Masses are Pushed, Not Pulled, Toward Each Other: 2024 update

by Paul VanRaden

© 2024

This update on the direction of gravity follows from an earlier report of VanRaden (2002) and a book of Edwards (2002). You and I are pushed from above and from all directions, but earth’s mass blocks some of the push from below. Masses do not pull each other.

Repeal and replace the law of gravity

Gravity was already explained by Le Sage (1748) and even earlier by Fatio (1690) as a difference in push caused by external, high-energy particles partially blocked by any mass rather than as a magical pulling force radiating out from each mass. Some scientists skeptical of Le Sage’s push said solids would be scorched by such a surplus spray of stuff. Those scientists forgot to repeal the laws of gravity or general relativity before replacing those theories with the pushing force caused by ether pressure or gravitons. Instead of calculating how Le Sage’s math would act on the sun, moon, earth, and stars, scientists should first calculate what happens to those masses when the pulling force of gravity or relativity is removed.

The sun is a highly heated, highly condensed, highly pressurized star made of hydrogen, helium, and heavier elements. Without Newton’s law of gravity or Einstein’s general relativity to pull on them, molecules of the sun and stars would quickly expand out to fill the volume of space between the sun and stars and would cool off. The resulting diffuse gas and cooled stardust from the galaxies would further expand and further cool into the inter-galactic regions. Without gravity to obey, molecules obey ideal gas law. Thus, the quantity of molecules (n) times their average temperature in Kelvin (T) would distribute uniformly and proportionally (R) across the volume of space (V) times their new, much lower pressure (P) using the well-known equation PV = nRT.

Then, the gas in the known universe would leak out and further cool to fill the unknown, infinite universe beyond what we see. Newton briefly accepted Le Sage’s theory of push but Newton mostly believed that the quantity of mass was finite within an infinite, empty space and that all mass eventually would be pulled by gravity into the center. Einstein said that the space containing mass was constantly expanding and that the extra space beyond it was totally empty or somehow does not exist. Newton’s and Einstein’s beliefs both implied that, in the beginning, God created the universe, which was what their Bible taught them. If gravity did not hold the finite masses together, eventually they would disintegrate and disperse into the infinite universe, which would become completely cold and dark.

Without gravity, earth’s atmosphere would all quickly escape into space, its oceans would boil away if not pressurized by gravity, and its crust would blast into space propelled by the super-heated magma from below as if the whole earth’s surface was a volcano, but with the ash all ejected straight out into space with no atmosphere or gravity to stop it. Because the earth spins 1 revolution per day, its mass closest to the equator would also be flung outward by centrifugal force out into space with no gravity to pull it back into a sphere. Even earth’s molten iron core would be flung into space and eventually rust away whenever wandering water or oxygen molecules happened to hit it.

The moon would immediately drift out on a tangent away from the earth and sun but would also disintegrate into many pieces with no gravity holding it together. Its molecules would drift apart over time and cool down to the average eventual temperature of this region of the universe, according to ideal gas law. That temperature would not be 3 degrees Kelvin but much lower because all the stars would have gone out. The average temperature would be much closer to 0 degrees Kelvin.

After repealing gravity and general relativity, we now replace Newton’s or Einstein’s math by very similar math but with a better theory to describe how and why masses appear to attract each other. Newton’s first 3 laws explain that masses tend to either stay in place or move in straight lines, that weighted averages of their speeds and directions remain constant when they collide, and that masses can gain speed or change direction only if other masses lose speed or move in the opposite direction. Newton’s first 3 laws do not explain how masses can be formed or grow over time, but Einstein explained how mass and energy can be converted to each other, thus preserving the total of the two. Neither Newton nor Einstein explained how a mass can constantly issue a pulling force in all directions and do work for free forever without using any energy. That makes no sense.

Le Sage explained how a constant external source of high-energy particles can keep masses in orbit. That external energy also pushes molecules with small masses together into much larger masses such as the moon, the earth, the sun, and the stars. Masses can increase in size by soaking up and storing that external energy, as in Einstein’s theory. The force of that external energy is almost identical to the forces of gravity and general relativity that were repealed, but Le Sage’s math does not use Newton’s pull or Einstein’s curvy space. Instead, it calculates a different push in the direction toward vs. away from other nearby masses. They block some of the push from that direction.

The very cold, very diffuse universe that resulted from repealing gravity and general relativity would be restored to normal by the very large effects of Le Sage’s external energy. Over billions of years, it would slowly form larger and larger masses up to the sizes of the moon, the earth, the sun and stars, the galaxies, and even the super galaxies. The extra energy would raise the average temperature of individual molecules from near 0 degrees Kelvin up to hundreds of degrees in small masses or up to thousands of degrees in masses so large as the sun, hot enuf to make them shine and give off energy. Le Sage’s external energy source would raise the average temperature in our region of space from near 0 up to 3 degrees Kelvin, agreeing with Hubble.

The tiny particles that push masses toward each other come from far away. Hubble discovered that light from faraway masses is red shifted, indicating that those masses seem to be moving away from us. More recent hypotheses are that the gravitational constant, or atomic sizes, or nuclear forces change over time. If the ether pressure drops, orbits will expand and take longer to complete. Atmospheric pressure rises and falls but meteorologists do not extrapolate those barometric pressure changes to estimate when the atmosphere was created or when it will end. If nuclear forces change or atoms gain mass over time, spectral patterns could differ from those billions of years ago. Newton imagined that math rules the universe and Einstein further imagined that exact constants control gravity, the speed of light, the expansion of the universe, and the exact date of its creation. Because “God does not play dice with the universe” (Einstein, 1945), God chose those constants to rule all matter for all time, except for the time before God created the universe when no masses and no constants and no math existed. The Bible does not explain what God did during the infinite time before he thought of creating a universe.

Le Sage imagined instead that the pulling force of gravity is the pushing force of ether made of whatever particle stream happens to arrive and hit us from much more distant regions of space, pushing your body and mine down toward the earth that blocks some particles from below. That same force pushes all masses in the solar system toward the sun, which blocks more particles because it has more mass. The brilliant math from either Newton, Einstein, or Le Sage may work very well for a very long time to describe the forces that pull or push us, but nothing may be constant in an infinite universe lasting an infinite time with infinite numbers of interacting particles. Like atmospheric pressure, the ether pressure may vary a little instead of being perfectly constant forever. Ether pressure can more easily explain how masses interact in our infinitely large universe that has existed and will exist for an infinite time (VanRaden, 1984; VanRaden, 2002).

Lecture Understanding Gravity by Richard Feynman recorded in about 1962 seems fully consistent with either pushing gravity, pulling gravity, general relativity, or curved space. Feynman trusted the math of relativity but was not willing to say what supplies the force of gravity or in which direction, push or pull, but he did not like curved space. 

Albert Einstein’s 1920 book Relativity: The Special and General Theory with 180 short pages was mostly easier to understand than I expected until he tried to apply relativity to cosmology. He rejected an infinite universe because gravity’s pull becomes infinite from all directions if nothing stops it. But infinite pulls from both the left and right side would seem to cancel, leaving only the local masses to account for. On page 127 he noted that “Seeliger (1895) suggested a modification of Newton’s law, in which he assumes that for great distances the force of attraction between two masses diminishes more rapidly than would result from the inverse square law.” That is expected if gravity is a push from all directions except where partially blocked by masses such as earth or the sun, causing the push to get slightly weaker after traveling thru many masses.

Gravity as a difference in push instead of a pull still makes sense after studying Feynman’s and Einstein’s well-explained research. The pulling force of gravity on any mass (m₁) from any other mass (m₂) separated by distance r is G m₁ m₂ / r², where G is the gravitational constant. Using spherical coordinates x and y, this pulling force pull(x,y) in direction x and y can instead be described as a large, constant pushing force from all directions push(all) but a smaller push push(x,y) from direction x and y due to particles blocked from that direction. Thus, push(all) - push(x,y) = pull(x,y). In general relativity, the pull(x,y) has a delay of r times the speed of light instead of being instantly transmitted across space. Similarly, push(x,y) can act with that same time delay to make the calculations nearly identical to those of general relativity (Edwards, 2022).

Precise predictions of orbits require accounting for multiple masses in many directions such as the Sun, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and the Milky Way. Integrating across all directions and subtracting the smaller pushes from those directions uses almost the same math as pretending that those masses are pulling on us. Constant pulling expends a huge amount of energy to maintain a force field. Newton and Einstein and physicists since then have never explained where all that energy comes from or why it is not used up over time. Le Sage correctly deduced that the energy needed to keep masses in orbit, to keep masses compacted, and to keep stars shining is all a free gift from the larger universe outside the system that we see.

Motions of masses in the whole universe, or at least in the regions nearest to us, are more simply and better explained by the pushing force of external energy and the conversion of energy to mass than by the pulling force of gravity or the curving force of general relativity. Repealing the pulling math of Newton and curving math of Einstein would result in an extremely cold, extremely dark, and extremely diffuse universe, but replacing their theories with Le Sage’s pushing math then would restore all masses to their current sizes and make the sun and stars shine again.

Better understanding the things our eyes see and the forces our bodies feel might improve our lives and our thinking in the next few years. Better interpreting the signals and events that our modern optical, radio, or electrical devices detect and record from the past few billion years will help us better predict future events.

References:

Duillier, Nicolas Fatio de 1690. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Fatio_de_Duillier

Edwards, Matthew R. 2002. Pushing gravity: New persectives on Le Sage’s theory of gravitation. C. Roy Keyes, Inc. Montreal. [316-page book with 23 chapters contributed by international researchers from 10 countries on 4 continents]

Edwards, Matthew R. 2022. Optical gravity model could transform geophysics, astrophysics and cosmology (sciencex.com)

Einstein, Albert. 1918. Prinzipielles zur allgemeinen relativitatstheorie. Annalen der Physik 55:241-244.

Einstein, Albert. 1920. Relativity: The Special and General Theory 180-page book.

Feynman, Richard, 1962. Understanding Gravity audio lecture.

Le Sage, Georges-Louis. 1748. Le Sage's theory of gravitation - Wikipedia

Newton, Isaac. 1687. Philosophie naturalis principia mathematica. London.

VanRaden, Paul. 1984. Toward a more unified theory of the universe.

VanRaden, Paul. 2002. Are masses pulled or pushed toward each other?

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