Background
“What goes up must come down” – Isaac Newton. Of course, Newton lived in a time period before rockets lifted man to outer space. Long before Newton, early man understood the principle of gravity that something that goes up, will come down. But it wasn’t until Galileo and Newton’s time that man began to have an understanding of the true nature of gravity.
Sometime between 1589 and 1592, Galileo Galilei dropped spheres of different masses from the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy and concluded that objects fall at the same rate. It was independent of mass. In 1687, Newton concluded that the force of gravity is dependent on the mass of two objects and the square of the distance between these objects. His work published in Principia became the foundation of gravity and his equations are used to calculate the motion of stars and planets in the universe. Despite Albert Einstein’s work on general relativity in 1915, which supersedes Newton’s work, Newton’s equation for calculating the gravitational forces are still used today because of its simplicity – two masses, a distance and a constant that became known as the gravitational constant (G).
By the early 1900s, Einstein corrected some issues that could not be resolved with Newton’s equation for gravity – one of which is Mercury’s orbit. Einstein’s equations undoubtedly work but his explanation of gravity was quite strange – massive objects warp spacetime – and this is what we see as gravity (see illustration below). But if the universe is empty space – the aether had been ruled out by Einstein’s time – what is being warped? And how does a massive object communicate with its surrounding space to encourage it to warp? By 2015, a potential answer had been discovered in the form of gravitational waves.
Credit: The Elegant Universe, PBS Nova Series, 2003
Explanation
In the Particles section, the combination of in-waves and out-waves that formed standing waves was proven to be the mass of the electron for a formation of ten wave centers. The same wave was proven to be magnetism by calculating the electron’s magnetic moment. The missing longitudinal wave amplitude was calculated to be 2.4 x 10-43 relative to the electron’s standard wave amplitude (electric force), which is the coupling constant for gravity relative to electromagnetism. All of these – the electron’s mass, magnetic moment and gravitational force – all come from the same wave using the conservation of energy principle! One wave. One source of all forces. This is illustrated in the diagram below. If it were not for the constructive wave interference property of the electric force, the two particles would be attracted to each other because of the shading effect of amplitude loss.
Gravity is a slight loss of longitudinal wave energy as a result of particle spin
Unfortunately, gravity is never measured at the particle level. Gravity is found in large bodies (stars, planets and moons) that contain a significant number of particles. That’s because particles experience the electric force and it dominates interactions before gravity gets its chance. Take two electrons and separate them at a distance. Even though there is an incredibly small amplitude loss between the two electrons as a result of their spin – gravity – the electrons are also adding their waves constructively – the electric force. The repelling force is far greater than the attractive force and the two electrons will separate. However, when an electron is paired with a proton, it becomes electrically neutral. This is what occurs in atoms and why particles are stable. The electric force is neutralized in an atom because of destructive wave interference when particles are anti-phase on the wave.
The next figure shows an electron (left) and a large body (right) that consists of multiple atoms. The atoms are electrically neutral and do not experience either constructive or destructive wave interference. However, the large body has a significant number of particles that are spinning. This takes energy and it reduces longitudinal wave energy as it passes through the large body from right-to-left in the illustration.
The electron now sees reduced amplitude in the area between it and the large body. Its motion is in the direction of minimal wave amplitude. It is attracted to the large body like an asteroid falling to Earth. The electron can be replaced by an object consisting of multiple atoms and the amplitude loss becomes even greater. It is a shading effect of a collection of particles absorbing longitudinal waves.
Spacetime might seem like it is warped because there is less energy between two large bodies as a result of this shading effect. Einstein’s equations are still valid. But his explanation is likely incorrect. It is a loss of longitudinal wave amplitude. Gravity.
Video – What is Gravity?
The What is Gravity video below provides an explanation of the gravitational force and how it relates to particle spin and magnetism.