Essay—Gravity in Ten Minute (64)

Summary—This essay looks at the history of gravity starting from Copernicus to Galileo to Kepler to Newton and finally to Einstein—and argues that the recently discovered gravitational waves are immaterial compared to true paradigm-shifting events like my theory of one.

Quotation—Big science has every right to boast of its achievements with gravitational waves—but in many ways they are irrelevant to the larger situation that present science finds itself in. They serve as a distraction from the unsolved mysteries that could actually shift the paradigm regarding how we perceive reality. —Deepak Chopra

Galileo was the first to use the newly invented telescope to observe the celestial heavens. His first discovery with the telescope identified the four moons of Jupiter. The Renaissance inherited the Medieval view that the Garden of Eden was the belly button of the universe and that God created the rest of the universe around Eden. This discovery of Jupiter’s moons put to rest the view that the cosmos revolved around Eden. Instead, it turns out that the Earth revolves around the Sun. For this revelation the Brothers of the Inquisition, acting on behalf of the Church, sentenced Galileo to life in prison. Similarly, my theory of one proves that reality is an illusion. In Canada we do not imprison people for making arguments that do not meet with authoritarian dogma—we just ignore them.

Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was a Polish mathematician and astronomer who formulated the heliocentric model of the universe that puts the Sun, instead of the Earth, at the center of the universe. This discovery is considered to be a major paradigm-shifting event in our understanding of reality. It set in motion the scientific revolution of the Renaissance. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist, philosopher and mathematician who played a major role in the scientific revolution of the Renaissance and is called the father of modern science. He proved experimentally that two balls of different weight fall at the same speed—thus setting the stage for Newtonian gravity. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was a German mathematician and astronomer who was a prominent figure in the 17th century scientific revolution and is best known for his laws of planetary motion that helped set the stage for Newtonian gravity. He spent twenty years studying the planets and then developed his three laws describing the motion of planets around the Sun—The planets travel in an ellipse around the Sun—A line joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during intervals of equal time—The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the average distance from the Sun cubed. With gravity, Kepler defined what happened with the planets.

Newtonian Gravity. Sir Isaac Newton’s (1643-1727) epiphany was to unite the work of Galileo with the work of Kepler. His laws are mathematical in nature and are limited to bodies traveling at terrestrial speeds with smaller gravitational fields. Newtonian gravity is still sufficient for events like rocketing to the Moon. Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that—Any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them—Every point of mass attracts every other point of mass by a force moving along the line intersecting both points. Like many paradigm-shifting discoveries, gravity was originally just a hunch. Newton also helped other scientists realize that most scientific discoveries can be explained mathematically. As Sir James Jeans said, “God is a mathematician.” Gravity is part of classical mechanics and is set forth in Newton’s major work, Principia (1687). The first experimental test of Newtonian gravity was conducted by Henry Cavendish 111 years after Principia. Newtonian gravity has since been surpassed by Einstein’s general relativity but is still a very good approximation of gravity for almost all applications. Relativity theory is employed only when extremely accurate calculations are required or when in the presence of tremendously strong gravitational fields as with black holes.

Einsteinian Gravity. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) set the stage for general relativity by proving that gravity and inertia are mathematically equivalent. General relativity is the geometric model of gravity according to a set of nonlinear algebraic equations put forth by Einstein in 1915. General relativity describes gravity as the curving of spacetime and is still the current model of gravity today. Einstein’s theory consists of ten field equations that designate the pull of gravity resulting in spacetime being geometrically curved by matter and energy. General relativity generalizes both special relativity and Newtonian gravity. The curvature of spacetime is directly related to the energy and momentum of bodies. Some of the predictions of general relativity were confirmed by experiment in 1919 when Sir Arthur Edington observed the path of light from stars passing near an eclipse of the Sun was curved in accordance with Einsteinian gravity. A question still to be answered is how to unite general relativity with quantum theory? Einstein’s gravity has important astrophysical inferences including the existence of phenomena like the big bang and black holes. General relativity also predicts the existence of gravitational waves in spacetime that have recently been observed.

Gravitational Waves. Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime that propagate outward from the source at lightspeed. They are produced in certain gravitational interactions by massive phenomena such as black holes colliding, which do not emit light because it cannot escape their gravitational pull. We may now add gravity to the list of perceivable cosmic waves that includes light and radio for man to study the celestial heavens. Gravitational waves were not foretold by Newtonian gravity. In fact, Einstein was the first to forecast gravitational waves in 1915. He also laid the foundation for the development of lasers used to study gravitational waves. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories (LIGO) are extremely sensitive devices built to detect gravitational waves. They were first observed on 15 September 2015 from a source 1.3 billion light years away. The signal was detected as originating from a pair of merging black holes. These extremely rare events help us understand gravitational waves and the events that create them. Gravitational waves offer a new way to look at the universe. Nergis Mavalvala said, “We have turned on a new sense.” Luis Lehner of the Perimeter Institute in Canada said, “A big advantage of gravitational waves is that they are not blocked or scattered by objects in their path the way light is, thus making them pristine carriers of information.” Still, Deepak Chopra has said gravitational waves only serve to distract from real paradigm-shifting events.

The Theory of One. Special relativity (1905) is the linear, natural law of spacetime based on lightspeed. Quantum theory (1925) is the natural law of matter based on Planck’s constant. My theory of one (2001) solves the greatest scientific problem of all time by uniting relativity theory with quantum theory by recognizing that lightspeed and Planck’s constant are the same boundary of spacetime. This boundary between spacetime and nothingness is the medium that supports universal waves. For example, in the case of quantum theory, electrons tunnel through the nucleus of an atom and then exit the universe while creating waves in spacetime described by Schrödinger’s wave equation. This probability distribution predicts where electrons will reenter the universe—with the highest probability being the wave crests. The theory of one proves that there is only one photon (ie. a being of light), that one photon is God, and that reality is an illusion—meaning the Moon does not exist when no one is looking at it. My theory of one will ultimately shift the paradigm regarding how we perceive reality.

Risk Management. Probability distributions encapsulate the essence of future uncertainty of random events. Distributions are defined by their moments. The first four moments of a distribution are—mean, standard deviation or sigma, skewness and kurtosis. Mean is another way of saying average. Average deviation from the mean is another way of saying standard deviation. Skewness determines which way a distribution leans. Kurtosis describes the thickness of a distribution’s tails—thus allowing for the possibility of big jumps. The normal distribution is shaped like a bell and is generally considered to be the starting point for most risk modeling. The tails of the normal distribution effectively end at four-sigma, meaning that anything past this point goes unrecognized by both the normal distribution and the everyman. Predicting and preparing for events past four-sigmas is the challenge of strategic risk management. Events less than or equal to four-sigmas involve tactical risk management. Anything beyond four-sigmas is not normal and has the potential to be a paradigm-shifting event. Here I am subjectively assessing the sigma values of the following series of events—An airliner crashing is a one-sigma event and 9/11 is a ten-sigma event. Nuclear war has the highest sigma value, which is a one hundred-sigma event. The experimental realization of gravitational waves is a four-sigma event. The theory of one values—that there is only one photon, that one photon is God, and that reality is an illusion—are each forty-sigma events.

Conclusion. Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Einstein have each significantly contributed to our understanding of gravity. General relativity generalizes both special relativity and Newtonian gravity. While gravitational waves may seem important in terms of current events, the realization is irrelevant when compared to the discoveries of Copernicus and my theory of one. All that is required here is perspective. As Nietzsche said, “We can never see around our own corner.”