Making Near That Which Was Distant & Making Easy That Which Was Difficult. Pt ITheoretical Physics for Talented Truck Drivers:
Garden Variety Unified Field
Copyright 2008
by K. B. Robertson
May be reproduced for educational and non commercial purposes, with proper accreditation for authorship:
A Brief History of a Series of Discoveries
In the experience of this author there are two histories of the evolution of physics. The objective history that was established by the men and women who contributed to it’s progressive evolution, and the subjective history of this author’s learning of that evolution and then recognizing and authenticating an unprecedented statement - previously proven but continuingly unrecognized on the foundations of physical science.
Discovering that Newton’s gravity is Einstein’s 4-dimensional space time continuum did not happen in premeditation, or all at once, or in any given flash of insight, but rather through a process of learning, motivated by what at first was no more than mild curiosity.
‘What is gravity?’ I was fourteen years old and had no idea that, in pursuing the answer to this question, I was about to embark on what would become the main course in my life’s work.
Confident that I could learn the answer in a fairly short period of time, through research of standard information sources.
In referencing several encyclopedias and other resource materials I slowly became aware that there was no comprehensive answer to that question (‘What is gravity?’). There is voluminous and impressive information on the effects of gravity (‘the unidentified Force’ - ‘F’) - what it does... But the question of what gravity is - what causes it - remains a popularly pursued - until now, unresolved - mystery.
Newton literally invented The Calculus, to enable him to measure acceleration, parabolic arcs and many other effects of gravity, but, there is only a gathering data base of speculations (some of which in the past 30 or so years have evolved into a trend of unscientific inquiry and unscientific representation) of it’s causal identity.
The causal identity of gravity is no less mysterious now than it has been through the ages of scientific inquiry.
My first discovery about gravity was that no one has ever known what it is; only what it does...
That was of itself interesting, and in the words of Barbara Lovett Cline (THE MEN WHO MADE A NEW PHYSICS), ‘I wanted to know more.’ The recently learned fact that no one knows or has ever known what gravity is, allowed me to think that even an amateur such as myself might have as much business researching it as anyone else.
Curiosity about gravity was further refurbished when I learned of Galileo’s experiments with descending objects, released from the same height at the same time - when he found the unexpected result that, regardless of the mass values (size, density, weight) of objects, they all descend at the same rate of acceleration and strike the ground, when dropped from the same height at the same time. Before Galileo’s findings, it had been presumed since Aristotle and before, that the heavier a given object, the faster it descends in free fall. Not true.
The record already had some knowledge of Newton’s Laws of gravity, one of which states that the greater mass value - the heavier - a given object, the more gravitational impelling force (presumed to be a force of ‘attraction’ ; unidentified, but said ‘not’ to be ‘magnetism’ or ‘electricity’) it possesses.
It follows by this law that when a small stone is dropped alongside of a boulder sized stone, the latter should fall faster and strike the ground sooner than the smaller stone (released from the same height at the same time - esp. in the absence of air resistance <a feather and a cannon ball, in the absence of air resistance, descend at exactly the same rate, measured to concurrence beyond a billionth of a second; in scientifically documented searches for the anticipated difference in descent rates - not finding it, down to and beyond the measure of a nanosecond>...).
According to Newton’s law as applied to this consideration, there ‘should’ be a greater mutual attraction between the larger stone and the earth, than between the smaller stone and the earth, and therefore the larger - heavier - stone ‘should’ fall faster. It doesn’t.
(The popular but incorrect ‘explanation’ that ‘negative inertial resistance’ inversely corresponds to the ‘pull’ of gravity and exactly cancels out what would otherwise be an increased descent rate for the heavier object, is well marked, by Einstein and many others, as an inadequate, false explanation.)
That fact intrigued me and led me to pursue further studies. I was aware that much of Einstein’s work was about Newton’s gravity; did not pursue Newton’s or Einstein’s mathematical work on gravity because my knowledge of that subject (mathematics) was (and remains) extremely limited.
At age seventeen I conjured up what seemed to be a radical and unlikely explanation for why all objects descend at the same rate of acceleration. It did explain why this happened, but the explanation required that the entire earth’s surface be constantly rising up, creating the illusion of falling objects; causing them to appear to fall: at the same rate of acceleration.
In this apparently ‘unlikely’ scenario, the unexplained identical rates of descent for the test objects was ‘explained’, ‘because’ the earth’s surface was rising up and overtaking the apparently falling objects...
I had no good reason at that time for attributing the required expansion to the earth. Had very limited knowledge (of what is scientifically known) of the ‘building blocks of the universe’ - electrons, neutrons and protons; that they are called ‘particles’, which are in fact unexpectedly found and consistently proved to be 'charges of electricity, without distinct surfaces.'
Since the sub-atomic ‘electric charge’ has a mass value (opposes resistance to acceleration proportionate to its mass value <‘weight’>), and, demands three dimensions of space to its <perceived> finitely located self): it is called a ‘particle’; rigidly conceptualized as ‘billiard ball’ like, having a distinct surface, separating its perceived finite boundaries, making it ‘discontinuous’ - from the space surrounding it - like any and all other material entities; as they are colloquially experienced and consequently conceptualized. Refer: ‘particle theory’ (is not really a theory, but rather an ‘hypothesis’, since the so called particle has yet to be confirmed on the foundations of modern physical science).
Had only heard of the 4th Dimension as Einstein introduced and then others described it - had no knowledge of it. Did not know of or associate any of those realities with the absurd explanation I had for the descent of free falling objects.
It was more a lark than a serious consideration: OBVIOUSLY THE EARTH IS NOT - AND ALL OTHER PHYSICAL ENTITIES IN THE UNIVERSE ARE NOT - EXPANDING. I had arrived at what I did not recognize then as being a historically crowded metaphorical precipice, and I had made the same rejection everyone else had, who had arrived there - unbeknownst to me at that time.
There was a perfectly functional if metaphorical DaVinci donated hang-glider waiting for anyone who cared to fly with it (the elaborately proven, consistently rejected and denied fact that universal matter at large is a constantly expanding four dimensional field), and for quite some time I stood there at that crowded precipice, looking at the new fangled, completely untested solution, and then glanced down the cliff that everyone there had pulled up short on...
I went about the objective of disproving this incredible (even ‘ridiculous’) idea that all of the material earth - and consequently, the thereby obliged physical universe of space and matter - was constantly expanding.
I was sure it was wrong. Had to be wrong. I would not fly off that cliff, even though I knew, that new fangled thing just might after all fly. I didn’t ‘believe’ it (Yet).
Continued in Parts II, III & IV, in the foregoing posts. Including links to other sources.


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