Let There Be Gravity

I got caught with the Gravity the day I was introduced to it. It has been around 45 years and that’s like a fraction of a second and also like an eon, in terms of Universal concept of time. Here I come – to the point of Gravity. Let me assume that there is gravity.

It’s or it’s not. If it is, then, how is it? If it’s not, then, what is this? Without re-framing them, these questions hold as much water for Gravity as they do for God since the time man starting think about this universe and his own existence. If I begin with God, we can have a simple answer to this most intriguing puzzle. And then the Almighty said, “Let there be Gravity in this universe!” And Gravity came. I have no intention to demolish ‘the theory of creationism’. I only want to exercise the right to choose my option and use my thinking power, He, the almighty has blessed me with. I want to begin with Gravity.
I got caught with the Gravity the day I was introduced to it. It has been around 45 years and that’s like a fraction of a second and also like an eon, in terms of Universal concept of time. Here I come – to the point of Gravity. Let me assume that there is gravity.
And I begin with Newton’s law of gravitation.
1. Every massive body (celestial) attracts another big mass body in this universe. I would like to make an addition to this truth, known and accepted, by the world after Newton proved that beyond doubt. Einstein modified that to a large extent but the truth remained – there is Gravity. It would be more appropriate to say- ‘Every weightless big mass body attracts another in this weightless universe.’ Bodies with weight are unstable bodies in accelerating/retarding motion. That happens under application of force. Force or weight is nothing but accelerated mass. F or W= ma or mg. Weight is a disturbance in this weightless universe. Every object of mass is either in a weightless position or is moving in a direction to gain weightlessness. Weightlessness is as much the undeniable truth of this universe as is the existence of Gravity in it.
2. This force of attraction is directly proportional to the compounded mass of the two bodies. What does it mean? A) Gravity is a function between two big mass bodies; it has no relation to a single body. In case of an individual body the effect of gravity can’t be seen or measured, like temperature or charge etc. We can say- gravity doesn’t exist in an individual body. It means that gravity is an event of two or more mass bodies. B) It has direct relation to their multiplied mass F ? m? m?. We do understand the multiplication of numbers. What does it imply when we multiply objects or their qualities such as mass? What entails when we consider m? times m? or m? times m?. To understand the force of gravity between the earth and the sun, we need to understand the meaning of ‘the earth times the sun’ or ‘the sun times the earth’. Now we are not talking simply about their respective mass. It is about a very intricate event between the two, of course related to their respective mass. The mass of a body is not simply a number. The multiplication of 3 litres of water with 2 litres of water is equal to 6 litres of water². It is difficult to explain from where the extra litre will come from and what is the meaning of water²? In case of mass we are saved of the second problem because mass is a scalar quantity or we have made to our convinience. But reality is not just mathematics. We get to know here that we are talking about the cumulative effect of multiplied suns and multiplied earths at a given time. We are talking about quantum effect in a classical case. If we put a) and b) together, we see that we are combining the mass bodies with their space-time. We are unifying them to make a ‘mest’ of them.
3. The force of attraction is towards the centre of the bodies. The bodies behave as if they are two points of mass. It will be interesting to note here that the ‘solid’ volume of the body has nothing to do with the force except to measure the centre of the body. The bigness of the body simply adds to the distance between the two, just correspondingly lessens the attractive force. It is the density/specific gravity of the body that helps to increase the mass and hence the force. This also hints to the point of kinship of big mass bodies with black holes whose mass is centred to a point making them invisibly small and infinitely heavy.
4. Then comes, the ‘Inverse Square Law’; a regular feature of classical physics, comes along wherever one goes to- light, magnetism, electricity and so on. I wondered in my high-school days- ‘Oh god! It is so obvious, even if a coincidence, how the teacher has not noticed it’. Now also, let’s restrict it in relation to the law of gravitation, for the sake of austerity. The force of attraction is inversely proportional to the ‘square of the distance’ between the two bodies. Square of the distance is not the distance, it is the two dimensional area that lies between the two of them and also covers half of both the bodies as our distance here starts from the centre of the bodies. It is imperative to understand that it is ‘the two dimensional space’ and not the distance between the two bodies that has a very intimate and inextricable relation with the mysterious force of gravity between the two. It was obvious here and we should have long ago involved the time-space of the bodies under gravitation, to understand the phenomenon better. There was no need to wait for quantum mechanics to come and change the complete perspective. Einstein did come through that route with some very complicated mathematical equations those threw the beckoning philosophy away from it revered position of ‘the mother of science’. As a result philosophers were scared out of the arena they dominated for centuries. The quest to know our universe and our own relation with it, the struggle on right leg for millenniums for lack of empirical evidences, changed on to the left leg thereafter, seriously handicapped of the vision, the human wisdom brings along.
5. We have now picture of two mass bodies, according to Newton’s law, gravitationally married, inseparably knotted down from their centres; both massive still weightless, in a state of rest i.e. uniform motion. The medium to tie them together is nothing else than the fabric of space-time in-between and covering half them. It makes them one- two bodies of mass in a continuous event. Any other object of mass, in that space-time shall come under the force of attraction and will get attracted by the resultant force until comes to rest; becomes weightless. This other object is also a part of the continuous event described above. We are, step by step, coming close to the final classical picture of the gravitational force, Newton mathematical proved. In this process, we are making a complicated picture simpler for everyone to understand. Alas! It was so. The beautiful truth is hidden perhaps unfathomably deep.
6. These were all the estimates to reach a truth- ‘the truth of gravity’ by way of working backward from the final result. There lie many ‘erratic dangers’ in the way. The multiplication of two masses may mean something else in spite of the fact it helps in closely estimating the magnitude of the force. The ‘square of the distance- r2’ that denotes the area is, in all probabilities, not a ‘two dimensional square’ between the two. It may be a ‘sphere’ or more probably an ellipse whose area is equal to the square Newton’s law refers. The elliptical lines joining the centres of the bodies will create a force, acting straight towards the centre. It also explains the elliptical orbits of the planets. With that we reach closer the curved time-space of Einstein.
7. This classical picture still has the limitation of explaining the event between two bodies at a given point in time and also at a given position. That defies the inescapable ‘principle of uncertainty of Heisenberg’. There is nothing like a given time that can be combined with a given position in this universe of ours.
8. We have to quantize the picture we have created above. We can’t appropriate truth by introducing a convenient and suitable Gravitational Constant. That way, our truth will always be less than full.
9. As we know, like our solar system, there are innumerable such systems and then galaxies, all behaving in a way as if they are individual bodies. It means all such systems are under a ‘universal veil’ of their own space-time. Their existence as individual mass bodies is not real and final. They are tied together with an umbilical cord or amniotic sac which has multiple layers. The gravitation force between the earth and the moon is enveloped by the gravitational force between the earth and the sun. What can be measured is the resultant force in their respective space-time.
10. Space-time of a massive body, thus, is an integral part of it, manoeuvrable enough to keep its weightless position intact. That makes our universe a weightless system, with internal disturbances those happen with the creation of weight and settling down with the movements in the direction of weightlessness.