From: eric@flesch.org (Eric Flesch)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Non-local gravitation -- not.  GR falsified -- not. 
Message-ID: <3dfee265.12388235@news.iconz.co.nz>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 08:41:20 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 210.48.22.5


On Sat, 14 Dec 2002 21:51:06 -0600, "Old Man" wrote:
>GTR is a self consistent theory.  It cannot be internally
>falsified.  Occam's razor cannot be used to gouge parts
>out whilst keeping other parts. 

I nowhere falsify GR.  GR claims that energy, where it is present,
gravitates.  I do not argue with that.  What I am saying is that
energy, of the variety that travels at c, is not in fact present; that
it does not classically manifest.  GR agrees that something that is
not there, does not gravitate.  Thus it is the way that GR is being
applied that I contest, not GR itself.  GR is not a theory of energy,
and cannot be used to justify a model of energy.

>What happens to the gravitational field of an electron-positron
>pair that annihilate to produce a pair of photons? 

Gravity goes *poof*.

> Nuclear binding energy (negative energy) reduces both the mass
>and, in a gravitational field, the weight of a nucleus over
>that of its free constituents.  In other words, we require
>conservation of energy:  energy in the form of EM
>radiation is released during assembly, and the entire system,
>released EM radiation energy plus nucleus, gravitates.

Let's model an ideal physical apparatus with substances positioned at
each end.  On one side, a molecule M, on the other side, elements A
and B which happen to be the components of molecule M.  Let's say the
reaction of A and B to make M is fully reversible.

Now, at one end, we combine A and B to make M.  Photons are released,
and our apparatus perfectly directs those photons to the molecule M at
the other end of the apparatus.  The photons are absorbed by M which
breaks up into elements A and B.  So our apparatus ends up with M and
A&B at the opposite ends from the original configuration.

Now all mass and energy (and gravitation) is accounted for, except for
the brief interval when the photons were speeding from one end of the
apparatus to the other.  It is only that brief interval about which we
are disagreeing.

The point is that conservation of energy is honored.  But there is no
reason to require that the total gravitation of the apparatus be
unchanged while those photons are whizzing across the apparatus.  The
gravitation can be less for that interval; conservation of gravity is
not a physical law.  From the point of view of the photons, they
simply step from one end of the apparatus to the other end.  From
their viewpoint, they were gravitating all along, but "all along" only
includes the moment of emission and the moment of absorption -- and
nothing in between.  Photons display nonlocal action-at-a-distance as
one of their attributes.  They do not gravitate while doing this.  If
photons can be at many optional intermediate locations in the course
of getting from emission to absorption, wherefrom is their gravity?
Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment shows that we cannot pin the
"travelling photon" down to any intermediate position -- so wherefrom
would a graviton vector start?

It *doesn't work*.  Travelling photons *cannot gravitate*.  Physicists
who treat GR like it is a model of light are ignoring the experimental
realities of what light is actually like.  Wheeler says "we have no
right to speak of the attributes of a photon before it registers".
That includes gravitation.  We have no right to say it gravitates.  We
have never measured photons to gravitate.  We never will.  It does not
gravitate.  

Eric