Gravity

I'd like to pay tribute first to Pierre Binétruy, who sadly passed away on 1 April 2017.  If it wasn't for the on-line Gravity course that he developed with George Smoot, I probably wouldn't have come up with the following ideas.

The course headlined with the view that "Gravity is the engine of the universe", but actually I think it's more like the brake...

Now, in case you missed the media hype (when I was first writing this in January 2016), it's just over 100 years since Einstein presented his paper on General Relativity (GR) to the Prussian Academy of Science (on 25 November 1915).  And thanks to a failure to launch two GPS satellites into their correct circular orbit in 2014, scientists have recently accurately verified relativity's predictions for the on-board atomic clocks to speed up as they move through their elliptical orbit up to higher altitudes with lower gravity (although it's not clear whether this research tested for the relativistic effects of the satellites' speed relative to a ground-based atomic clock below it, which would differ from their speed relative to each other or relative to the earth's gravity field as the satellite moves around the earth — see further discussion below).

However, our understanding of the universe is far from settled, and many existing theories remain subject to challenge.  For example, experiments in 2019 appear to have demonstrated particles that exhibit "superluminal tunneling" (faster than light), and it's claimed scientists working on "quantum teleportation" have proven Einstein wrong about "spooky action at a distance" — having demonstrated entanglement of quantum particles that suggest either causal influences propagate faster than light, or a common-sense notion about what the word “cause” signifies is wrong.

More significantly in relation to my ideas below, there is increasing evidence from measurements of the rate of cosmic expansion that "something is fundamentally wrong with our conception of the universe", such as the concept of "dark energy" that the universe's accelerating expansion has been attributed to (see discussion further below on the resulting debate & "crisis in cosmology").

So, I reckon it's a good time to stick my neck out and say this: Einstein got relativity wrong!

Actually that's not entirely news, because scientists have considered for some time that Einstein's theory doesn't adequately explain all aspects of the universe's movements, but they have thus far resorted to two fudge-factors – "dark matter" and "dark energy" – to try and resolve this.  However, neither have been directly detected and confirmed to exist (despite much effort).

But if you still think I'm being presumptuous, I refer you to these comments by theoretical physicist Brian Greene:

“There is a very, very good chance that our understanding of gravity will not be the same in 500 years.

In fact, that’s the one arena where I would think that most of our contemporary evidence is circumstantial.

I do think that gravity is the least stable of our ideas, and the most ripe for a major shift.”

Nicola Tesla was rather more harsh, but it seems it wasn't actually Einstein who was responsible for conceiving many of the bizarre concepts of relativity, like time dilation & "curved space-time".  Rather, his impressive achievement, over 8 years of work, was bringing these concepts together with Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism, to form a single cohesive theory & set of equations.

However, I think Einstein's initial resistance to abstract mathematics confusing meaningful physical concepts was well placed, and on his 70th birthday he said to a friend,

"Now you think that I am looking back at my work with calm satisfaction.  But on the closer look, it is quite different; there is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm and I am not sure that I was on the right track after all.”

The following commentary provides a basic summary of my theory, along with my ideas on gravity's potential electromagnetic nature, plus additional references and discussion on existing theories & experimental observations.

Gravity slows light & atomic clocks

In short, I propose that gravity slows the speed of light, as well as atomic clocks (rather than time itself) and all other atomic movements (& probably anything else), so it varies from almost infinite speed during the "inflation" period immediately after the Big Bang (when there was minimal gravity) to the standard speed we know of on Earth.  Likewise, since a "stationary" object in a gravity field actually involves internal atomic movement (like circulating electrons), I assume the movement of an object through a gravity field (i.e. relative to another object) will produce a similar slowing effect, thus ensuring general consistency between my hypothesis and relativity's equations for fast-moving objects (although this effect might vary depending on whether a clock is moving perpendicular to a gravity field – like a satellite in a circular orbit – or in line with gravity's direction of pull, as in a vertically climbing rocket, which the aforementioned wayward satellites might be able to test).

So what I propose is actually not a total challenge to Einstein's equations or the experiments that appear to validate relativity, but rather, simply a more plausible physical interpretation of them, to replace the (frankly weird) concepts of relativity and "space-time" distortion & expansion (including the universe's initial "inflation" period), whilst also logically explaining those aspects of the universe that don’t fit current models, without having to assume the existence of dark matter or dark energy.

The idea that gravity slows things down may seem counter-intuitive to our experience on earth, where if gravity were stronger things would fall faster, but in the universe's expansion (since the Big Bang), gravity is what holds everything together and stops galaxies racing away from each other even faster than they do.  But as the universe expands, gravity becomes weaker (because of the increased separation of galaxies) and so – by my hypothesis – everything speeds up, which is why the rate of universe expansion is accelerating (not because of a supposed "dark energy", the existence of which is seriously questioned anyway by recent cosmic observations).

Likewise, my theory suggests the outer edges of galaxies rotate faster than predicted by Newton's equations because the weaker gravity there causes everything to speed up.  Thus – as this 2019 mathematical approach based on entropy also concludes – "dark matter" isn't needed to hold these outer stars in orbit at these higher speeds.  The same conclusion was also reached in 2020 through analysis using General Relativity, by taking account of field self-interaction or gravitomagnetic fields (which should align with my theory, though with a different physical interpretation).  Further discussion of ongoing debate in this area is covered below.

A guide for refining the maths

I think it's really quite remarkable that "Einstein's equations" — which actually Poincare & others helped a lot with, as well as Einstein's wife, Dr. Mileva Marić (who then abused their children by alienating them from Einstein as ransom for his Nobel Prize money) — are so nearly accurate given his ideas were initially derived from what seem to be flawed underlying assumptions (the postulates discussed above), and at a time when sub-atomic structure was only starting to be discovered.  Moreover, this post on Quora argues that Einstein's 1905 paper on Special Relativity (which was probably a joint effort with his wife) has been mistranslated in English to impose harder constraints than are necessary in the maths for the key assumptions on the relative nature of time & the speed of light (discarding the notion of any absolute time & space) — which his wife and perhaps even Einstein himself may not have agreed with then.  The second accompanying video in this post also notes disagreement on these assumptions by the prominent "3 Henrys" at that time — Lorentz, Poincare and the French philosopher Henri Bergson — who, while accepting Einstein's theoretical equations (which used Lorentz's own work) and the experimental results that confirmed them, were not convinced this required us to change our everyday notions of space and time.

But as impressive as Einstein's equations have been, they are only a mathematical model of reality, and certainly don't justify a worshiping of either these equations or their related abstract physical concepts as a universal "proven truth", as the modern theoretical physics community seems to do — shown especially by its approach of "shut up & calculate" inhibiting attempts to better understand & describe the reality of things.  Ironically, this seems to contradict Einstein's philosophy and initial famed focus on "thought experiments" about the nature of reality.  Returning to a reality-based approach may provide better guidance for further developing the maths, and potentially a test to verify my theory.

However, the difficulty with validating my theory (or otherwise) is that just about any experiment that validates Einstein's equations could support my interpretation just as well as the current one, but equally of course vice versa.  For example, the Shapiro time delay test of GR can obviously be just as easily (& more sensibly) interpreted as gravity slowing the speed of light, rather than a slowing down of time whilst the speed of light remains constant, but to prove my perspective (other than through common sense and Occam's Razor) is not so clear.  One possible path to explore would be through a reinterpretation of this 2017 mathematical model of the universe, which also dispenses with dark matter & dark energy (though it's contested).  My inclination though is that the best near-term prospect for verifying my theory would be through an experiment related to the "Twin Paradox" — perhaps using data from the aforementioned wayward satellites.  Alternatively, the "principle of relativity" could potentially be tested in a version of the "train and platform" experiment mentioned above,  perhaps using multiple spacecraft moving through the solar system (see the research paper here).

It should be emphasised that in reinterpreting one key aspect of Einstein's equations, this obviously means many other interpretations of existing theory & experiments must also be changed.  For example, "gravitational red shift" – which is observed as light leaves a gravitational well and is said to be a consequence of the equivalence principle – can instead be logically understood as the doppler effect caused by the speed of light increasing as gravity reduces (consistent with my theory), thus spreading out a given frequency of oscillations over a longer wavelength.  Likewise, "cosmological redshift" – which red-shifts light seen from far away galaxies – need not be understood as "the effect of cosmological time-dilation caused by an (accelerating) expansion of space itself", but rather, more simply, as being due to the standard doppler effect created by everything accelerating away from us (or vice versa, as illustrated in the diagram of the expanding universe here).  Also, the observation of "cosmological time dilation" – where as we look deep into space and back in time, everything seems to be happening slower – may be explained not as time itself going slower, but as everything actually moving slower in the distant past, because gravity was higher then (since everything was closer together).

Gravity may be the net difference in electric & magnetic fields caused by electrons and protons (assuming protons also rotate within the nucleus, as I suggest here), with this net difference being non-zero due to the distance of electrons from the nucleus — which should create a higher magnetic field beyond the atom’s outer diameter (since magnetic fields reduce with distance), especially at points near its perimeter.  At its simplest, this can be imagined a bit like Van der Waals forces, with a static snapshot of an electron located on one side of a nucleus (say the left) resulting in a net positive electric field on the opposite (right) outer edge of the atom (because the positive nucleus is closer to this point than the electron on the opposite side), which in turn attracts the electron of a neighbouring atom (on its right), thus inducing a net negative electric field on the nearside (left) of that atom, which is attracted to the net positive adjacent side of the first atom.  The actual, more complex orbital path that atomic charges follow should yield a solution to Maxwell's equations that results in only magnetic fields outside of the atom that do not propagate energy (this would be a more satisfactory explanation as to why orbiting (& therefore accelerating) electrons don't emit energy as electro-magnetic waves and collapse into the nucleus, rather than simply saying, "because of quantum theory").

Speculating further, neutrons – being simplistically viewed as combined protons & electrons – may act like highly-compressed hydrogen atoms, with the smaller distance between the central proton & the rotating electron (which in isolation would reduce the net field at the perimeter, and thus also the resulting gravity force) being offset by a stronger magnetic-gravity field created by the electron having to orbit at a higher speed (like any low-altitude satellite orbit), thus producing about the same net gravity force as a hydrogen atom (as a consequence of energy conservation rather than coincidence).  A similar effect may occur as a black hole compresses the size of atoms.  Also, if gravity is electromagnetic in nature, it's not really surprising that neutral neutrinos appear to have minimal or no mass.

Although I have offered some very initial thoughts on potential new maths in my original 2016 gravity theory paper, the task of developing & testing a full mathematical theory for the electromagnetic model of gravity that I propose appears immensely complex and unlikely to be solved in the near term — possibly not even being feasible until we have powerful quantum computers that can provide a more sophisticated model of Maxwell's equations linking electromagnetic field propagation to the rotating charges in atoms (which themselves are more complex than point charges) and the magnetic-gravity fields that extend from this and are induced in neighbouring atoms.  That said, I did recently find a similar theory on Quora about gravity being a consequence of "coulomb interactions", which includes calculations claimed to match that of gravity, as well as covering similar effects explaining both the slowing of atomic clocks in a stronger gravity field, and the "strong nuclear force" (the electromagnetic nature of which I also speculate on here).

Recent cosmological observations & debate

The claimed detection of "gravitational waves" in late 2015 (which looks valid from the signals shown in this 2017 lecture at 28 minutes, although their interpretation was being seriously questioned in 2018 and still in 2020) does not necessarily contradict my gravity theory, although I call these waves "gravity shock waves", as I interpret them as being large changes (or a fluctuating modulation of) the continuous, high-frequency magnetic gravity waves I propose.  However, I admit I don't know whether or how my theory might change the expected results of these detection experiments.

The bigger debate – constituting a "crisis in cosmology" – is between the currently accepted "Lambda-CDM" (ΛCDM) model of the universe, which is based on General Relativity, "dark energy" and Cold Dark Matter" (CDM), versus alternative theories of gravity such as "modified Newtonian dynamics" (MOND).

A major part of the "crisis" is the problem of the "Hubble tension" – being a discrepancy between the measured rate of expansion of the universe and the rate that underpins the "standard model of cosmology" (supposedly driven by "dark energy") — see for example this 2021 video by Sabine Hossenfelder, or this 2023 article or this 2023 video by Dr. Becky and this or this article from August 2024.

The justification for "dark matter" stems primarily from the observation of dense galaxies with "flat rotation curves" — where outer edges rotate just as fast as, or faster than inner parts, contrary to what would be expected from Newton's laws, which predict slower rotation (with lower centripetal acceleration) corresponding to weaker gravity (providing a smaller centripetal force) at greater distances from the galaxy's centre of mass (similar to the pattern of planetary orbital speeds in our solar system).  The existence of additional, undetected "dark matter" was posited in order to explain these higher-than-expected outer rotation speeds, with the dark matter's gravity holding the galaxy together.  An alternative explanation is offered by MOND, or by my theory of gravity — in which the higher outer rotation speeds are a consequence of everything (including light) moving faster in outer regions of low gravity.

A more obvious explanation for these observations is that all the densely-packed stars are effectively held together by stronger gravitational forces between them (making them closer to the extreme case of a single, contiguous disc of matter).  This explanation doesn't require dark matter (or MOND, or my gravity theory), but one would think, surely, that scientists have taken into account such interstellar gravitational forces before inventing a need for dark matter!

The debate seems to have intensified in recent years.  In 2019, it was claimed that measurements of "ultra-diffuse galaxies", with 100-1000 times lower density of stars compared to our Milky Way, "prove" the existence of dark matter, because of its apparent absence from these galaxies and the implication that the alternative MOND theory, which aligns with observations for non-diffuse galaxies, doesn't work as a consistent theory for all types of galaxies (note that although the initial claims in this work turned out to be wrong, similar observations were reported in 2021 for other ultra-diffuse galaxies).*  However, even if this does disprove a specific alternative MOND theory, rather than concluding that these diffuse galaxies must have an "odd" distribution of dark matter, it seems more likely to me that they can be explained by gravity effects resulting from their diffuse nature.

The lack of dark matter inferred for these ultra-diffuse galaxies implies they have slower outer rotation rates that more closely reflect Newton's laws, which could be a consequence of diffuse galaxies being older, with fewer outer stars and a larger black hole at the centre of the galaxy — which would dominate the galaxy's gravity field so it is more nearly approximated by a single large mass at the galaxy's centre (resulting in slower orbital speeds at greater distances from the centre).  A similar perspective is that the stars dominating matter in these galaxies are in the high acceleration regime near their centres (i.e. where gravity is relatively strong), which means Newton's laws apply without any need for modification or dark matter.  Relatively high gravity fields even in the outer edges of older, diffuse galaxies might also be explained by them having fewer ionized atoms within their diffuse matter and cosmic gases (compared to newer, hotter, dense galaxies of the same mass), which could result in a higher gravity field than would be the case with ionized atoms (according to my hypothesis that gravity is created by rotating charges in atoms, which implies ions would create a smaller gravity field than expected for the mass of their nucleus).

These arguments based on diffuse galaxies having relatively high gravity fields in their outer regions, where the "globular clusters" move slower than is typical for dense/non-diffuse galaxies (where dark matter is assumed to be present), also seem consistent with the core hypothesis of my gravity theory, because it would mean that my postulated second-order effects of low gravity increasing the speed of light (& the movement of matter) would be insignificant in this high gravity regime.

As for the MOND theory of gravity, the high rotation speeds on the outer edge of galaxies were correctly predicted in 2020/21 in accordance with MOND's “external field effect” (an effect based on a concept that seems to align with my explanation of inertia above, where I discuss relativity's imperfect postulates).  However, MOND alone does not correctly predict all cosmological observations, and more fundamentally, it seems to me (from reading some descriptions) to just be a mathematical "fix" — setting a minimum acceleration in weak gravity, without a clear physical basis for doing so.

Research in July 2023 claimed to show strong evidence (with 10 σ significance) for the breakdown of Newton-Einstein theory in very low gravity/acceleration situations – where accelerations are faster than predicted (consistent, qualitatively, with my theory) – which couldn't be explained by dark matter but was consistent with MOND (actually the "AQUAL" variant of MOND), in line with the external field effect from the Milky Way galaxy, which is a unique prediction of MOND-type modified gravity.  However, superior statistical analysis applied to the same data (published in November 2023) produced the opposite conclusion — rejecting MOND with even greater confidence.  Both papers are explained in videos by "Dr. Becky" — with the first video including references to other related work, and the second video noting that the analysis tests MOND against Newton's theory of gravity, not General Relativity.  Therefore, it seems that this research does not rule out my gravity theory, which mathematically should be equivalent to GR (in all or nearly all situations).  It’s certainly not the end of debate, as a different version of "Modified Gravity" to MOND claims to be fully consistent with the latest data.

* I wondered whether “cold dark matter” could simply be very cold (& hence barely radiating), ordinary matter that is too dark to be detected due to having an extreme distance from any starlight, but the apparent absence of dark matter from ultra-diffuse galaxies (as determined from gravity implications) suggests this isn’t correct.

And now, read some more out-of-the-box thinking about gravity & evolution!