The Equivalence Principle

This post is

A Response to the Article in New Scientist (2900)

Einstein’s celebrated Equivalence Principle states that the effects of Gravitational fields are indistinguishable from the effects of accelerated motion on affected matter.

But, what if the former and the latter are actually the same thing?

If we accelerate a rocket in Empty Space, the effects upon anything material, within it, will be the same as if they were being affected by gravity.

Thus, the question is posed, “Can we explain gravity in terms of acceleration alone?”

In our rocket we had to have an impelling force, delivered by its rocket engine, so, in a way, it is unsurprising that they should be equivalent. For in gravity we also have a force, which causes acceleration and gives these same effects. Yet, the force on, and within, the rocket is totally explicable in terms of the evident processes within the engine and its conversion of fuel into a force on everything involved. 

But, gravity has a permanent field of force without any evident immediately local cause.

We attribute this distributed potential of causes, over a wide area, to a property of a centrally-situated, though often extremely far distant, amount of Matter. All Matter attracts other Matter, no matter how distantly it is situated away. No fuel is consumed or evident stored energy is involved, as it most certainly was in the rocket.

Clearly, it is the concept of the Gravitational Field that distinguished gravity from the effects of acceleration within the rocket – NO evident field is created as a static extended area. It is just that all things with mass inside will experience forces backwards due to the impelling of the containing rocket forwards.

Now, we seem to be no further along, just replacing each posed question with a series of others. And that is the case until we ask, “Are our bodies like the Earth, actually being accelerated?”

Initially, we answer, “No!”, but that is soon corrected, because the Earth being in an orbit around the Sun, must be being accelerated towards the Sun continually – that is what bends its natural straight line trajectory into a curved and cycling orbit.

And we shouldn’t stop there.

Even non-orbital trajectories across the Solar System, will still be diverted by such accelerations. And the Sun itself is certainly orbiting around in its place in the containing Galaxy, and presumably, the same reasoning can be extended to all possible higher arrangements, if they exist.

What does, also, seem to exist is the expansion of the Universe!

Now, any individual piece of Matter moving away from the Origin point of our Universe in the Big Bang, is also assumed to be decelerating due to the backwards pull of all Matter closer to that centre. But, just as accelerated motion can be associated with a force, so can decelerated motion – it will just be in the opposite direction.

All in all, we seem to have everything in the Universe under some sorts of both acceleration and deceleration - could these be considered like in our rocket, or can all of them, if sufficient was known, be put down to gravity resident in some Matter somewhere?

NOTE: Though not yet addressed at this point, it is still worth comparing this description with Einstein’s warping of Space-Time by the presence of Matter. Instead of a Nothingness being distorted, we are pressed to consider something real permeating the whole of Space, which can be similarly affected.

There is, however, another factor that may turn out to be significant!

Elsewhere, the author of this paper has considered at length the possibility of a “paving” of the entire Empty Space within the Universe, with so-called Empty Photons, which are actually mutually-orbiting pair of particles giving a net zero mass and a net zero charge. So, these would be unaffected by either gravitational, or any electrostatic, fields.

NOTE: Though it might be interesting what the associated magnetic effects of such mutually orbiting pairs might be.

Yet, these particles, as a paving, could propagate electromagnetic radiation throughout that “paved” Universe.

One major problem with these entities was exactly how they supported electric fields in otherwise totally Empty Space. For it is perfectly clear that a charged particle in a given position with respect to another charged particle, would certainly suffer an Inverse Square Law force, depending only on the distance to the other charged particle.

Clearly something must transmit this effect across the space between, and be reduced as the distance is increased.

A simple geometrical idea of concentric spheres made up of these Empty Photons immediately explains the Inverse Square Law [due to the changing surface areas of the spheres at successive distance from the source] So, the idea of these intervening particles in a continuous paving at least fitted that feature.

Of course, it wasn’t enough!

Somehow, something had to be distributed throughout that field, to endow each and every point in it with the wherewithall to exert a force on a particle in that position, and indeed, move it accordingly!

As yet the nature of this field is not evident, so we just use it as it quite evidently exists, even without an explanation.

But, I am sure that the reader can see the possibilities in all of this.

For force is an essential ingredient in accelerations as in Newton’s Law – F = Ma.

So, being in a field means an affected object will suffer an acceleration.

Can we take these considerations further and interpret the gravitational effect “at a distance” to a very simple universal paving?