What is Einstein’s Equivalence Principle?
The equivalence principle states that there is no difference between the acceleration of gravity and the acceleration produced by a dynamic force except that the acceleration of a falling body cannot be directly measured.
The equivalence principle is merely an ad hoc metaphysical concept designed to allow one to imagine that gravity has magical non-local powers of infinite reach. The appeal to believe in such a miraculous form of gravity is very strong. Virtually everyone, and especially physicists, accept Equivalence as an article of faith even though it has never been positively verified by either experimental or observational physics. All of the many experiments and observations show that the equivalence of gravity and inertia simply does not exist. Gravity and inertia can absolutely not be equal or equivalent simply because they are exactly the same thing. There is only inertia and gravitational attraction simply does not exist! Unlike the omnipresent and infinite effects of the mythical gravitational field, the inertial effects of each body of matter in the universe extend only to the outer extremities of the body’s physical structure. For one body to exert inertial forces on another body, they must be in physical contact with one another. A falling body perceives no inertial forces until it is struck by the ground. All measurements show that Chicken Little was wrong. The sky is not falling down, it is the earth that is falling up!
The Principle of Equivalence Results from an Inherent Mental Block in the Human Intuitive Reasoning Process
In our intuition, we all watch the sun pass overhead each day but in our intellect we know that this isn’t true, because it is the surface of the earth that moves sideways (east) past a stationary sun. Likewise, we all see, as well as measure, the earth leaping up to collide with “falling” objects but insist that this isn’t true either because just as our perceptions insist that the earth doesn’t move sideways, they also demand that the earth doesn’t move upwards. Any skydiver will tell you of those free fall fantasies of being pushed upward by a strong wind as the earth rushes up towards them. These perceptions then vanish like interrupted dreams once the jumper collides with the ground. This is because belief or even faith in an unmoving earth goes far deeper than just the conscious level of our minds. It is easy for our intellects to understand that the sun does not pass overhead every day but somewhere at the very foundation of our subconscious is a place where the earth doesn’t move! Even though some of our most sensitive instruments show us that the earth falls up, that stubborn little place in our psyches won’t allow our conscious minds to entertain any such thoughts, except as metaphors to help understand the Equivalence principle.
The Equivalence Principle, which by its very definition has no measurable effects, was developed not to account for any physical measurements but rather to satisfy the physicist’s deep psychological need for the permanence of mass, space and time. To say, as Einstein did, that space and time possess a “non-intuitive curvature” is just ambiguous enough to prevent the emotional regions of consciousness from rebelling at the idea that the actual values of mass, space and time are constantly changing in a complimentary way. The mind is comfortable in its inability to visualize a four dimensional curved space, but is very uncomfortable with the spectacle of the earth’s surface constantly moving away from its center. With the earth’s surface constantly moving upward at a velocity of 11,179 m/sec, it takes 19 minutes for the surface of the earth to quadruple in area and for the linear dimensions of its atoms and yardsticks to double. This process changes the definition of time from equal intervals of duration to intervals of constantly increasing duration. As the linear dimensions of matter doubles, the rate at which we measure the passage of time slows to one half.
At first thought, the concept of the gravitational expansion of matter seems to be impossible. However, after careful consideration, there is little if any concrete reason to conclude that complementary changes in the values of mass, space and time could not occur. Einstein said that curving space and time caused gravity. Why not just allow mass to “curve” also and then have a far simpler mechanical cause for gravity.
In reality, the expansion concept is not all that different from Einstein’s long accepted but counter intuitive “curvature” of space-time as proposed in his General Relativity theory. Einstein used the equivalence principle to allow a virtual curvature to occur in space and time rather than to even consider the measured curvature of mass, space and time.
The gravitational expansion of matter is easy to visualize and the upward acceleration of the earth’s surface is easy to measure with an accelerometer. In contrast, General Relativity’s proposed curvature of space can not be visualized and no experiment has ever been proposed that can show falling bodies actually accelerating downward.