Section VI: Special and General Relativity, from "Is Space the Only Substance in the Universe?"

VI.                      IT’S ALL RELATIVE, WHEN YOUR GRAVITATIONAL FIELD IS LOPSIDED

Relativity and Geometry

Both special and general relativity theories describe geometric and time variability. One reason why it has been so difficult to develop a theory combining them, and general relativity in particular, with quantum mechanics may be that relativity theories make no reference to what happens physically to particles, waves, charges, and other entities basic to the other theories, as the space they occupy changes shape or timing.

            The experimentally confirmed findings consistent with relativity theories will not be challenged here. Instead, it is modestly suggested that these same findings might be explainable by a different, simpler, yet more comprehensive theory with mechanisms related to quantized space and its deletion.

Special relativity, introduced by Einstein in 1905, prohibits motion at or faster than the speed of light, and causes light to always still be faster by the same velocity, c, than a moving object that it passes. The Lorentz transformations that permit this include reduction of an object's length in the direction of travel, increase in its inertial mass, and slowing of clock speed, utilizing a gamma factor that always includes the square root of (1 minus v²/c²), when traveling at great velocity approaching c, as judged by an observer in a different reference frame (Williams 1968). The theory does not suggest what actually causes such transformations to occur. Length contraction has not been experimentally confirmed (Zyga 2012).

General relativity, introduced by Einstein a decade later, is a geometrical theory of gravitation. In that theory, spacetime is warped by mass and energy, creating curved geodesic lines, but there is no explanation as to what propels mass and light to move along those lines, or why masses appear to attract other masses and light. In this sense, general relativity shares with classical Newtonian theory the limitation that it describes but does not explain gravity. Gravity is not seen as a force but rather as a property of spacetime.

Adjusting the Gravitational Field of a Moving Object, and the Lorentz Transformations

As an object moves, its gravitational field needs to adjust to its new position. Newton assumed that this occurs instantaneously, but since 1905 physicists have instead assumed that the adjustment of gravitational fields occurs at the speed of light. Siegel has noted that some assistance is needed from general relativity with this assumption to make orbits come out correctly (Siegel 2019, October), but that should be accommodated by this model. The time lag in this adjustment should be directly proportional to distance, which would delay the arrival of “information” about the changing position.

Figure 3: The concept of a rapidly moving object developing an asymmetric gravitational field as it approaches the speed of light; not to any scale.

            Figure 3 represents the gravitational field of a rapidly moving object as distributed in concentric ovals of decreasing strength. The distance between ovals represents delays in field adjustment due to the time required for gravitational information about continually changing location to reach those areas of surrounding space (presumably at the speed of light). Reduced field strength with the square of distance is not represented in the figure. Although the figure shows the compressed field in front of the moving ball, the concentration would also apply within the moving object itself.

            At slow velocities, this distortion and asymmetry, from the spherical field that would be expected at “rest” (and which was assumed in Section IV under the topic “Deriving Newton’s Equation for Gravity from Space Deletion”), would be negligible. At very rapid velocities approaching the speed of light, however, the object would almost catch up with the adjustment of the field in front of it, to its continually changing current position. Almost all of the spacial volume of the gravitational field would be in the large portions behind the moving object, but greatly diluted. 

            The most significant aspect of this conception is that the rapidly moving object’s gravitational field (its space deletion) would be highly concentrated and powerful inside and immediate in front of the object approaching the speed of light. As a result, the gravitation there would be extremely powerful. Although it would only be the object’s own gravity, and not that of an extremely massive external object or a black hole, so much of a concentration of gravitational force in a smaller and smaller amount of space might have profound physical effects on the moving object itself, a type of self-interaction.

             These effects of asymmetric gravitation could theoretically create the Lorentz transformations. As speed increased, increasing proportions of the length of the front half of the moving object would be deleted, causing a shortening in the direction of motion. Behind the object, gravitation should be diluted.  Regaining of normal length after deceleration would presumably be due to energy levels and electromagnetic factors determining orbits. The gamma factor in the transformations should not be different from special relativity..

            Inertia at high speeds would thus, by this model, helping to explain a local equivalence between inertia and gravity in general relativity. However, since the gravitational fields of rapidly moving objects at constant velocity would be redistributed but not increased overall, distant total gravitational effects on other bodies resulting from an object in motion close to the speed of light should likewise be redistributed but not increased overall. The inertia of an object moving at close to the speed of light, in special relativity, becomes so strong that it almost prevents even the most powerful attempts at renewed acceleration or deviation from its state of motion.  Gravitational attraction toward an object moving at close to c does not become so great that celestial bodies are drawn to revolve around it.

            This is an example of an exception in special relativity to Einstein’s Principle of Equivalence between inertia and acceleration, foundational in general relativity. There are other exceptions as well (Adelberger et al. 2020, Cheng 2015). Such apparent contradictions, and the dependence on local observations, would seem to suggest limitations of both relativity theories.

            These apparent contradictions, and the dependence on local observations, would seem to suggest limitations of both relativity theories. The “Nothing but Space” model applies to both accelerating and non-accelerating frames of reference, with or without gravitation, both locally and throughout the universe, in our familiar three dimensions (though with additional, unseen dimensions for space transfer). This may turn out to be a more comprehensive yet mathematically simpler explanation of space, time, gravity, and the effects of rapid velocities.

            Despite the limitations just discussed, expected experimental results using the “Nothing but Space” model should not significantly differ from relativity theories when dealing with local frames. However, there is another more problematic distinction of the “Nothing but Space” model from special relativity, relating to whether it is possible to distinguish “real” or absolute motion when objects pass each other. (See in Section IX, under the topic “Absolute vs. Relative Motion”).

            The dilation of time might be the hardest aspect of the Lorentz transformations to associate with space deletion, but imagine that an analog clock were attached to the moving object, and that the second hand were moving. If space were deleted from the number of seconds that the second hand moved, it would slow the progression of measured time. The energy changes in atomic clocks should be similarly slowed. A similar but less intense process would occur due to the space deletion of a spherical gravitational field. This would match the “time dilation” in general relativity (Gharrat 2019).