DGDudley
Please bear with me while I preface my question; I promise I do have one.
The bane of Stephen Hawking's decades-long quest to formulate a theory of everything, as I understand it, is gravity -- or more precisely, the weakness of gravity in comparison with the three other "forces of the universe." The problem throwing a wrench in the works is Hawking's inability to explain gravity prior to the Big Bang, when the universe was infinitely small, and to explain the discrepancy in strength between gravity, the electromagnetic force and the two nuclear forces.
This dilemma has spawned some impossibly complex (to my little brain, anyway) hypotheses like the 11th dimension and gravity leaking out of, or into, our 3rd dimension, making this so-called fundamental force only appear weaker than the others; M Theory; etc.
I think Hawking and his colleagues may be way off track here. I submit that the gravity "problem" doesn't even need to be solved.
Einstein long ago presented us with a whole new way of looking at gravity. Rather than seeing it as a force that acted upon objects, pulling on them, he suggested that huge objects in the universe acted upon space, curving and dimpling it the way a bowling ball would a sheet of rubber. I don't think I need to explain this any further in this forum.
I'll get to the long-awaited point, and my question. Before the Big Bang, there was nothing. And I don't mean just a big empty space; I mean there WAS no space. Isn't the phenomenon of gravity contingent upon space?
I submit that gravity is not a fundamental force but secondary, and perhaps not a "force" at all, in the sense that the other three fundamental forces are. It is something that emerged in response to the appearance of space. Thus, the fact that it's so much weaker, or so much anything, in comparison to electromagnetism and the nuclear forces is irrelevant. Gravity doesn't even need to be considered, much less explained, by Prof. Hawking.
As you can see, I'm interested but not that knowledgeable, so I ask: Does my proposal have any merit or is it completely off-base? Has it already been proposed and rejected a hundred times? I hope someone can respond to this query, because it's driving me nuts.
Thanks for listening.
The bane of Stephen Hawking's decades-long quest to formulate a theory of everything, as I understand it, is gravity -- or more precisely, the weakness of gravity in comparison with the three other "forces of the universe." The problem throwing a wrench in the works is Hawking's inability to explain gravity prior to the Big Bang, when the universe was infinitely small, and to explain the discrepancy in strength between gravity, the electromagnetic force and the two nuclear forces.
This dilemma has spawned some impossibly complex (to my little brain, anyway) hypotheses like the 11th dimension and gravity leaking out of, or into, our 3rd dimension, making this so-called fundamental force only appear weaker than the others; M Theory; etc.
I think Hawking and his colleagues may be way off track here. I submit that the gravity "problem" doesn't even need to be solved.
Einstein long ago presented us with a whole new way of looking at gravity. Rather than seeing it as a force that acted upon objects, pulling on them, he suggested that huge objects in the universe acted upon space, curving and dimpling it the way a bowling ball would a sheet of rubber. I don't think I need to explain this any further in this forum.
I'll get to the long-awaited point, and my question. Before the Big Bang, there was nothing. And I don't mean just a big empty space; I mean there WAS no space. Isn't the phenomenon of gravity contingent upon space?
I submit that gravity is not a fundamental force but secondary, and perhaps not a "force" at all, in the sense that the other three fundamental forces are. It is something that emerged in response to the appearance of space. Thus, the fact that it's so much weaker, or so much anything, in comparison to electromagnetism and the nuclear forces is irrelevant. Gravity doesn't even need to be considered, much less explained, by Prof. Hawking.
As you can see, I'm interested but not that knowledgeable, so I ask: Does my proposal have any merit or is it completely off-base? Has it already been proposed and rejected a hundred times? I hope someone can respond to this query, because it's driving me nuts.
Thanks for listening.
