What Makes the Gravitational Field Work?
The gravitational field is a complex mathematical idea that has never been translated into a commonsense physical explanation of just how gravity works.
Philosophically, the gravitational field is a great leap from plain old imaginary three dimensional inertial space of infinite extent. Rather than an empty void, space becomes filled with 2256 individual four dimensional space time continuums, that are all attached to individual bodies of mass that exactly share a three dimensional inertial space.
Herein lies one of the great philosophical problems with theories of a gravitational field. If each body of mass generates a gravitational field continuum that moves with the body, then when a number of mass bodies merge together, their gravitational field continuums do not merge into a single gravitational field. These fields are easily merged mathematically into an imaginary single gravitational field but conceptually, at the fundamental level of reality, the gravitational field of each mass body must remain separate. There are no logical or experimental reasons to believe that the gravitational fields from two or more mass bodies could merge together into a single homogeneous field when they are in close proximity to one another and then divide again into separate fields when the bodies are moved apart.
It is therefore most logical to believe in a separate and intrinsic gravitational field for each body of matter. The philosophical problem here is this. Where does the fundamental unit of the gravitational field ultimately lie? Does an atom have a single gravitational field or is there a separate field for each proton and electron? What about the neutrons? Does a neutron have a single gravitational field or three? Certainly there are three fields when a neutron decays into a proton, electron and antineutrino. What about the proton? Does it have just one gravitational field or does it have one for each quark? If there is a fundamental unit for the gravitational field then how is it possible for these units to merge, further split or even disappear?
What happens to their gravitational fields when a matter and antimatter pair combine and then divide into two photons? Do the photons take the gravitational fields with them or do these fields just disappear? If they do disappear, then how does this happen when these fields extend far past the Andromeda galaxy? Do these fields disappear quickly or does it take millions of years or even forever before their influence is completely gone? If the photons do have gravitational fields, do they each have two since they are each half matter and half antimatter? Do these fields become separate again when a photon divides into a positron and electron?
While these questions do not present any mathematical or experimental difficulties, they are philosophically very troubling. They present an enormously complex and incomprehensible structure for the fundamental reality of the gravitational interaction. When theorists describe their gravity field theories, it is always in terms of generalized mathematical equations and paradoxical experimental results and never in the mechanical terms of just how the fundamental reality of gravity actually works on an atom to atom basis across the universe.
Philosophically, the principle of gravitational expansion is a much simpler and more logical solution to the gravitational force field. It is enormously more rational to explain gravity as a third dynamic dimension of inertial space that is common to the other two dimensions of space. Once gravity is explained as a local three dimensional inertial force that is a third dimension of space, then the counter-intuitive concept of an infinite gravitational field for each atom is no longer needed.
Still don’t believe in expanding matter? Let’s turn the tables on this argument. Let’s assume that you live in an alternate universe where gravitational expansion is the accepted theory of gravity. It so happened that when Galileo dropped the two different sized balls from the tower at Pisa he saw that both balls hit the ground at the same time and then realized the ground fell upward toward the motionless balls. Newton then went on to explain the dynamics of the orbits of the expanding bodies in the solar system. Einstein then went on to show that the speed of light c and that the speed of gravity GV were the two fundamental constants of nature.
During your university education you were somewhat brainwashed to the idea that gravitational expansion is the correct explanation of gravity in that you were never offered an alternative approach to a theory of gravity. You were taught that gravitational expansion was a fact of nature that was beyond question.
What would be your reaction to a crackpot theorist who proposed to replace this simple local interaction of matter, with an infinite attraction theory gravity that seemed to be caused by 10160 tiny elastic strings or infinite fields that stretched across the universe and connected all 1080 particles of matter together? How could such a complicated and convoluted idea ever be true?
Gravity has long been used as the ultimate justification for the concept of the field. Without the gravitational force field, it becomes more difficult to justify the necessity and function of the other three or four types of force fields. This is particularly true with the extremely short ranged fields like the weak and strong nuclear forces. Even the electromagnetic force is usually described as virtual particles moving back and forth through a field. Maybe its just particles with no field. If the gravitational field is not possible, then maybe the other types of fields might not be possible either. Maybe there are no fields but just mechanical particles.
With the gravitation field as the primary example of a field phenomenon it is certainly scientifically ethical to invent other fields to explain other things. However, without gravitation as a shining example of a field, it seems unethical to create metaphysical force fields to explain things that are measured to be mechanical in nature. Gravity is just a simple mechanical motion that has nothing to do with any kind of a magical force “field”.