Gravity Inertia and the Quantum Vacuum

[Lostwitheal]

So recently I've been thinking about what's happening at CERN at the moment, and what has in fact been happening at particle colliders around the world for years now. They've been searching for two elusive particles which are predicted by the standard model of physics – the graviton and the Higgs boson. Essentially quantum field theory implies that the gravity field must have an exchange particle associated with it (the graviton) and the Higgs boson was postulated by Peter Higgs some years ago as a way of incorporating mass into the standard model as without it the maths would imply (as far as I understand it) that nothing has any mass!

Fundamentally most of my pondering has centred around gravity and how it actually works. The first thing that came to mind was Einstein's brilliant postulation that the space around us isn't in fact an empty 'box' but is in fact the fabric of space-time; it's inside you, all around you, and exists just as much under your bed as it does between here and Proxima Centauri. We exist within the fabric of space-time. One of the fundamental and brilliant things this had to say about gravity is that gravity is not in fact a force of attraction between two objects, but the result of the geometry of space-time being deformed by the presence of matter. To give a popular two-dimensional example that is easy to visualise, imaging suspending a sheet above the floor and placing a metal ball in the middle. The sheet around the ball becomes distorted and if you then roll another ball past the first one then its' path will be changed by the geometry of the sheet, as influenced by the mass of the first ball.

With these points in mind, I started thinking. Why are they looking for an exchange particle for the 'force' of gravity when, as far as Einstein's universe is concerned, gravity is a result of bent space-time and not an invisible force of attraction (like magnetism) between two objects? This train of thought then lead me to the Higgs boson, and to the question, 'well if gravity is simply matter being pulled around by distorted space-time, wouldn't the particle which gives matter mass be responsible for this instead?' Or, alternatively, 'does there even have to be a graviton for this all to work?'

In the case of the latter, we then need to answer the questions of why and how matter has an effect on the fabric of space-time and, conversely, how's it's affected by it. After some thinking I came up with the concept of 'quantum vacuum displacement' as an explanation. Whilst this might seem like a fancy way of saying 'there's something in the middle of that there nothingness' I think that looking at it in this way might be important. This is because 'quantum vacuum' is really a complete misnomer – as far as I understand it it's anything but a vacuum and the term itself probably arises from previously held beliefs about the way the universe is put together.

So, if the presence of matter within the quantum vacuum essentially compresses the local quantum vacuum somehow, could that be an explanation of how gravity works? Is it in fact this 'quantum vacuum compression' that we see and feel as the force of gravity? Compression might not even be the correct word for what I'm looking to describe here, but I'll run with it for the moment. Unfortunately I don't know enough yet to be able run any maths to confirm or debunk this. I did immediately think back to Alastair Reynolds concept of inertia suppression via manipulation of the local quantum vacuum, which also caused me to question whether gravity and inertia are perhaps all part of the same thing? What if inertia is simply resistance to changes in velocity between matter and the quantum vacuum in which it resides? Perhaps the surrounding quantum vacuum exerts a pull on matter constantly in every direction at the same time and it's the breaking of this equilibrium that is inertia and this equilibrium which is upset by the presence of another body of matter creating a compressed and thus more 'attractive' volume of quantum vacuum?

From here my mind wandered onto one of the major problems in physics at the moment which is not having a unified theory of gravity. Currently we have two separate ways of describing how gravity works – one for how it behaves on a macroscopic level and one for how it behaves on a subatomic level. A unification would be most beneficial to our understanding of physics. With this in mind, I started thinking about the difference between the two in terms of this hypothesis I'd just come up with, and almost immediately started wondering if the reason there's such a difference is to do with the way subatomic particles churn around at such great speeds in such a tiny space. I began wondering if perhaps they cause a kind of 'quantum vacuum cavitation' in a similar kind of way that a propeller will cavitate in water under certain conditions, thus creating a tiny pocket of space in which gravity functions in the way observed on the subatomic level?

It's all pretty speculative at this point, obviously, and could all be (read: probably is) a load of horse doo-doo. However I did a quick bit of Googling and came up with something interesting:

http://www.calphysics.org/articles/gravity_arxiv.pdf

It seems I'm not the first to propose something broadly similar in concept. It's been interesting thinking about it anyway, now I'll just have to try and wrap my head around the maths...

 

[Da Blob]

Indeed, it may be profitable to consider that gravity is not a property of mass itself, but rather gravity as something imposed upon mass in the context of the entire universe. That is to say, the phrase, "the pull of gravity" may be misleading, for mass may be pushed, and not pulled, by space/time or dark matter or something yet to be observed.

The first analogy that comes to mind is the process of protein folding, where a linear strand of protein newly produced by a linear strand of RNA transforms into an elaborate 3D structure simply because of the process of hydrophobic and hydrophilic amino acids along the strand of protein clumping together, with the hydrophilic sinking and the hydrophilic floating.

There might not be such things as gravity wells (hydrophilic), instead mass may float on a surface of something else (hydrophobic). Dark matter, dark energy, aether, or the postulated quantum vacuum being analogous to water.

 

[nobody]

So recently I've been thinking about what's happening at CERN at the moment, and what has in fact been happening at particle colliders around the world for years now. They've been searching for two elusive particles which are predicted by the standard model of physics – the graviton and the Higgs boson. Essentially quantum field theory implies that the gravity field must have an exchange particle associated with it (the graviton) and the Higgs boson was postulated by Peter Higgs some years ago as a way of incorporating mass into the standard model as without it the maths would imply (as far as I understand it) that nothing has any mass!

Fundamentally most of my pondering has centred around gravity and how it actually works. The first thing that came to mind was Einstein's brilliant postulation that the space around us isn't in fact an empty 'box' but is in fact the fabric of space-time; it's inside you, all around you, and exists just as much under your bed as it does between here and Proxima Centauri. We exist within the fabric of space-time. One of the fundamental and brilliant things this had to say about gravity is that gravity is not in fact a force of attraction between two objects, but the result of the geometry of space-time being deformed by the presence of matter. To give a popular two-dimensional example that is easy to visualise, imaging suspending a sheet above the floor and placing a metal ball in the middle. The sheet around the ball becomes distorted and if you then roll another ball past the first one then its' path will be changed by the geometry of the sheet, as influenced by the mass of the first ball.

With these points in mind, I started thinking. Why are they looking for an exchange particle for the 'force' of gravity when, as far as Einstein's universe is concerned, gravity is a result of bent space-time and not an invisible force of attraction (like magnetism) between two objects? This train of thought then lead me to the Higgs boson, and to the question, 'well if gravity is simply matter being pulled around by distorted space-time, wouldn't the particle which gives matter mass be responsible for this instead?' Or, alternatively, 'does there even have to be a graviton for this all to work?'

No, there doesn't have to be a graviton, if gravity is the same mechanism for all fundamental forces and the vacuum has structure. Gravity literally is nonlocal and spooky-action-at-a-distance, but for some reason, nobody ever points out the obvious quantum parallel? It's quite possible all things emerge from simply gravity.

In the case of the latter, we then need to answer the questions of why and how matter has an effect on the fabric of space-time and, conversely, how's it's affected by it. After some thinking I came up with the concept of 'quantum vacuum displacement' as an explanation. Whilst this might seem like a fancy way of saying 'there's something in the middle of that there nothingness' I think that looking at it in this way might be important. This is because 'quantum vacuum' is really a complete misnomer – as far as I understand it it's anything but a vacuum and the term itself probably arises from previously held beliefs about the way the universe is put together.

So, if the presence of matter within the quantum vacuum essentially compresses the local quantum vacuum somehow, could that be an explanation of how gravity works? Is it in fact this 'quantum vacuum compression' that we see and feel as the force of gravity? Compression might not even be the correct word for what I'm looking to describe here, but I'll run with it for the moment. Unfortunately I don't know enough yet to be able run any maths to confirm or debunk this. I did immediately think back to Alastair Reynolds concept of inertia suppression via manipulation of the local quantum vacuum, which also caused me to question whether gravity and inertia are perhaps all part of the same thing? What if inertia is simply resistance to changes in velocity between matter and the quantum vacuum in which it resides? Perhaps the surrounding quantum vacuum exerts a pull on matter constantly in every direction at the same time and it's the breaking of this equilibrium that is inertia and this equilibrium which is upset by the presence of another body of matter creating a compressed and thus more 'attractive' volume of quantum vacuum?

From here my mind wandered onto one of the major problems in physics at the moment which is not having a unified theory of gravity. Currently we have two separate ways of describing how gravity works – one for how it behaves on a macroscopic level and one for how it behaves on a subatomic level. A unification would be most beneficial to our understanding of physics. With this in mind, I started thinking about the difference between the two in terms of this hypothesis I'd just come up with, and almost immediately started wondering if the reason there's such a difference is to do with the way subatomic particles churn around at such great speeds in such a tiny space. I began wondering if perhaps they cause a kind of 'quantum vacuum cavitation' in a similar kind of way that a propeller will cavitate in water under certain conditions, thus creating a tiny pocket of space in which gravity functions in the way observed on the subatomic level?

It's all pretty speculative at this point, obviously, and could all be (read: probably is) a load of horse doo-doo. However I did a quick bit of Googling and came up with something interesting:

http://www.calphysics.org/articles/gravity_arxiv.pdf

It seems I'm not the first to propose something broadly similar in concept. It's been interesting thinking about it anyway, now I'll just have to try and wrap my head around the maths...

Exactly.

And this is absolutely not just speculative. You're asking the hard questions most people ignore because it's impractical for research. I'm happy to find a like mind.

 

[Hadoblado]

Just FYI, that post is 13 years old... Don't expect a response any time soon.

 

[nobody]

Yeah...That's alright.

He's probably long gone. I was just looking to see what people have to say about Physics here. And I just wanted to make sure I'm not insane as well. This helps. If I'm not insane, then I have a complete unification theory, exactly as described above. I'm going to formalize it. I'm going to try and see this as the fun part of explaining after I've done the exhausting mental work. That should help. Or maybe I am insane and everyone will let me know. I guess either way I learn something regardless.