure 1(b) the plates have been separated to a distance "d". Assume that the lower plate is fixed and the upper plate is lifted. The charge on the upper plate which has an intensity "D" coulombs per square meter has swept through the height "d". We say that a "displacement" of intensity "D" has take place in the direction of "d". This "displacement field" occupies the space between the plates.

The space between the plates is found to contain a field of force. If we place a small positive charge into that space it will experience a downward force proportional to both "D" and the value of the charge. A negative charge will experience an upward force. This force arises anywhere in the space between the plates, and we speak of an electric field "E" having the opposite direction     to "D" by agreed convention, which is expressed in the units of Volts per meter (also Newtons per Coulomb). "E" is found to be proportional to "D", and "e" is defined by the equation:

        E = D/e                      (3)

The arrowheads on the "E" field lines show the direction in which a force would act on a positive charge. When the plates of Figure 1(a) were pulled apart an electric attraction between the plates had to be overcome and energy was expended. This energy is stored in the electric field. The energy per unit volume (Joules per cubic meter) or energy density "ED" can be shown to be calculated by the formula:

        ED = D.D/(2.e)               (4)

Note that in equations (3) and (4) "e" appears in the denominator, and if "e" gets bigger, then "E" or "ED" decreases.

Figure 1(c) shows a block of insulating material sliding into the space occupied by "E" in Figure 1(b). The value of "e" for this block is say 3 times the value for space (or air), as implied by "k=3". Inside this block "E" has one third the previous value and so also has "ED". The block is drawn into the space between the plates by a force that reflects this decrease in field energy.

In a gravity field, where "c" decreases, "e" must increase. If we were to lower the object of Figure 1(b) in a gravity field, the energy density "ED" of its field "E" would decrease, and hence the total field energy would decrease. The energy lost by the field manifests as a force pulling the field downwards, and this energy is absorbed by the device which is lowering the object. The process is wholly analogous to the process of Figure 1(c) where some of the field energy is absorbed by the agency which is holding back the block of insulator as it is drawn into the space between the plates. Hence we can say that the force of gravity on an electric field is due to the increasing value of "e" which pulls the field downwards.

In our homes small particles of dust are brought in by air currents and in other ways. Any charged molecules in the air quickly attach themselves to such particles, and the particles, now electrified, then attach themselves to surfaces. The forces involved here are due to the original charged molecule finding first a dust particle with an "e" bigger than that of air, and then finding a still larger body so that more of its field energy is reduced. This is an everyday occurrence which involves the same force as does gravity.

Figure 1(d) shows gravity acting on the nucleus of an atom. Inside the nucleus we have an exceedingly intense electromagnetic field, and outside it we have an intense electric field. These fields are drawn towards places where the values of "e" and "u" are larger, and this force is the "weight" of the nucleus.

Figure 1(e) shows how a magnetic material is drawn into the magnetic field between two poles of a magnet in a process wholly analogous to Figure 1(c).

Figure 2 shows the object of Figure 1(b) moving perpendicular to the direction of "D" at a speed "v", say perpendicular to the plane of the diagram. Between the plates there now exists a magnetic field "H" which is defined by the equation:

        H = D.v                      (5)

Note that "H", "D" and "v" all have directions (they are called vectors). The relationship between these directions is portrayed by the insert 2(b). A magnetic field "H" generates a magnetic flux density "B" having the same direction, according to an equation which also defines the value and meaning of "u":

        B = u.H = u.D.v            (6)

"B", like "E" is a field of force. If we were to take a long needle-like bar magnet and inserted only one pole into this field, we would measure a force acting along "B" which is proportional to the strength of the pole and the magnitude of "B". By convention, the arrows on the field lines of "B" or "H" show the direction of forces acting on a North pole. Like "E", "B" has an energy density "MD" which can be calculated with the formula:

        MD = B.D.v/2 = B.B/(2.u)   (7)

Magnetic systems tend to keep "B" constant, just as charges tend to keep "D" constant. For example imagine a loop of superconducting wire in which the magnetic flux density is "B". As we lower it in a gravity field, the current in the loop will adjust automatically to keep "B" constant by decreasing H as u increases. This is the property that makes electric transformers work. Hence, as "u" increases, the energy density decreases and the magnetic field is attracted by the gravity field in just the same way as the electric field is attracted.

A common experience of daily life is using permanent magnets to pick up pieces of iron. In iron "u" is many thousands of times the value in air, making the field energy in the iron practically zero. The force which attracts and holds a magnet to a piece of iron is exactly the same force which attracts a magnetic field downwards in a gravity field, although there are differences of detail.

One difference is that instead of an abrupt change of "u" at the surface of a piece of iron, in the gravity field, the change in "u" is progressive over many thousands of km, and is minute by comparison with the value of u in iron. Another is that in a bar magnet the mass of its magnetic field is many billions of times less than the mass of the electric and magnetic fields that make up the atoms of the magnet. It so happens that the attraction of the relatively weak field of the bar magnet to the huge change in "u" of the piece of iron is roughly the same as the attraction of the minute change in "u" of Earths gravity field for the vastly more intense electric and magnetic fields which    constitute the mass of the atoms of the magnet.

In the case of a photon which must always move at the speed of light "c", we can express the magnetic energy density "MD" of equation (7) as:

        MD = u.D.D.c.c/2             (8)

From equation (2) we have c.c = 1/(e.u), so that we can replace c.c in (8) and get:

        MD = D.D/(2.e)               (9)

which has the same value as equation (4) for "ED", and tells us what we already knew, that in photons the electric energy is equal to the magnetic energy. Equation (9) also tells us that in a gravity field both electric and magnetic energy must increase or decrease together in a photon, since they are both linked to "D".

Photons are a combination of electric and magnetic fields and pure charge. We have explained the nature of the gravity force acting on photons above but there is something left to explain. If we were to put a photon in a box and then "weigh" it, its weight would be the expected Newtonian value if the photon was bouncing up and down, but twice that value if it was bouncing horizontally.

One of the triumphs of General Relativity was that it predicted that light moving horizontally would be deflected by a gravity field twice as much as predicted by Newton's law of attraction.

We interpret this effect as follows. The gradient in the value of "e.u" which we call the gravity field attracts all electric and magnetic fields inwards as described above, and as shown in Figure 3(a). This is Newton's force. However, there is another more subtle effect. For objects moving at right angles to the direction of attraction, the portions higher up move slightly faster than those lower down, causing the object to rotate, as shown in Figure 3(b).

Now in ordinary objects, motion and rotation do not couple to each other, but with photons they do. A photon must always move at right angles to the plane containing its "E" and "B" fields (which are perpendicular to each other as shown in Figure 3(a)). Rotate that plane, and the direction of motion of the photon must change accordingly. For photons, the effects of attraction and rotation are equal and in the same sense, so that photons are deflected twice as much as particles whose direction and motion are not coupled. There are details about this process which will be differed till later. For the moment we will just note that we can double the "weight" of a photon by moving it horizontally in a gravity field.

The turning effect is strongest at the speed of light and diminishes at lower speeds. The effect also diminishes as we change from a horizontal direction towards a vertical one. It implies that a spaceship weaving its way past stars at near the speed of light will automatically keep pointing in the direction it is moving even if its path is greatly deflected by passing close to say neutron stars.

FIRST POSTULATE

To make this explanation for the nature of the gravity force work for all matter, not just photons, we make the following postulate. "THE INERTIAL COMPONENTS OF ALL MATTER, ANTIMATTER AND ENERGY ARE ELECTRIC AND MAGNETIC FIELDS." Putting it another way, the parts of all matter, antimatter and energy which have inertia or mass, and store energy, are electric and magnetic fields. Any other constituents (like "pure" electric charge for example), have no mass, inertia or energy. It turns out that as for photons, the total magnetic and electric energies of any particle in any state of motion, are equal, but this is not an immediately necessary requirement for the gravity force to act on all objects in direct proportion to their mass - which is what gravity does.

Although this postulate is made without any detailed knowledge of the internal constitution of fundamental particles, and may contradict current thinking by particle scientists, it is not without a strong logical base. When Einstein proposed the relationship between matter and energy, E = m.c.c, he tied mass or inertia and energy to the speed of light (it can also be written as E = m/(e.u). Our postulate was already implied in that equation, and if this is a surprise to the reader, it is because scientists have kept quiet about it. Thus we now say that the only parts of any particle of matter which have energy and inertia are its electric and magnetic fields. Any other parts, if they exist, have no intrinsic energy, mass or inertia.

Not only do we now know the nature of the gravity force, but we also know where the energy obtained by lowering an object in a gravity field comes from. The energy so released is exactly equal to the reduction of field energy (also called self energy or rest energy) of the object as it moves to places where the product e.u is larger. Indeed, when e.u is infinite, the field energy is zero. Now, according to our postulate, the field energy of any particle is the only energy it has. It is the energy needed to build that particle.

We find then, that gravity fields can extract that field energy, or "self energy" down to the last drop. We can extract and replace some of the self energy of a particle as often as we please by raising and lowering the potential of that object. Furthermore, if gravity fields can be produced artificially, as the UFO phenomenon so strongly suggests, then we can tap into this self energy and convert it into kinetic energy of the same object, and speed up and slow it down at will by cycling this energy back and forth. Clearly these ideas have huge implications for fast and easy space travel.

CONCLUSION TO PART 1

We have described the gravity force as an electromagnetic force which always arises when there is a variation in the values of the electric and magnetic constants "e" and "u" of space. Furthermore, we have been led to postulate that in all matter and energy, mass (inertia) and energy are only carried by the electric and magnetic fields present. Since all fields of force must have an associated energy and hence mass, we have implied that all forces must be electromagnetic. This includes gravity and all nuclear forces. We have therefore unified all the forces of Nature with one stroke.

We have also found that the energy released when an object is lowered in a gravity field is the self energy of that object which decreases progressively to zero when the e.u product becomes infinite (and c.c goes to zero). This holds the promise of a new technology for space travel.

We acknowledge that the present state of electromagnetic theory does not seem to support our postulate, nor explain quantum phenomena, and that the cause of the variation in "e" and "u" which we have here defined as the "gravity field" has yet to be delineated. Conventional electromagnetic theory is now well over a century old. It was formulated before the electron, the atomic nucleus and the quantum were discovered. It is due for an overhaul, but that will have to be deferred for the present.

PART 2. DERIVATIONS

In Part 2 we will derive and examine a set of equations that contain "P", the gravity potential. These are our gravity equations, and they all graph out as circles, just as the equations of Special Relativity do.

Click here to proceed to Part 2...

Dr Gottschall invites comment and is happy to enter into dialogue with interested parties. Please click here to contact Dr Gottschall: info@acufos.asn.au

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