Carl Sagan said in the original Cosmos: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." It is impossible to photograph or measure incredibly small individual gravitons, or even to measure their individual frequencies. However, it is possible to measure their collective effects, within a coherent theory.
Both Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein speculated about gravity without any direct evidence as to what it is. They were able to measure some of its effects, enough to extrapolate impressive local theories within their flawed paradigms of the cosmos.
The 21st century presents us with a qualitatively different world, where powerful professional instruments on Earth and in space are able to see and measure phenomena previously available only to speculation. It is now time to re-evaluate competing theories of gravity.
There are basically two general types of gravity theories: those involving ethers, and those involving pure space. Newton had toyed with ethers until he quit looking for ethereal essences, and built his 1687 formulas around observations of unseen and undefined forces. Within his three-dimensional boxes his theory ruled until Einstein introduced the fourth dimension of time, yielding spacetime.
The big difference was in Newton's idea of gravity working instantaneously in his tidy world. Einstein's correct idea of gravity has it moving no faster than light speed, thus requiring the dimension of time over significant distances.
The 21st century gives us an opportunity to re-examine the push theory of gravity, sometimes called shadow gravity. It was expressed in 1748 by Georges Le Sage, with a fatal flaw. His understanding was that of 18th century science. His pushing came from impacting "ultra-mundane corpuscles," tiny billiard-like balls that flowed in time from beyond the Earth, without ethers. That version of push gravity was discredited by Henri Poincare, and left for dead toward the end of the 19th century.
Next came Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, which did not use ethers. Quantum mechanics was developed around the same time by Planck and others, also not using ethers. Then came String Theory toward the middle of the 20th century, wherein the idea of string-like gravitons was integral.
It is now possible to recast and resurrect Le Sage's theory, substituting gravitons for very tiny, ball-like corpuscles, which allows us to remove the fatal flaw, and correct for other flaws. Gravitons are at the edge of matter and energy. They can transform into other basic bosons, such as photons and gluons. They constitute both Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and their very presence supports Le Sage's implied argument for a vast source beyond the Earth. We call that vast source the Multiverse.
Einstein's General Relativity developed spacetime, which in some respects is the precursor of the branes associated with the many dimensions of standard string theory. Whether or not we associate these branes with ethers is a question of definition. I choose to look at space as space, devoid of ethers in any form. Some quantum field theorists choose to fill space not with ethers, but with interconnected gravitons, leading to a granular space. Le Sage theories, including my own evolution, do not employ any variant of ethers.
(1) What portion of all our universe is baryonic matter, dark matter, and dark energy?
Standard physics says dark and baryonic matter are shown to interrelate through gravity. One of the basic indications of dark matter in the Milky Way is distant areas of our spiral galaxy rotating around the core much faster than the detectable mass would allow. As of 2013 the Planck space observatory has given us Cosmic Microwave Background-based numbers for the visible universe. Planck measured ordinary matter at 4.9%, and dark matter at 26.8%, with dark energy at 68.3%.
Would it be proper to speak of three types of absolutely separate substances and forces; or should we consider all three to be variants of the same elementary fundamental entity? If same, of what? What evidence can you muster to support your conclusions? If all three "separate substances" are actually the same thing appearing differently, should we divide the pie at all?
(2) What type of gravity theory would Newton and Einstein have developed if they had access to all the scientific discoveries that we in 2014 enjoy?
(3) Compare how GG and GR interpret Newton's Third Law of Motion with regard to a person standing on the surface of the Earth.
(4) How would Georges Le Sage have modified his theory of gravity had he known what we know today?
(5) In GR a massive object causes a dimple in the adjacent spacetime membrane. From where does that dimple come? Is it a push away from the object, or is it a pull from the other side of the membrane mediated by attractive gravitons that penetrate the membrane? Or, more elegantly, do such indentations not exist in these membranes that do not themselves exist?
(6) How small does an object have to be to NOT have an attracting tractor beam shooting out in all directions for unlimited distance (which would satisfy Newton)? If there is a lower limit to an object that does not have a tractor beam, then how can that interaction obey Newton's Third Law?
(7) As above in #6: How low does an object's mass need to be to not create a dimple in spacetime? If there is a lower limit, then how does GR gravity apply below that level?
(8) Even massive objects, such as galaxy clusters, have a spacetime slope that nearly levels out not far away. Does that slope continue forever? If so, how does the geometry soon become other than equivalent to level? If so, how do all the many interpenetrating "almost level" slopes parcel out how photons obeying Newton's First Law travel? If level, how does GR gravity attraction to that object extend beyond, which is required by Newtonian gravity?
(9) How can GR ignore the contribution of massive flows of gravitons, or other Dark Energy/Matter particles, to the phenomenon of gravity?
(10) From where do photons originate? From where do quark vibrations originate? From where do gluon field vibrations originate? What determines and sustains the total kinetic energy within each proton or neutron? What keeps that net internal energy stable, especially within protons?
(11) Are Dark Matter webs composed of the same particles/forces as Dark Matter halos? From what does the energy and substance come to create each web?
(12) Does Dark Energy obey the same dynamics as does more local shadow gravity? Or, does a magical "inflaton" particle appear, and from where?
(13) Ether sheets need to have an edge, however distant. How are they attached, and to what? (I'm thinking here of the round rubber sheets used in physics classes to explain GR gravity.)
(14) Which theory is more comfortable with the idea of a multiverse, GR gravity, or Graviton gravity?
(15) Which idea passes the smell test: The GR idea of a perfect singularity (zero dimensions) to create a big bang. Or, Graviton Gravity, expressed by quantum higher frequency push-back at extremely small, but not zero, dimensions, that ignites the chain reaction of another big bang?
(16) Does the idea of additional universes being spawned by our Big Bang's inflation, with most of these universes having radically different laws of physics that would be hostile to life as we understand it, make sense? Or, does the elegant idea of multi-universes, existing before our local Big Bang, having similar physics to ours, and giving/receiving graviton flows with ours, make more sense?
I trust that these sixteen problems help you evaluate the overall value of Graviton Gravity vs. General Relativity. Several of these questions are absurd, in that they cannot be solved by conventional experiments, but may be addressed by thought experiments. Please send me your "solutions" to any or all of these problems:
Clark M. Thomas
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