Can Chat GPT divine who's right here?

Anybody here know how to submit it to Chat GPT?

If not can anybody tell me how to do it?

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Gravity does not have a cause...
It has a Creator.

Mitchell Raemsch

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On Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 12:42:49 PM UTC-7, mitchr...@gmail.com wrote:

Gravity does not have a cause...
It has a Creator.

Mitchell Raemsch

When I think of gravity, the unverse, black holes, the harware defects built inot my microprocessir that produce typos deletions every 25 or so charachters that and that back up into teh ext I can even edit, Jupitertypos , the solar system, the rest of
the universe , hydrogen , oxygen, wanna knoiw wha t eally comes to mind as important?


WATER!

Imagine water without the first element in the periodic table. It'd be a table withut any legs.

I mean comedy wouldnt bevery without water know what I mean?

I. working with a number of handicaps here virtual, real, technical

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piątek, 3 lutego 2023 o 14:13:00 UTC+1 Arindam Banerjee napisał(a):

Note: I will be writing a series of articles about the cause of gravity in my facebook timeline, to satisfy my loyal school friends who seem interested. This is the first of such articles. I will also be posting them to sci.physics.

The cause of gravity – 1

Brief:

The formula for universal gravitation is well known to be, as the force F acting between two masses m and M, parted by a distance r from their centres of mass, as F=GmM/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant found by experiment. Recently the author

has updated this formula to F=BnN/r^2 where B is a constant, and n and N are the number of protons or electrons in the masses m and M. It is obvious that as n and N are proportional to m and M, this is essentially the same formula with the difference
that instead of masses, the new formula involves charges. Thus the gravitational force is expressed electrostatically, as a manifestation of electrostatic force. In other words, there is no difference between electrostatic force and gravitational force.

As such, there should be, among reasonable people, no quarrel with the new electrostatic representation of gravity, as on the surface it is a re-statement of the earlier statement. The curious may well be satisfied that an electrostatic representation

of gravity may somehow explain what is so far unexplained and not understood about the manifestations of Nature: such as capillary action in plants and narrow tubes where fluid rises up defying gravity and the law of conservation of energy; and how
charged winds streaming from the Sun can be formed despite the Sun’s huge gravity.

But, as presented – so far - without supporting logic as to its derivation, the new formula seems to be a trivial form of the existing formula, imparting no new knowledge. It may also seem preposterous as uncharged masses, by definition, do not emit

any measurable electric field. Finally, the electrostatic forces are estimated to be as per physics literature to be some 10^39 times stronger than the gravitational force. For all these reasons, the gravitational force has been held to be something
entirely independent, yet similar to the electrostatic force.

It is my purpose, in the following articles, to show that despite the above sound objections arising from the existing scientific viewpoints, indeed the gravitational force is a manifestation of electrostatic force.

Instead of the just the physics community, I will make my appeal primarily to the intelligent lay public, who are innocent of whatever passes for modern physics. For that purpose, prior to making my new points, I will try to impart a crash course in

the fundamentals of electrostatics, as simply as possible. Furthermore, I will as my target audience have my old school friends, whose loyalty and faith in my abilities I most deeply cherish. My sole request to them – and all my other friends in
Facebook and beyond in the online world - is to tell me, as bluntly as possible, exactly what they do not understand about what I will be writing, in further instalments on my Facebook timeline. (I will post my writings in the Usenet newsgroup sci.
physics as well).

Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee, 21/4/2020

The cause of gravity – 2

Historical background:

Sir Isaac Newton, in his great work known as the “Principia”, primarily stressed upon two factors; the role of geometry in modelling reality, and the use of mathematics to make correct and accurate predictions in idealised environments, like say a

body in free space surrounded by nothing. Let us have this in mind when we discuss how he managed to discover gravity, from the general level of the scientific thinking in his time

.
The scientific thinking of his time was Aristotleian. For many hundreds of years, it was believed that the Sun went around the Earth – exactly as we can all see for ourselves. The stars were the openings to Heaven, sending down heavenly light. They

moved in crystal spheres that too revolved around the fixed Earth. The Christian Church devoutly followed the Aristotleian model, for it was perfectly, obviously, correct with the stars being proof of Heaven and the need to be religious and dutiful to
get there, via the Church of course. Let us not forget, no one had a clue about gravity, or even force as a scientific measurement construct, for that matter.

So the ancients did their science in their own way, basically through empirical methods as they lacked the theory and the resulting mathematical modeling. To the extent they were practical, following geometry, they got good results. As an example, let

us see how the Greeks calculated the distance to the Moon. They used parallax. This means that when one points to an object at one point, there is a certain angle with respect to a common plane. From another point on the same plane, there is a different
angle. To experiment (P.S. try this), point at anything a bit distant with a finger or scale with just one eye. Then shut it and open the other eye. The object will have “moved” but it is just the parallax effect. You will have to shift the finger or
the scale to the original object to find the angle of parallax. From the distance between your eyes, and the angle, the distance to the object can be found.

Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120 BC) used the parallax method to get the distance to the Moon with reasonable accuracy. The ancients may not have known about force and gravity the way we do, but they did know about parallax, geometry - and Hipparachus

himself is also credited with inventing trigonometry! Incidentally, the parallax method is still used to this day to find the distance of stars and galaxies from our planet.

Thus Isaac Newton was heir to the great Greek scientific traditions. He had been further influenced by Copernicus and Galileo. About these two, now: let us also get in touch with dates, we are doing some history after all!

Copernicus (1473-1543) is credited with discovering (in the West that is) the heliocentric system, that is, the Sun is fixed and the planets revolve around it. He did it without a telescope, just his naked eye with some pointing tools. And that was

enough. What he found was that the angular positions of heavenly bodies (stars, planets) changed the most every six months, constantly. The same old parallax system is at work, this time instead of the space between two eyes from our earlier example,
twice the distance of the Earth from the Sun! Copernicus concluded that the dominant and hallowed geometric system (Sun and planets and stars going around the Earth each in its own crystal sphere) was wrong. The explanation, to account for this anomaly,
was that the Earth was revolving around the Sun. It was a perilous explanation, for it went against the doctrines of the Church. Galileo (1564-1642) was persecuted in 1633 for supporting Copernicus, by the famous Church Inquisition where he was forced to
recant, and say that Copernicus was wrong and Aristotle was right. He was more fortunate than Giordano Bruno, the talented Dominican friar who was burned at the stake on 17 Feb 1600 for upholding the Copernican heliocentric view, and further stating that
the universe was infinite and that other solar systems also existed.

Back to Isaac Newton (1642 – 1737). It should be obvious from the mood of his time (as presented above) that the geocentric model was absolutely dominant – all the churches expounded it, the universities taught it, all rich and important people

believed it utterly. Exactly as they believe in special and general relativity, quantum theory, big bang, expanding universe, black holes, quarks, bosons, string theories, neutrinos, photons, fusion, e=mcc, spacetime, nothing can go faster than light,
etc. etc. etc. these days, following Einstein, Feynman and Hawking. Newton was evidently too smart to fall for the geocentric model – but how could that make him popular with the powers that were in his time? Newton had a miserable time as a student,
and did his best work when he was on his own, away from the mediocre professors professing the Aristotleian geocentric model. But, he did not have anything really substantial to smash the geocentric model. The angular differences in the positions of the
heavenly bodies could be dismissed with airy hand-waving, along with some spurious explanation like wobble in the crystal spheres, as a devil’s prank to confuse the faithful.

It is said that in 1666 (that is, when Newton was 24 and Galileo had been forced to recant his views only 33 years ago) that the famous apple fell on Newton’s head, or on the ground before him. Why did it fall to the ground? A simple question, but no

one had asked it before. Why was it moving faster and faster (accelerating) as it fell? Newton thought that there had to be an attractive force between the mass of the Earth and the apple, which caused it to fall. It was moving faster and faster because
till it fell, the force was working constantly upon it, causing acceleration. Newton then theorised that all bodies with mass are attracted to each other. The apple falls to the Earth, but the Earth is also influenced – the Earth also moves towards the
apple, but as the Earth is too big, and there are many other falls all over, the Earth’s movement is not discernible.

Newton theorized that the attractive force was proportional to the multiplicative product of the two masses attracting each other, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating them. This directly leads to the present formula, F=

GmM/r^2. However let us not forget that the gravitational constant G was not known until Cavendish measured it in 1797-98, some 131 years after Newton had his famous insight, which had so far eluded everyone else.

If masses did attract one another, just as the Earth attracts the falling apple, then why does not the Earth fall into the Sun, like the apple falling to the ground? Either gravity operated only on Earth (thus the Earth and the Sun did not attract each

other) or the sun being very small (like say Apollo’s chariot) revolved around the Earth; or - and this was supported by astronomical findings supporting Copernican model of the rotating Earth revolving around the Sun - the Earth actually moved around
the Sun.

It was obvious that the Sun was far bigger than the Earth, from the phenomena of eclipses and the knowledge of the Moon’s dimensions. It is still not known 100% that gravitation works for heavenly system, the way it does for the apple-Earth system,

thus the universal theory of gravitation remains a theory, although one of the most powerful theories known, like the atomic theory. It is still a theory, for it cannot explain why ionised masses escape from the Sun’s extraordinary gravitational pull.

The Earth then has to move tangentially, always, for ever, to escape falling into the Sun. It certainly would do so if a giant hand stopped its motion! What Newton with his geometry and maths explained, clearly, was that the Earth is in fact always “

falling into” the Sun, but because of its tangential velocity, “falling out” by more or less the same amount. (The” more or less” accounts for the elliptic orbit, that is, not purely circular, as Kepler (1571-1639) had worked out before Newton.)

The earlier point is worth pondering about, for a few minutes. It explains the motion of all satellites. The tangential motion allows the satellites to not fall back to the Earth, and keep constantly revolving unless the tangential speed is reduced by

drag of some kind, including rocketry.

Another point about gravity – the gravitational force simply depends upon the existence of mass. It never changes for that mass. It is constant, always there. This mass always attracts, thus its force never changes, it is exerted all around in all

angles. Always, always…. Such is the fundamental design of the Universe. Can we probe a bit deeper into its cause, now? I think some more groundwork is necessary.

22/04/2020

The cause of gravity – 3

The conception of force

Force is the central issue in physics – or at least, it should be the central issue in physics. It is from force that all things move, or stay put. Force moved over distance is work, and work has the same units as energy. Energy, then, is expended

when a force moves over a distance. There is a vast difference between force and energy – as I see it, force is for the physicists to better understand the workings of the Universe; and energy is for the businessmen to make money. So it is, that as far
as possible, to understand the fundamentals of Nature, I avoid the use of the energy concept.

The difference between force and energy is tricky. It is easy to confuse one for the other, and most people untrained in physics may do so. Force must have direction – it is thus called a vector. Because forces have direction, two separate forces

operating in the same direction add up to one double-force. In opposite directions, they cancel out to zero. But energy has no direction. It is thus called a scalar quantity. Energy is usually defined as the capacity of a body to do work. It is further
postulated that energy is always conserved. Its form however changes: when we drop a ball to the ground, the potential energy of the ball at the start changes to the maximum kinetic energy just near the point of impact. After this, though, the thinking
is not that clear. After impact, the kinetic energy is converted to heat energy. Instead of saying that this energy is lost, we say, as per classical physics, that the entropy, a mathematical concept about the state of disorder in the universe, has
increased. I have never been happy with this explanation – it seems to me pretty self-evident that energy is continuously getting created by the Sun and Earth, being used for various purposes, before being radiated out for destruction into deep space.
Thus, energy is pretty slippery. It is always getting used up. We need money to use energy, if we cannot make use of the natural sources like the Sun and wind and water and geothermal.

Is force equally slippery?

As far as I can see, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his Notes, made the first-ever proper description of force with the following statements:

“Force I define as a spiritual power, incorporeal and invisible, which with brief life is produced in those bodies which as the result of accidental violence are brought out of their natural state and condition. I have said spiritual because in this

force there is an active, incorporeal life; and I call it invisible because the body in which it is created does not increase in weight or in size; and of brief duration because it desires perpetually to subdue its cause, and when this is subdued it
kills itself.”

Such a definition of force is slippery indeed! From da Vinci’s definition, secularized, force is the “result of accidental violence” brought out “natural state and condition”. Thus it is random and violent. It is “brief in duration”,

meaning it is transient, certainly nothing permanent. A perpetual desire to “subdue its cause” means that it is revolutionary. When successful in that “it kills itself” so is suicidal. This appears as quite a statement of the violent political
mood of his times, based upon sneaky opportunisms, as elaborated upon by his contemporary Machiavelli (1469-1527)!

It will not be difficult to see how much da Vinci’s conception of force - which in his day had to be purely mechanical - influencing later scientists like Galileo, led to the formulation of the well-known Newtonian laws of motion. The phrase “

natural state and condition” is known as inertia, formulated in the first law of motion. “Result of accidental violence” refers to acceleration, and is formulated in the second law of motion. The statement “when this is subdued it kills itself”,
refers to the third law of motion which states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

From the above discussion we find that the conception of mechanical force is not just slippery; it is random, violent, transient and suicidal. Nothing constant about force! And yet, with such conception of force, formed from the greatest minds in the

West, all the wonderful works in engineering have been done, from locomotives to jet engine airplanes; from muskets to missiles; small cars to huge ships! As force is slippery, so energy too is slippery. Energy mutates from one form to another. Just like
force, its magnitude depends upon the frame of reference with respect to any observer. Thus two jet airplanes flying side by side may gently nudge each other, with minimal force or expenditure of energy involved. But if they collide, meaning the
reference frames are opposite now, the forces involved and the energy spent in the disaster is enormous.

The above conception of force, so widely accepted because it was correct, makes Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity all the more remarkable. For gravity is not slippery, nor random, nor violent, transient and suicidal. It is the very opposite. It is

constant, spreading out in all directions, relatively very gentle, and permanent. Being all that, it is gravity which holds us all together on this planet; and it is gravity that makes the entire universe a permanent moving system composed of unlimited
quantities of matter. Gravity, thus, is an entirely different kind of force. As we shall see, it is a much muted form of electrostatic force. Till now, despite their basic similarity, gravity and electrostatic forces are held to be independent: one is
not the manifestation of the other.

A few more points: the random nature of mechanical force had led Leonardo da Vinci to conclude that a device that would perennially give out energy (a perpetual motion machine) was impossible. Even when gravity was discovered as a constant force, this

was found to be true. This inability to construct a perpetual motion machine was a factor in the definition of the law of conservation of energy, that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. Certainly this law is much appreciated by the fossil
fuel industries!

Researching Leonardo da Vinci’s comment on the nature of force, this time with a more modern mindset, we note the words “I have said spiritual because in this force there is an active, incorporeal life”. Now concentrate on the words “in this

force” and “life”. Da Vinci is not talking of force as an expression of the inanimate – for him all forces relate to life and spring from some unknown higher purpose, thus blurring the line between physics and metaphysics.

“Life force” thus is essentially internal. It comes from within, but is related to without. Going by da Vinci’s perception, it is inherently random and self-destructing. But what if it can be made to act otherwise, with the purpose of steady

movement in one direction? What if instead of being pushed around by external forces, bodies can push themselves with internal “life force”? We all know that this is a dream monetized by science fiction. Can this fiction become fact? Can we overcome
the effects of gravity with internal force?

For over twenty years, I have wrestled with the above issues. My work has been presented online. In 2000 I published in my “adda” website my book “To the Stars!”. It attracted minimal interest, till in 2003 an article by myself was published in

the Science Section of Outlook Magazine, in India. I got fiercely hostile reactions to my article, which surprised me before I got disgusted with the low quality of scientific temper, from low personal attacks. For example, one Garg, a junior scientist
in the employ of the Govt. of India, offered gratuitous abuse.

The link for that article is at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/newt-is-old-hat/220728

I now believe, that the editors thought that I was attacking Newton with my new ideas, and that was the reason for its publication!

Arindam Banerjee
25 April 2020

The cause of gravity – 4

Measuring fundamental constants (G) and the meaning of research

(start rant)

Today the entire field of physics is thoroughly institutionalised, with standardised thinking dedicated to perpetuating the established orthodoxies, like any religion. These high priests – in the field of what is called “modern physics” involving

the theories of relativity, publish their weird notions, with amazing smoke screens of mathematical gibberish to confuse the most intelligent lay persons, in select journals and conferences, to maintain their high prestige. Their efforts are very
expensively funded by the Governments and various rich parties, blindly supporting the high priests ensconced in universities and Govt. laboratories. Amateurs or hobbyists have no place in this closed system. The best they can do is to publish their work
online; in social media, email, etc. unless they spend thousands of dollars for publication in some vague journal which will be automatically derided by the establishment because of its low ratings. In this system success is measured in terms of the
money squeezed out from the higher powers for some “output”. Like gravity waves, quarks, red shift, big bang, string theory, black holes, bosons, neutrinos… you name it, there will always be more coming!

So much is this notion prevalent, that only the expenditure of millions or billions of dollars involving vast projects such as making black holes, or fusion energy, is considered solely necessary to finding something new and wonderful – which,

however hardly ever happens. Anything revolutionary in physics, involving low budgets and lone endeavour is automatically discarded as cranky or plain wrong if it goes against the grain of the orthodoxies.

(end rant)

The greatest advances in physics did not require huge investments in money and manpower. What was needed was insight, dedication, patience, skill, tenacity… of the talented amateur, working with minimal help. Sir Isaac Newton is the best known

example, as the discoverer of the force of gravity. But his discovery in 1666 was far from complete. He could only indicate that the gravitational force between two masses was proportional to the product of the two masses, and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between their centres of gravity. Newton did not know what the proportionality constant was. We now know it as the gravitational constant G.

It was only in 1798 (that is 135 years after Newton’s discovery) that the Gravitational Constant was found from measurement, by Henry Cavendish. The experiment was painstakingly done by Cavendish, but the apparatus itself was simple. A recent attempt

to recreate a model of the original apparatus is shown in the Youtube video film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lCjq4IzJw

Cavendish’s experiment was conducted in a large sealed room, to prevent air currents. Two lead balls, spaced widely apart were joined by a thin light rod. A fine string suspended these two balls from their centre of mass, from the ceiling. Two heavy

lead balls were placed near the suspended balls, such that they could each attract the suspended ball in the same direction so as to produce the maximum twisting effect (torque) upon the string. How much the string would twist, could be found out by the
angular displacement of a very light long strip connected to the twisting string. The movement of the edge of this strip could be tracked from its initial position to find the angular displacement.

So much (from above) I have got from the literature, and the rest is my own construction, relating to the necessary calibration and measurement. The gravitational force is very small. And yet, it can be measured correctly with proper application. The

main issue is calibration, for any measurement.

What we have to know is how much the thread twists for a certain torque (twisting action). Let us say that the length of the suspended rod with its attached balls is ten meters. Torque is equal to the force F multiplied by the distance r to the point

of twist. Or T=F*r. With equal force from the other end it is T=F*r + F*r = 2Fr or F.d. The torque motion will be resisted by the material in the string – it cannot twist indefinitely - after a certain angle (depending upon the quality) the string will
no longer twist as a result of the torque. Thus T= k.theta, where theta is the angle of twist and k is a constant depending upon the quality of the string. F.d=k.theta then; now we need to find k.

The issue of calibration now comes in. Let us see how it can be done. From about 10 cm from the centre of the suspending string, tie a fine thread to the rod on both sides. Slide it over a pulley to a suspended mass of say 1 gram, on both sides. A

continuous torque now acts on the suspended string. It will twist by a certain angle, then stop twisting. Measure that angle. Now make more experiments with increasing or decreasing weights, and changing the distances involved, to get many values of
theta, and from F, d and theta, so many values of k which should all be more or less the same for a given torque applied with various values of F and d. Numerous experiments average out the experimental error, statistically, to get k.

The rest of the experiment is simple. Just get the very heavy balls of lead near to the suspended balls, at right angles and as near as possible without touching. The small balls will be attracted by this extra mass near them, and the torque will be

created till the suspended string twists by an angle theta. Knowing k and theta, the torque T is known. Knowing the torque T and the distance d, the gravitational force F between the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball of mass M is known. Various
values of F can be found with increasing or decreasing the static balls; that is fro. Now at the end position, the distance between the centres of gravity of the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball M is found. This is r. So now we have all that
is needed to find the gravitational constant G from the formula

G = F*r*r/(m*M)

With this formula, Cavendish could work out the mass of the Earth, knowing g, the acceleration due to gravity. Every apple of mass m falls to the Earth with mass M, by the law of universal gravitation (it is assumed now that as per Newton not just lead

balls in an experiment are attracted with the constant G, but all bodies in the universe) it falls with a force F which by Newton’s second law is equal to m.g

The above equation can be written as M=F*r*r/(G.m) With F=mg, it is M=r*r*g/G

For the fun of it, let us put in the values to get the mass of the Earth! r is the Earth’s radius which is 6371 Km or 6371000 m. g on the surface is 9.8 m/sec/sec. G is found to be 6.674*10^-11 in MKS units. The calculator result is that the mass of

the Earth is 5.96 *10^24 Kg. How nice! Knowing the mass of the Earth we can also find the mass of the Sun, Moon and so on. In the practical sense, we can know how much force is exerted by the Earth on distant objects like satellites or space vehicles.

**** NEW ****

So far we have been dealing with the known. Research to most means looking things up, but as a professional researcher I do not call that research; I call that search. Research (re-search or search again and again and again…) means looking at an

established search in a new way each time, with a slightly different angle, with the knowledge of relevant new knowledge and finally with special insight (from the Divine, in my case and with all my heroes in science: Plato, da Vinci, Newton, Maxwell,
Tesla, my great-uncle Sir U N Brahmachari) for its own sake, or for some practical purpose.

Applying that notion of research to the notion of the gravitational constant G, what do we find?

**** INSIGHT ****

We find that none of the masses involved in the experiment were charged with electricity.

*****************

Which amounts to, the law of universal gravitation may or may not apply to charged masses. This explains why ions stream out of the Sun, despite the Sun’s huge gravitational force. However up till now, we had assumed that charged masses were subject

to gravitational forces, so the ion streaming from the Sun is a mystery.

But what is charge? Sir Isaac Newton had no idea about charge, no clue about electricity. Cavendish may have had some idea, for his apparatus was a large torsion balance, used to measure electrostatic forces. We will go into the details of

electrostatics in the next instalment. That will be the prelude to expressing the equation of universal gravitation in electrostatic terms.

Arindam Banerjee
29 April 2020

Further comments in my facebook post: 29 April 2020

understand this, that the Gravitational Constant was measured only with masses with no charge in them. Both were uncharged. This is a small but vital point. It shows that assuming that the law of universal gravitation is valid for charged masses is an

assumption. It is the job of the researcher, that is, one who searches old stuff with new eyes, to point this out. And that is what I have done. And will be doing, in later instalments.

With the measurement of the slightest twist of a string, one may thus weigh the Earth, Sun, Moon and the planets! Direct the course of spaceships! Such is the power of the correct theory. Or rather, the more correct theory. Science is always

provisional, that is, in for change.

Thus I wonder, how much mad those around the likes of da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Cavendish, Franklin, Faraday thought them to be! They would not have had the faintest clue of what was going on. They would stoutly believe in established notions

expounded from some pulpit or altar. Things have not changed, have they!?

The cause of gravity – 5

The fundamentals of electrostatic attraction leading to the structure of the atom

To recapitulate the thesis: “The formula for universal gravitation is well known to be, as the force F acting between two masses m and M, parted by a distance r from their centres of mass, as F=GmM/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant found by

experiment. Recently the author has updated this formula to F=BnN/r^2 where B is a constant, and n and N are the number of protons or electrons in the masses m and M. It is obvious that as n and N are proportional to m and M, this is essentially the same
formula with the difference that instead of masses, the new formula involves charges. Thus the gravitational force is expressed electrostatically, as a manifestation of electrostatic force. In other words, there is no difference between electrostatic
force and gravitational force.”

We have dealt with the development of gravitational force at some length, in the earlier instalments. To validate the thesis that there is no difference between electrostatic force and gravitational force, let us see how the electrostatic force was

developed to the point where it could be seen as being deeply involved in the basic elements of matter, that is, atoms.


[continued in next message]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Thursday, 30 March 2023 at 07:49:01 UTC+11, Enes Richard wrote:

piątek, 3 lutego 2023 o 14:13:00 UTC+1 Arindam Banerjee napisał(a):

Note: I will be writing a series of articles about the cause of gravity in my facebook timeline, to satisfy my loyal school friends who seem interested. This is the first of such articles. I will also be posting them to sci.physics.

The cause of gravity – 1

Brief:

The formula for universal gravitation is well known to be, as the force F acting between two masses m and M, parted by a distance r from their centres of mass, as F=GmM/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant found by experiment. Recently the

author has updated this formula to F=BnN/r^2 where B is a constant, and n and N are the number of protons or electrons in the masses m and M. It is obvious that as n and N are proportional to m and M, this is essentially the same formula with the
difference that instead of masses, the new formula involves charges. Thus the gravitational force is expressed electrostatically, as a manifestation of electrostatic force. In other words, there is no difference between electrostatic force and
gravitational force.

As such, there should be, among reasonable people, no quarrel with the new electrostatic representation of gravity, as on the surface it is a re-statement of the earlier statement. The curious may well be satisfied that an electrostatic

representation of gravity may somehow explain what is so far unexplained and not understood about the manifestations of Nature: such as capillary action in plants and narrow tubes where fluid rises up defying gravity and the law of conservation of energy;
and how charged winds streaming from the Sun can be formed despite the Sun’s huge gravity.

But, as presented – so far - without supporting logic as to its derivation, the new formula seems to be a trivial form of the existing formula, imparting no new knowledge. It may also seem preposterous as uncharged masses, by definition, do not

emit any measurable electric field. Finally, the electrostatic forces are estimated to be as per physics literature to be some 10^39 times stronger than the gravitational force. For all these reasons, the gravitational force has been held to be something
entirely independent, yet similar to the electrostatic force.

It is my purpose, in the following articles, to show that despite the above sound objections arising from the existing scientific viewpoints, indeed the gravitational force is a manifestation of electrostatic force.

Instead of the just the physics community, I will make my appeal primarily to the intelligent lay public, who are innocent of whatever passes for modern physics. For that purpose, prior to making my new points, I will try to impart a crash course in

the fundamentals of electrostatics, as simply as possible. Furthermore, I will as my target audience have my old school friends, whose loyalty and faith in my abilities I most deeply cherish. My sole request to them – and all my other friends in
Facebook and beyond in the online world - is to tell me, as bluntly as possible, exactly what they do not understand about what I will be writing, in further instalments on my Facebook timeline. (I will post my writings in the Usenet newsgroup sci.
physics as well).

Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee, 21/4/2020

The cause of gravity – 2

Historical background:

Sir Isaac Newton, in his great work known as the “Principia”, primarily stressed upon two factors; the role of geometry in modelling reality, and the use of mathematics to make correct and accurate predictions in idealised environments, like say

a body in free space surrounded by nothing. Let us have this in mind when we discuss how he managed to discover gravity, from the general level of the scientific thinking in his time

.
The scientific thinking of his time was Aristotleian. For many hundreds of years, it was believed that the Sun went around the Earth – exactly as we can all see for ourselves. The stars were the openings to Heaven, sending down heavenly light. They

moved in crystal spheres that too revolved around the fixed Earth. The Christian Church devoutly followed the Aristotleian model, for it was perfectly, obviously, correct with the stars being proof of Heaven and the need to be religious and dutiful to
get there, via the Church of course. Let us not forget, no one had a clue about gravity, or even force as a scientific measurement construct, for that matter.

So the ancients did their science in their own way, basically through empirical methods as they lacked the theory and the resulting mathematical modeling. To the extent they were practical, following geometry, they got good results. As an example,

let us see how the Greeks calculated the distance to the Moon. They used parallax. This means that when one points to an object at one point, there is a certain angle with respect to a common plane. From another point on the same plane, there is a
different angle. To experiment (P.S. try this), point at anything a bit distant with a finger or scale with just one eye. Then shut it and open the other eye. The object will have “moved” but it is just the parallax effect. You will have to shift the
finger or the scale to the original object to find the angle of parallax. From the distance between your eyes, and the angle, the distance to the object can be found.

Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120 BC) used the parallax method to get the distance to the Moon with reasonable accuracy. The ancients may not have known about force and gravity the way we do, but they did know about parallax, geometry - and Hipparachus

himself is also credited with inventing trigonometry! Incidentally, the parallax method is still used to this day to find the distance of stars and galaxies from our planet.

Thus Isaac Newton was heir to the great Greek scientific traditions. He had been further influenced by Copernicus and Galileo. About these two, now: let us also get in touch with dates, we are doing some history after all!

Copernicus (1473-1543) is credited with discovering (in the West that is) the heliocentric system, that is, the Sun is fixed and the planets revolve around it. He did it without a telescope, just his naked eye with some pointing tools. And that was

enough. What he found was that the angular positions of heavenly bodies (stars, planets) changed the most every six months, constantly. The same old parallax system is at work, this time instead of the space between two eyes from our earlier example,
twice the distance of the Earth from the Sun! Copernicus concluded that the dominant and hallowed geometric system (Sun and planets and stars going around the Earth each in its own crystal sphere) was wrong. The explanation, to account for this anomaly,
was that the Earth was revolving around the Sun. It was a perilous explanation, for it went against the doctrines of the Church. Galileo (1564-1642) was persecuted in 1633 for supporting Copernicus, by the famous Church Inquisition where he was forced to
recant, and say that Copernicus was wrong and Aristotle was right. He was more fortunate than Giordano Bruno, the talented Dominican friar who was burned at the stake on 17 Feb 1600 for upholding the Copernican heliocentric view, and further stating that
the universe was infinite and that other solar systems also existed.

Back to Isaac Newton (1642 – 1737). It should be obvious from the mood of his time (as presented above) that the geocentric model was absolutely dominant – all the churches expounded it, the universities taught it, all rich and important people

believed it utterly. Exactly as they believe in special and general relativity, quantum theory, big bang, expanding universe, black holes, quarks, bosons, string theories, neutrinos, photons, fusion, e=mcc, spacetime, nothing can go faster than light,
etc. etc. etc. these days, following Einstein, Feynman and Hawking. Newton was evidently too smart to fall for the geocentric model – but how could that make him popular with the powers that were in his time? Newton had a miserable time as a student,
and did his best work when he was on his own, away from the mediocre professors professing the Aristotleian geocentric model. But, he did not have anything really substantial to smash the geocentric model. The angular differences in the positions of the
heavenly bodies could be dismissed with airy hand-waving, along with some spurious explanation like wobble in the crystal spheres, as a devil’s prank to confuse the faithful.

It is said that in 1666 (that is, when Newton was 24 and Galileo had been forced to recant his views only 33 years ago) that the famous apple fell on Newton’s head, or on the ground before him. Why did it fall to the ground? A simple question, but

no one had asked it before. Why was it moving faster and faster (accelerating) as it fell? Newton thought that there had to be an attractive force between the mass of the Earth and the apple, which caused it to fall. It was moving faster and faster
because till it fell, the force was working constantly upon it, causing acceleration. Newton then theorised that all bodies with mass are attracted to each other. The apple falls to the Earth, but the Earth is also influenced – the Earth also moves
towards the apple, but as the Earth is too big, and there are many other falls all over, the Earth’s movement is not discernible.

Newton theorized that the attractive force was proportional to the multiplicative product of the two masses attracting each other, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating them. This directly leads to the present formula, F=

GmM/r^2. However let us not forget that the gravitational constant G was not known until Cavendish measured it in 1797-98, some 131 years after Newton had his famous insight, which had so far eluded everyone else.

If masses did attract one another, just as the Earth attracts the falling apple, then why does not the Earth fall into the Sun, like the apple falling to the ground? Either gravity operated only on Earth (thus the Earth and the Sun did not attract

each other) or the sun being very small (like say Apollo’s chariot) revolved around the Earth; or - and this was supported by astronomical findings supporting Copernican model of the rotating Earth revolving around the Sun - the Earth actually moved
around the Sun.

It was obvious that the Sun was far bigger than the Earth, from the phenomena of eclipses and the knowledge of the Moon’s dimensions. It is still not known 100% that gravitation works for heavenly system, the way it does for the apple-Earth system,

thus the universal theory of gravitation remains a theory, although one of the most powerful theories known, like the atomic theory. It is still a theory, for it cannot explain why ionised masses escape from the Sun’s extraordinary gravitational pull.

The Earth then has to move tangentially, always, for ever, to escape falling into the Sun. It certainly would do so if a giant hand stopped its motion! What Newton with his geometry and maths explained, clearly, was that the Earth is in fact always �

�falling into” the Sun, but because of its tangential velocity, “falling out” by more or less the same amount. (The” more or less” accounts for the elliptic orbit, that is, not purely circular, as Kepler (1571-1639) had worked out before Newton.
)

The earlier point is worth pondering about, for a few minutes. It explains the motion of all satellites. The tangential motion allows the satellites to not fall back to the Earth, and keep constantly revolving unless the tangential speed is reduced

by drag of some kind, including rocketry.

Another point about gravity – the gravitational force simply depends upon the existence of mass. It never changes for that mass. It is constant, always there. This mass always attracts, thus its force never changes, it is exerted all around in all

angles. Always, always…. Such is the fundamental design of the Universe. Can we probe a bit deeper into its cause, now? I think some more groundwork is necessary.

22/04/2020

The cause of gravity – 3

The conception of force

Force is the central issue in physics – or at least, it should be the central issue in physics. It is from force that all things move, or stay put. Force moved over distance is work, and work has the same units as energy. Energy, then, is expended

when a force moves over a distance. There is a vast difference between force and energy – as I see it, force is for the physicists to better understand the workings of the Universe; and energy is for the businessmen to make money. So it is, that as far
as possible, to understand the fundamentals of Nature, I avoid the use of the energy concept.

The difference between force and energy is tricky. It is easy to confuse one for the other, and most people untrained in physics may do so. Force must have direction – it is thus called a vector. Because forces have direction, two separate forces

operating in the same direction add up to one double-force. In opposite directions, they cancel out to zero. But energy has no direction. It is thus called a scalar quantity. Energy is usually defined as the capacity of a body to do work. It is further
postulated that energy is always conserved. Its form however changes: when we drop a ball to the ground, the potential energy of the ball at the start changes to the maximum kinetic energy just near the point of impact. After this, though, the thinking
is not that clear. After impact, the kinetic energy is converted to heat energy. Instead of saying that this energy is lost, we say, as per classical physics, that the entropy, a mathematical concept about the state of disorder in the universe, has
increased. I have never been happy with this explanation – it seems to me pretty self-evident that energy is continuously getting created by the Sun and Earth, being used for various purposes, before being radiated out for destruction into deep space.
Thus, energy is pretty slippery. It is always getting used up. We need money to use energy, if we cannot make use of the natural sources like the Sun and wind and water and geothermal.

Is force equally slippery?

As far as I can see, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his Notes, made the first-ever proper description of force with the following statements:

“Force I define as a spiritual power, incorporeal and invisible, which with brief life is produced in those bodies which as the result of accidental violence are brought out of their natural state and condition. I have said spiritual because in

this force there is an active, incorporeal life; and I call it invisible because the body in which it is created does not increase in weight or in size; and of brief duration because it desires perpetually to subdue its cause, and when this is subdued it
kills itself.”

Such a definition of force is slippery indeed! From da Vinci’s definition, secularized, force is the “result of accidental violence” brought out “natural state and condition”. Thus it is random and violent. It is “brief in duration”,

meaning it is transient, certainly nothing permanent. A perpetual desire to “subdue its cause” means that it is revolutionary. When successful in that “it kills itself” so is suicidal. This appears as quite a statement of the violent political
mood of his times, based upon sneaky opportunisms, as elaborated upon by his contemporary Machiavelli (1469-1527)!

It will not be difficult to see how much da Vinci’s conception of force - which in his day had to be purely mechanical - influencing later scientists like Galileo, led to the formulation of the well-known Newtonian laws of motion. The phrase “

natural state and condition” is known as inertia, formulated in the first law of motion. “Result of accidental violence” refers to acceleration, and is formulated in the second law of motion. The statement “when this is subdued it kills itself”,
refers to the third law of motion which states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

From the above discussion we find that the conception of mechanical force is not just slippery; it is random, violent, transient and suicidal. Nothing constant about force! And yet, with such conception of force, formed from the greatest minds in the

West, all the wonderful works in engineering have been done, from locomotives to jet engine airplanes; from muskets to missiles; small cars to huge ships! As force is slippery, so energy too is slippery. Energy mutates from one form to another. Just like
force, its magnitude depends upon the frame of reference with respect to any observer. Thus two jet airplanes flying side by side may gently nudge each other, with minimal force or expenditure of energy involved. But if they collide, meaning the
reference frames are opposite now, the forces involved and the energy spent in the disaster is enormous.

The above conception of force, so widely accepted because it was correct, makes Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity all the more remarkable. For gravity is not slippery, nor random, nor violent, transient and suicidal. It is the very opposite. It

is constant, spreading out in all directions, relatively very gentle, and permanent. Being all that, it is gravity which holds us all together on this planet; and it is gravity that makes the entire universe a permanent moving system composed of
unlimited quantities of matter. Gravity, thus, is an entirely different kind of force. As we shall see, it is a much muted form of electrostatic force. Till now, despite their basic similarity, gravity and electrostatic forces are held to be independent:
one is not the manifestation of the other.

A few more points: the random nature of mechanical force had led Leonardo da Vinci to conclude that a device that would perennially give out energy (a perpetual motion machine) was impossible. Even when gravity was discovered as a constant force,

this was found to be true. This inability to construct a perpetual motion machine was a factor in the definition of the law of conservation of energy, that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. Certainly this law is much appreciated by the
fossil fuel industries!

Researching Leonardo da Vinci’s comment on the nature of force, this time with a more modern mindset, we note the words “I have said spiritual because in this force there is an active, incorporeal life”. Now concentrate on the words “in this

force” and “life”. Da Vinci is not talking of force as an expression of the inanimate – for him all forces relate to life and spring from some unknown higher purpose, thus blurring the line between physics and metaphysics.

“Life force” thus is essentially internal. It comes from within, but is related to without. Going by da Vinci’s perception, it is inherently random and self-destructing. But what if it can be made to act otherwise, with the purpose of steady

movement in one direction? What if instead of being pushed around by external forces, bodies can push themselves with internal “life force”? We all know that this is a dream monetized by science fiction. Can this fiction become fact? Can we overcome
the effects of gravity with internal force?

For over twenty years, I have wrestled with the above issues. My work has been presented online. In 2000 I published in my “adda” website my book “To the Stars!”. It attracted minimal interest, till in 2003 an article by myself was published

in the Science Section of Outlook Magazine, in India. I got fiercely hostile reactions to my article, which surprised me before I got disgusted with the low quality of scientific temper, from low personal attacks. For example, one Garg, a junior
scientist in the employ of the Govt. of India, offered gratuitous abuse.

The link for that article is at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/newt-is-old-hat/220728

I now believe, that the editors thought that I was attacking Newton with my new ideas, and that was the reason for its publication!

Arindam Banerjee
25 April 2020

The cause of gravity – 4

Measuring fundamental constants (G) and the meaning of research

(start rant)

Today the entire field of physics is thoroughly institutionalised, with standardised thinking dedicated to perpetuating the established orthodoxies, like any religion. These high priests – in the field of what is called “modern physics”

involving the theories of relativity, publish their weird notions, with amazing smoke screens of mathematical gibberish to confuse the most intelligent lay persons, in select journals and conferences, to maintain their high prestige. Their efforts are
very expensively funded by the Governments and various rich parties, blindly supporting the high priests ensconced in universities and Govt. laboratories. Amateurs or hobbyists have no place in this closed system. The best they can do is to publish their
work online; in social media, email, etc. unless they spend thousands of dollars for publication in some vague journal which will be automatically derided by the establishment because of its low ratings. In this system success is measured in terms of the
money squeezed out from the higher powers for some “output”. Like gravity waves, quarks, red shift, big bang, string theory, black holes, bosons, neutrinos… you name it, there will always be more coming!

So much is this notion prevalent, that only the expenditure of millions or billions of dollars involving vast projects such as making black holes, or fusion energy, is considered solely necessary to finding something new and wonderful – which,

however hardly ever happens. Anything revolutionary in physics, involving low budgets and lone endeavour is automatically discarded as cranky or plain wrong if it goes against the grain of the orthodoxies.

(end rant)

The greatest advances in physics did not require huge investments in money and manpower. What was needed was insight, dedication, patience, skill, tenacity… of the talented amateur, working with minimal help. Sir Isaac Newton is the best known

example, as the discoverer of the force of gravity. But his discovery in 1666 was far from complete. He could only indicate that the gravitational force between two masses was proportional to the product of the two masses, and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between their centres of gravity. Newton did not know what the proportionality constant was. We now know it as the gravitational constant G.

It was only in 1798 (that is 135 years after Newton’s discovery) that the Gravitational Constant was found from measurement, by Henry Cavendish. The experiment was painstakingly done by Cavendish, but the apparatus itself was simple. A recent

attempt to recreate a model of the original apparatus is shown in the Youtube video film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lCjq4IzJw

Cavendish’s experiment was conducted in a large sealed room, to prevent air currents. Two lead balls, spaced widely apart were joined by a thin light rod. A fine string suspended these two balls from their centre of mass, from the ceiling. Two

heavy lead balls were placed near the suspended balls, such that they could each attract the suspended ball in the same direction so as to produce the maximum twisting effect (torque) upon the string. How much the string would twist, could be found out
by the angular displacement of a very light long strip connected to the twisting string. The movement of the edge of this strip could be tracked from its initial position to find the angular displacement.

So much (from above) I have got from the literature, and the rest is my own construction, relating to the necessary calibration and measurement. The gravitational force is very small. And yet, it can be measured correctly with proper application. The

main issue is calibration, for any measurement.

What we have to know is how much the thread twists for a certain torque (twisting action). Let us say that the length of the suspended rod with its attached balls is ten meters. Torque is equal to the force F multiplied by the distance r to the point

of twist. Or T=F*r. With equal force from the other end it is T=F*r + F*r = 2Fr or F.d. The torque motion will be resisted by the material in the string – it cannot twist indefinitely - after a certain angle (depending upon the quality) the string will
no longer twist as a result of the torque. Thus T= k.theta, where theta is the angle of twist and k is a constant depending upon the quality of the string. F.d=k.theta then; now we need to find k.

The issue of calibration now comes in. Let us see how it can be done. From about 10 cm from the centre of the suspending string, tie a fine thread to the rod on both sides. Slide it over a pulley to a suspended mass of say 1 gram, on both sides. A

continuous torque now acts on the suspended string. It will twist by a certain angle, then stop twisting. Measure that angle. Now make more experiments with increasing or decreasing weights, and changing the distances involved, to get many values of
theta, and from F, d and theta, so many values of k which should all be more or less the same for a given torque applied with various values of F and d. Numerous experiments average out the experimental error, statistically, to get k.

The rest of the experiment is simple. Just get the very heavy balls of lead near to the suspended balls, at right angles and as near as possible without touching. The small balls will be attracted by this extra mass near them, and the torque will be

created till the suspended string twists by an angle theta. Knowing k and theta, the torque T is known. Knowing the torque T and the distance d, the gravitational force F between the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball of mass M is known. Various
values of F can be found with increasing or decreasing the static balls; that is fro. Now at the end position, the distance between the centres of gravity of the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball M is found. This is r. So now we have all that
is needed to find the gravitational constant G from the formula

G = F*r*r/(m*M)

With this formula, Cavendish could work out the mass of the Earth, knowing g, the acceleration due to gravity. Every apple of mass m falls to the Earth with mass M, by the law of universal gravitation (it is assumed now that as per Newton not just

lead balls in an experiment are attracted with the constant G, but all bodies in the universe) it falls with a force F which by Newton’s second law is equal to m.g

The above equation can be written as M=F*r*r/(G.m) With F=mg, it is M=r*r*g/G

For the fun of it, let us put in the values to get the mass of the Earth! r is the Earth’s radius which is 6371 Km or 6371000 m. g on the surface is 9.8 m/sec/sec. G is found to be 6.674*10^-11 in MKS units. The calculator result is that the mass

of the Earth is 5.96 *10^24 Kg. How nice! Knowing the mass of the Earth we can also find the mass of the Sun, Moon and so on. In the practical sense, we can know how much force is exerted by the Earth on distant objects like satellites or space vehicles.

**** NEW ****

So far we have been dealing with the known. Research to most means looking things up, but as a professional researcher I do not call that research; I call that search. Research (re-search or search again and again and again…) means looking at an

established search in a new way each time, with a slightly different angle, with the knowledge of relevant new knowledge and finally with special insight (from the Divine, in my case and with all my heroes in science: Plato, da Vinci, Newton, Maxwell,
Tesla, my great-uncle Sir U N Brahmachari) for its own sake, or for some practical purpose.

Applying that notion of research to the notion of the gravitational constant G, what do we find?

**** INSIGHT ****

We find that none of the masses involved in the experiment were charged with electricity.

*****************

Which amounts to, the law of universal gravitation may or may not apply to charged masses. This explains why ions stream out of the Sun, despite the Sun’s huge gravitational force. However up till now, we had assumed that charged masses were

subject to gravitational forces, so the ion streaming from the Sun is a mystery.

But what is charge? Sir Isaac Newton had no idea about charge, no clue about electricity. Cavendish may have had some idea, for his apparatus was a large torsion balance, used to measure electrostatic forces. We will go into the details of

electrostatics in the next instalment. That will be the prelude to expressing the equation of universal gravitation in electrostatic terms.

Arindam Banerjee
29 April 2020

Further comments in my facebook post: 29 April 2020

understand this, that the Gravitational Constant was measured only with masses with no charge in them. Both were uncharged. This is a small but vital point. It shows that assuming that the law of universal gravitation is valid for charged masses is

an assumption. It is the job of the researcher, that is, one who searches old stuff with new eyes, to point this out. And that is what I have done. And will be doing, in later instalments.

With the measurement of the slightest twist of a string, one may thus weigh the Earth, Sun, Moon and the planets! Direct the course of spaceships! Such is the power of the correct theory. Or rather, the more correct theory. Science is always

provisional, that is, in for change.

Thus I wonder, how much mad those around the likes of da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Cavendish, Franklin, Faraday thought them to be! They would not have had the faintest clue of what was going on. They would stoutly believe in established notions

expounded from some pulpit or altar. Things have not changed, have they!?

The cause of gravity – 5

The fundamentals of electrostatic attraction leading to the structure of the atom

To recapitulate the thesis: “The formula for universal gravitation is well known to be, as the force F acting between two masses m and M, parted by a distance r from their centres of mass, as F=GmM/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant found

by experiment. Recently the author has updated this formula to F=BnN/r^2 where B is a constant, and n and N are the number of protons or electrons in the masses m and M. It is obvious that as n and N are proportional to m and M, this is essentially the
same formula with the difference that instead of masses, the new formula involves charges. Thus the gravitational force is expressed electrostatically, as a manifestation of electrostatic force. In other words, there is no difference between
electrostatic force and gravitational force.”


[continued in next message]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

czwartek, 30 marca 2023 o 00:04:38 UTC+2 Arindam Banerjee napisał(a):

On Thursday, 30 March 2023 at 07:49:01 UTC+11, Enes Richard wrote:

piątek, 3 lutego 2023 o 14:13:00 UTC+1 Arindam Banerjee napisał(a):

Note: I will be writing a series of articles about the cause of gravity in my facebook timeline, to satisfy my loyal school friends who seem interested. This is the first of such articles. I will also be posting them to sci.physics.

The cause of gravity – 1

Brief:

The formula for universal gravitation is well known to be, as the force F acting between two masses m and M, parted by a distance r from their centres of mass, as F=GmM/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant found by experiment. Recently the

author has updated this formula to F=BnN/r^2 where B is a constant, and n and N are the number of protons or electrons in the masses m and M. It is obvious that as n and N are proportional to m and M, this is essentially the same formula with the
difference that instead of masses, the new formula involves charges. Thus the gravitational force is expressed electrostatically, as a manifestation of electrostatic force. In other words, there is no difference between electrostatic force and
gravitational force.

As such, there should be, among reasonable people, no quarrel with the new electrostatic representation of gravity, as on the surface it is a re-statement of the earlier statement. The curious may well be satisfied that an electrostatic

representation of gravity may somehow explain what is so far unexplained and not understood about the manifestations of Nature: such as capillary action in plants and narrow tubes where fluid rises up defying gravity and the law of conservation of energy;
and how charged winds streaming from the Sun can be formed despite the Sun’s huge gravity.

But, as presented – so far - without supporting logic as to its derivation, the new formula seems to be a trivial form of the existing formula, imparting no new knowledge. It may also seem preposterous as uncharged masses, by definition, do not

emit any measurable electric field. Finally, the electrostatic forces are estimated to be as per physics literature to be some 10^39 times stronger than the gravitational force. For all these reasons, the gravitational force has been held to be something
entirely independent, yet similar to the electrostatic force.

It is my purpose, in the following articles, to show that despite the above sound objections arising from the existing scientific viewpoints, indeed the gravitational force is a manifestation of electrostatic force.

Instead of the just the physics community, I will make my appeal primarily to the intelligent lay public, who are innocent of whatever passes for modern physics. For that purpose, prior to making my new points, I will try to impart a crash course

in the fundamentals of electrostatics, as simply as possible. Furthermore, I will as my target audience have my old school friends, whose loyalty and faith in my abilities I most deeply cherish. My sole request to them – and all my other friends in
Facebook and beyond in the online world - is to tell me, as bluntly as possible, exactly what they do not understand about what I will be writing, in further instalments on my Facebook timeline. (I will post my writings in the Usenet newsgroup sci.
physics as well).

Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee, 21/4/2020

The cause of gravity – 2

Historical background:

Sir Isaac Newton, in his great work known as the “Principia”, primarily stressed upon two factors; the role of geometry in modelling reality, and the use of mathematics to make correct and accurate predictions in idealised environments, like

say a body in free space surrounded by nothing. Let us have this in mind when we discuss how he managed to discover gravity, from the general level of the scientific thinking in his time

.
The scientific thinking of his time was Aristotleian. For many hundreds of years, it was believed that the Sun went around the Earth – exactly as we can all see for ourselves. The stars were the openings to Heaven, sending down heavenly light.

They moved in crystal spheres that too revolved around the fixed Earth. The Christian Church devoutly followed the Aristotleian model, for it was perfectly, obviously, correct with the stars being proof of Heaven and the need to be religious and dutiful
to get there, via the Church of course. Let us not forget, no one had a clue about gravity, or even force as a scientific measurement construct, for that matter.

So the ancients did their science in their own way, basically through empirical methods as they lacked the theory and the resulting mathematical modeling. To the extent they were practical, following geometry, they got good results. As an example,

let us see how the Greeks calculated the distance to the Moon. They used parallax. This means that when one points to an object at one point, there is a certain angle with respect to a common plane. From another point on the same plane, there is a
different angle. To experiment (P.S. try this), point at anything a bit distant with a finger or scale with just one eye. Then shut it and open the other eye. The object will have “moved” but it is just the parallax effect. You will have to shift the
finger or the scale to the original object to find the angle of parallax. From the distance between your eyes, and the angle, the distance to the object can be found.

Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120 BC) used the parallax method to get the distance to the Moon with reasonable accuracy. The ancients may not have known about force and gravity the way we do, but they did know about parallax, geometry - and Hipparachus

himself is also credited with inventing trigonometry! Incidentally, the parallax method is still used to this day to find the distance of stars and galaxies from our planet.

Thus Isaac Newton was heir to the great Greek scientific traditions. He had been further influenced by Copernicus and Galileo. About these two, now: let us also get in touch with dates, we are doing some history after all!

Copernicus (1473-1543) is credited with discovering (in the West that is) the heliocentric system, that is, the Sun is fixed and the planets revolve around it. He did it without a telescope, just his naked eye with some pointing tools. And that was

enough. What he found was that the angular positions of heavenly bodies (stars, planets) changed the most every six months, constantly. The same old parallax system is at work, this time instead of the space between two eyes from our earlier example,
twice the distance of the Earth from the Sun! Copernicus concluded that the dominant and hallowed geometric system (Sun and planets and stars going around the Earth each in its own crystal sphere) was wrong. The explanation, to account for this anomaly,
was that the Earth was revolving around the Sun. It was a perilous explanation, for it went against the doctrines of the Church. Galileo (1564-1642) was persecuted in 1633 for supporting Copernicus, by the famous Church Inquisition where he was forced to
recant, and say that Copernicus was wrong and Aristotle was right. He was more fortunate than Giordano Bruno, the talented Dominican friar who was burned at the stake on 17 Feb 1600 for upholding the Copernican heliocentric view, and further stating that
the universe was infinite and that other solar systems also existed.

Back to Isaac Newton (1642 – 1737). It should be obvious from the mood of his time (as presented above) that the geocentric model was absolutely dominant – all the churches expounded it, the universities taught it, all rich and important people

believed it utterly. Exactly as they believe in special and general relativity, quantum theory, big bang, expanding universe, black holes, quarks, bosons, string theories, neutrinos, photons, fusion, e=mcc, spacetime, nothing can go faster than light,
etc. etc. etc. these days, following Einstein, Feynman and Hawking. Newton was evidently too smart to fall for the geocentric model – but how could that make him popular with the powers that were in his time? Newton had a miserable time as a student,
and did his best work when he was on his own, away from the mediocre professors professing the Aristotleian geocentric model. But, he did not have anything really substantial to smash the geocentric model. The angular differences in the positions of the
heavenly bodies could be dismissed with airy hand-waving, along with some spurious explanation like wobble in the crystal spheres, as a devil’s prank to confuse the faithful.

It is said that in 1666 (that is, when Newton was 24 and Galileo had been forced to recant his views only 33 years ago) that the famous apple fell on Newton’s head, or on the ground before him. Why did it fall to the ground? A simple question,

but no one had asked it before. Why was it moving faster and faster (accelerating) as it fell? Newton thought that there had to be an attractive force between the mass of the Earth and the apple, which caused it to fall. It was moving faster and faster
because till it fell, the force was working constantly upon it, causing acceleration. Newton then theorised that all bodies with mass are attracted to each other. The apple falls to the Earth, but the Earth is also influenced – the Earth also moves
towards the apple, but as the Earth is too big, and there are many other falls all over, the Earth’s movement is not discernible.

Newton theorized that the attractive force was proportional to the multiplicative product of the two masses attracting each other, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating them. This directly leads to the present formula,

F=GmM/r^2. However let us not forget that the gravitational constant G was not known until Cavendish measured it in 1797-98, some 131 years after Newton had his famous insight, which had so far eluded everyone else.

If masses did attract one another, just as the Earth attracts the falling apple, then why does not the Earth fall into the Sun, like the apple falling to the ground? Either gravity operated only on Earth (thus the Earth and the Sun did not attract

each other) or the sun being very small (like say Apollo’s chariot) revolved around the Earth; or - and this was supported by astronomical findings supporting Copernican model of the rotating Earth revolving around the Sun - the Earth actually moved
around the Sun.

It was obvious that the Sun was far bigger than the Earth, from the phenomena of eclipses and the knowledge of the Moon’s dimensions. It is still not known 100% that gravitation works for heavenly system, the way it does for the apple-Earth

system, thus the universal theory of gravitation remains a theory, although one of the most powerful theories known, like the atomic theory. It is still a theory, for it cannot explain why ionised masses escape from the Sun’s extraordinary
gravitational pull.

The Earth then has to move tangentially, always, for ever, to escape falling into the Sun. It certainly would do so if a giant hand stopped its motion! What Newton with his geometry and maths explained, clearly, was that the Earth is in fact always

“falling into” the Sun, but because of its tangential velocity, “falling out” by more or less the same amount. (The” more or less” accounts for the elliptic orbit, that is, not purely circular, as Kepler (1571-1639) had worked out before
Newton.)

The earlier point is worth pondering about, for a few minutes. It explains the motion of all satellites. The tangential motion allows the satellites to not fall back to the Earth, and keep constantly revolving unless the tangential speed is reduced

by drag of some kind, including rocketry.

Another point about gravity – the gravitational force simply depends upon the existence of mass. It never changes for that mass. It is constant, always there. This mass always attracts, thus its force never changes, it is exerted all around in

all angles. Always, always…. Such is the fundamental design of the Universe. Can we probe a bit deeper into its cause, now? I think some more groundwork is necessary.

22/04/2020

The cause of gravity – 3

The conception of force

Force is the central issue in physics – or at least, it should be the central issue in physics. It is from force that all things move, or stay put. Force moved over distance is work, and work has the same units as energy. Energy, then, is

expended when a force moves over a distance. There is a vast difference between force and energy – as I see it, force is for the physicists to better understand the workings of the Universe; and energy is for the businessmen to make money. So it is,
that as far as possible, to understand the fundamentals of Nature, I avoid the use of the energy concept.

The difference between force and energy is tricky. It is easy to confuse one for the other, and most people untrained in physics may do so. Force must have direction – it is thus called a vector. Because forces have direction, two separate forces

operating in the same direction add up to one double-force. In opposite directions, they cancel out to zero. But energy has no direction. It is thus called a scalar quantity. Energy is usually defined as the capacity of a body to do work. It is further
postulated that energy is always conserved. Its form however changes: when we drop a ball to the ground, the potential energy of the ball at the start changes to the maximum kinetic energy just near the point of impact. After this, though, the thinking
is not that clear. After impact, the kinetic energy is converted to heat energy. Instead of saying that this energy is lost, we say, as per classical physics, that the entropy, a mathematical concept about the state of disorder in the universe, has
increased. I have never been happy with this explanation – it seems to me pretty self-evident that energy is continuously getting created by the Sun and Earth, being used for various purposes, before being radiated out for destruction into deep space.
Thus, energy is pretty slippery. It is always getting used up. We need money to use energy, if we cannot make use of the natural sources like the Sun and wind and water and geothermal.

Is force equally slippery?

As far as I can see, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his Notes, made the first-ever proper description of force with the following statements:

“Force I define as a spiritual power, incorporeal and invisible, which with brief life is produced in those bodies which as the result of accidental violence are brought out of their natural state and condition. I have said spiritual because in

this force there is an active, incorporeal life; and I call it invisible because the body in which it is created does not increase in weight or in size; and of brief duration because it desires perpetually to subdue its cause, and when this is subdued it
kills itself.”

Such a definition of force is slippery indeed! From da Vinci’s definition, secularized, force is the “result of accidental violence” brought out “natural state and condition”. Thus it is random and violent. It is “brief in duration”,

meaning it is transient, certainly nothing permanent. A perpetual desire to “subdue its cause” means that it is revolutionary. When successful in that “it kills itself” so is suicidal. This appears as quite a statement of the violent political
mood of his times, based upon sneaky opportunisms, as elaborated upon by his contemporary Machiavelli (1469-1527)!

It will not be difficult to see how much da Vinci’s conception of force - which in his day had to be purely mechanical - influencing later scientists like Galileo, led to the formulation of the well-known Newtonian laws of motion. The phrase “

natural state and condition” is known as inertia, formulated in the first law of motion. “Result of accidental violence” refers to acceleration, and is formulated in the second law of motion. The statement “when this is subdued it kills itself”,
refers to the third law of motion which states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

From the above discussion we find that the conception of mechanical force is not just slippery; it is random, violent, transient and suicidal. Nothing constant about force! And yet, with such conception of force, formed from the greatest minds in

the West, all the wonderful works in engineering have been done, from locomotives to jet engine airplanes; from muskets to missiles; small cars to huge ships! As force is slippery, so energy too is slippery. Energy mutates from one form to another. Just
like force, its magnitude depends upon the frame of reference with respect to any observer. Thus two jet airplanes flying side by side may gently nudge each other, with minimal force or expenditure of energy involved. But if they collide, meaning the
reference frames are opposite now, the forces involved and the energy spent in the disaster is enormous.

The above conception of force, so widely accepted because it was correct, makes Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity all the more remarkable. For gravity is not slippery, nor random, nor violent, transient and suicidal. It is the very opposite. It

is constant, spreading out in all directions, relatively very gentle, and permanent. Being all that, it is gravity which holds us all together on this planet; and it is gravity that makes the entire universe a permanent moving system composed of
unlimited quantities of matter. Gravity, thus, is an entirely different kind of force. As we shall see, it is a much muted form of electrostatic force. Till now, despite their basic similarity, gravity and electrostatic forces are held to be independent:
one is not the manifestation of the other.

A few more points: the random nature of mechanical force had led Leonardo da Vinci to conclude that a device that would perennially give out energy (a perpetual motion machine) was impossible. Even when gravity was discovered as a constant force,

this was found to be true. This inability to construct a perpetual motion machine was a factor in the definition of the law of conservation of energy, that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. Certainly this law is much appreciated by the
fossil fuel industries!

Researching Leonardo da Vinci’s comment on the nature of force, this time with a more modern mindset, we note the words “I have said spiritual because in this force there is an active, incorporeal life”. Now concentrate on the words “in

this force” and “life”. Da Vinci is not talking of force as an expression of the inanimate – for him all forces relate to life and spring from some unknown higher purpose, thus blurring the line between physics and metaphysics.

“Life force” thus is essentially internal. It comes from within, but is related to without. Going by da Vinci’s perception, it is inherently random and self-destructing. But what if it can be made to act otherwise, with the purpose of steady

movement in one direction? What if instead of being pushed around by external forces, bodies can push themselves with internal “life force”? We all know that this is a dream monetized by science fiction. Can this fiction become fact? Can we overcome
the effects of gravity with internal force?

For over twenty years, I have wrestled with the above issues. My work has been presented online. In 2000 I published in my “adda” website my book “To the Stars!”. It attracted minimal interest, till in 2003 an article by myself was

published in the Science Section of Outlook Magazine, in India. I got fiercely hostile reactions to my article, which surprised me before I got disgusted with the low quality of scientific temper, from low personal attacks. For example, one Garg, a
junior scientist in the employ of the Govt. of India, offered gratuitous abuse.

The link for that article is at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/newt-is-old-hat/220728

I now believe, that the editors thought that I was attacking Newton with my new ideas, and that was the reason for its publication!

Arindam Banerjee
25 April 2020

The cause of gravity – 4

Measuring fundamental constants (G) and the meaning of research

(start rant)

Today the entire field of physics is thoroughly institutionalised, with standardised thinking dedicated to perpetuating the established orthodoxies, like any religion. These high priests – in the field of what is called “modern physics”

involving the theories of relativity, publish their weird notions, with amazing smoke screens of mathematical gibberish to confuse the most intelligent lay persons, in select journals and conferences, to maintain their high prestige. Their efforts are
very expensively funded by the Governments and various rich parties, blindly supporting the high priests ensconced in universities and Govt. laboratories. Amateurs or hobbyists have no place in this closed system. The best they can do is to publish their
work online; in social media, email, etc. unless they spend thousands of dollars for publication in some vague journal which will be automatically derided by the establishment because of its low ratings. In this system success is measured in terms of the
money squeezed out from the higher powers for some “output”. Like gravity waves, quarks, red shift, big bang, string theory, black holes, bosons, neutrinos… you name it, there will always be more coming!

So much is this notion prevalent, that only the expenditure of millions or billions of dollars involving vast projects such as making black holes, or fusion energy, is considered solely necessary to finding something new and wonderful – which,

however hardly ever happens. Anything revolutionary in physics, involving low budgets and lone endeavour is automatically discarded as cranky or plain wrong if it goes against the grain of the orthodoxies.

(end rant)

The greatest advances in physics did not require huge investments in money and manpower. What was needed was insight, dedication, patience, skill, tenacity… of the talented amateur, working with minimal help. Sir Isaac Newton is the best known

example, as the discoverer of the force of gravity. But his discovery in 1666 was far from complete. He could only indicate that the gravitational force between two masses was proportional to the product of the two masses, and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between their centres of gravity. Newton did not know what the proportionality constant was. We now know it as the gravitational constant G.

It was only in 1798 (that is 135 years after Newton’s discovery) that the Gravitational Constant was found from measurement, by Henry Cavendish. The experiment was painstakingly done by Cavendish, but the apparatus itself was simple. A recent

attempt to recreate a model of the original apparatus is shown in the Youtube video film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lCjq4IzJw

Cavendish’s experiment was conducted in a large sealed room, to prevent air currents. Two lead balls, spaced widely apart were joined by a thin light rod. A fine string suspended these two balls from their centre of mass, from the ceiling. Two

heavy lead balls were placed near the suspended balls, such that they could each attract the suspended ball in the same direction so as to produce the maximum twisting effect (torque) upon the string. How much the string would twist, could be found out
by the angular displacement of a very light long strip connected to the twisting string. The movement of the edge of this strip could be tracked from its initial position to find the angular displacement.

So much (from above) I have got from the literature, and the rest is my own construction, relating to the necessary calibration and measurement. The gravitational force is very small. And yet, it can be measured correctly with proper application.

The main issue is calibration, for any measurement.

What we have to know is how much the thread twists for a certain torque (twisting action). Let us say that the length of the suspended rod with its attached balls is ten meters. Torque is equal to the force F multiplied by the distance r to the

point of twist. Or T=F*r. With equal force from the other end it is T=F*r + F*r = 2Fr or F.d. The torque motion will be resisted by the material in the string – it cannot twist indefinitely - after a certain angle (depending upon the quality) the
string will no longer twist as a result of the torque. Thus T= k.theta, where theta is the angle of twist and k is a constant depending upon the quality of the string. F.d=k.theta then; now we need to find k.

The issue of calibration now comes in. Let us see how it can be done. From about 10 cm from the centre of the suspending string, tie a fine thread to the rod on both sides. Slide it over a pulley to a suspended mass of say 1 gram, on both sides. A

continuous torque now acts on the suspended string. It will twist by a certain angle, then stop twisting. Measure that angle. Now make more experiments with increasing or decreasing weights, and changing the distances involved, to get many values of
theta, and from F, d and theta, so many values of k which should all be more or less the same for a given torque applied with various values of F and d. Numerous experiments average out the experimental error, statistically, to get k.

The rest of the experiment is simple. Just get the very heavy balls of lead near to the suspended balls, at right angles and as near as possible without touching. The small balls will be attracted by this extra mass near them, and the torque will

be created till the suspended string twists by an angle theta. Knowing k and theta, the torque T is known. Knowing the torque T and the distance d, the gravitational force F between the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball of mass M is known.
Various values of F can be found with increasing or decreasing the static balls; that is fro. Now at the end position, the distance between the centres of gravity of the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball M is found. This is r. So now we have
all that is needed to find the gravitational constant G from the formula

G = F*r*r/(m*M)

With this formula, Cavendish could work out the mass of the Earth, knowing g, the acceleration due to gravity. Every apple of mass m falls to the Earth with mass M, by the law of universal gravitation (it is assumed now that as per Newton not just

lead balls in an experiment are attracted with the constant G, but all bodies in the universe) it falls with a force F which by Newton’s second law is equal to m.g

The above equation can be written as M=F*r*r/(G.m) With F=mg, it is M=r*r*g/G

For the fun of it, let us put in the values to get the mass of the Earth! r is the Earth’s radius which is 6371 Km or 6371000 m. g on the surface is 9.8 m/sec/sec. G is found to be 6.674*10^-11 in MKS units. The calculator result is that the mass

of the Earth is 5.96 *10^24 Kg. How nice! Knowing the mass of the Earth we can also find the mass of the Sun, Moon and so on. In the practical sense, we can know how much force is exerted by the Earth on distant objects like satellites or space vehicles.

**** NEW ****

So far we have been dealing with the known. Research to most means looking things up, but as a professional researcher I do not call that research; I call that search. Research (re-search or search again and again and again…) means looking at an

established search in a new way each time, with a slightly different angle, with the knowledge of relevant new knowledge and finally with special insight (from the Divine, in my case and with all my heroes in science: Plato, da Vinci, Newton, Maxwell,
Tesla, my great-uncle Sir U N Brahmachari) for its own sake, or for some practical purpose.

Applying that notion of research to the notion of the gravitational constant G, what do we find?

**** INSIGHT ****

We find that none of the masses involved in the experiment were charged with electricity.

*****************

Which amounts to, the law of universal gravitation may or may not apply to charged masses. This explains why ions stream out of the Sun, despite the Sun’s huge gravitational force. However up till now, we had assumed that charged masses were

subject to gravitational forces, so the ion streaming from the Sun is a mystery.

But what is charge? Sir Isaac Newton had no idea about charge, no clue about electricity. Cavendish may have had some idea, for his apparatus was a large torsion balance, used to measure electrostatic forces. We will go into the details of

electrostatics in the next instalment. That will be the prelude to expressing the equation of universal gravitation in electrostatic terms.

Arindam Banerjee
29 April 2020

Further comments in my facebook post: 29 April 2020

understand this, that the Gravitational Constant was measured only with masses with no charge in them. Both were uncharged. This is a small but vital point. It shows that assuming that the law of universal gravitation is valid for charged masses is

an assumption. It is the job of the researcher, that is, one who searches old stuff with new eyes, to point this out. And that is what I have done. And will be doing, in later instalments.

With the measurement of the slightest twist of a string, one may thus weigh the Earth, Sun, Moon and the planets! Direct the course of spaceships! Such is the power of the correct theory. Or rather, the more correct theory. Science is always

provisional, that is, in for change.

Thus I wonder, how much mad those around the likes of da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Cavendish, Franklin, Faraday thought them to be! They would not have had the faintest clue of what was going on. They would stoutly believe in established notions

expounded from some pulpit or altar. Things have not changed, have they!?

The cause of gravity – 5

The fundamentals of electrostatic attraction leading to the structure of the atom

[continued in next message]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wednesday, March 29, 2023 at 3:04:38 PM UTC-7, Arindam Banerjee wrote:

On Thursday, 30 March 2023 at 07:49:01 UTC+11, Enes Richard wrote:

piątek, 3 lutego 2023 o 14:13:00 UTC+1 Arindam Banerjee napisał(a):

Note: I will be writing a series of articles about the cause of gravity in my facebook timeline, to satisfy my loyal school friends who seem interested. This is the first of such articles. I will also be posting them to sci.physics.

The cause of gravity – 1

Brief:

The formula for universal gravitation is well known to be, as the force F acting between two masses m and M, parted by a distance r from their centres of mass, as F=GmM/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant found by experiment. Recently the

author has updated this formula to F=BnN/r^2 where B is a constant, and n and N are the number of protons or electrons in the masses m and M. It is obvious that as n and N are proportional to m and M, this is essentially the same formula with the
difference that instead of masses, the new formula involves charges. Thus the gravitational force is expressed electrostatically, as a manifestation of electrostatic force. In other words, there is no difference between electrostatic force and
gravitational force.

As such, there should be, among reasonable people, no quarrel with the new electrostatic representation of gravity, as on the surface it is a re-statement of the earlier statement. The curious may well be satisfied that an electrostatic

representation of gravity may somehow explain what is so far unexplained and not understood about the manifestations of Nature: such as capillary action in plants and narrow tubes where fluid rises up defying gravity and the law of conservation of energy;
and how charged winds streaming from the Sun can be formed despite the Sun’s huge gravity.

But, as presented – so far - without supporting logic as to its derivation, the new formula seems to be a trivial form of the existing formula, imparting no new knowledge. It may also seem preposterous as uncharged masses, by definition, do not

emit any measurable electric field. Finally, the electrostatic forces are estimated to be as per physics literature to be some 10^39 times stronger than the gravitational force. For all these reasons, the gravitational force has been held to be something
entirely independent, yet similar to the electrostatic force.

It is my purpose, in the following articles, to show that despite the above sound objections arising from the existing scientific viewpoints, indeed the gravitational force is a manifestation of electrostatic force.

Instead of the just the physics community, I will make my appeal primarily to the intelligent lay public, who are innocent of whatever passes for modern physics. For that purpose, prior to making my new points, I will try to impart a crash course

in the fundamentals of electrostatics, as simply as possible. Furthermore, I will as my target audience have my old school friends, whose loyalty and faith in my abilities I most deeply cherish. My sole request to them – and all my other friends in
Facebook and beyond in the online world - is to tell me, as bluntly as possible, exactly what they do not understand about what I will be writing, in further instalments on my Facebook timeline. (I will post my writings in the Usenet newsgroup sci.
physics as well).

Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee, 21/4/2020

The cause of gravity – 2

Historical background:

Sir Isaac Newton, in his great work known as the “Principia”, primarily stressed upon two factors; the role of geometry in modelling reality, and the use of mathematics to make correct and accurate predictions in idealised environments, like

say a body in free space surrounded by nothing. Let us have this in mind when we discuss how he managed to discover gravity, from the general level of the scientific thinking in his time

.
The scientific thinking of his time was Aristotleian. For many hundreds of years, it was believed that the Sun went around the Earth – exactly as we can all see for ourselves. The stars were the openings to Heaven, sending down heavenly light.

They moved in crystal spheres that too revolved around the fixed Earth. The Christian Church devoutly followed the Aristotleian model, for it was perfectly, obviously, correct with the stars being proof of Heaven and the need to be religious and dutiful
to get there, via the Church of course. Let us not forget, no one had a clue about gravity, or even force as a scientific measurement construct, for that matter.

So the ancients did their science in their own way, basically through empirical methods as they lacked the theory and the resulting mathematical modeling. To the extent they were practical, following geometry, they got good results. As an example,

let us see how the Greeks calculated the distance to the Moon. They used parallax. This means that when one points to an object at one point, there is a certain angle with respect to a common plane. From another point on the same plane, there is a
different angle. To experiment (P.S. try this), point at anything a bit distant with a finger or scale with just one eye. Then shut it and open the other eye. The object will have “moved” but it is just the parallax effect. You will have to shift the
finger or the scale to the original object to find the angle of parallax. From the distance between your eyes, and the angle, the distance to the object can be found.

Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120 BC) used the parallax method to get the distance to the Moon with reasonable accuracy. The ancients may not have known about force and gravity the way we do, but they did know about parallax, geometry - and Hipparachus

himself is also credited with inventing trigonometry! Incidentally, the parallax method is still used to this day to find the distance of stars and galaxies from our planet.

Thus Isaac Newton was heir to the great Greek scientific traditions. He had been further influenced by Copernicus and Galileo. About these two, now: let us also get in touch with dates, we are doing some history after all!

Copernicus (1473-1543) is credited with discovering (in the West that is) the heliocentric system, that is, the Sun is fixed and the planets revolve around it. He did it without a telescope, just his naked eye with some pointing tools. And that was

enough. What he found was that the angular positions of heavenly bodies (stars, planets) changed the most every six months, constantly. The same old parallax system is at work, this time instead of the space between two eyes from our earlier example,
twice the distance of the Earth from the Sun! Copernicus concluded that the dominant and hallowed geometric system (Sun and planets and stars going around the Earth each in its own crystal sphere) was wrong. The explanation, to account for this anomaly,
was that the Earth was revolving around the Sun. It was a perilous explanation, for it went against the doctrines of the Church. Galileo (1564-1642) was persecuted in 1633 for supporting Copernicus, by the famous Church Inquisition where he was forced to
recant, and say that Copernicus was wrong and Aristotle was right. He was more fortunate than Giordano Bruno, the talented Dominican friar who was burned at the stake on 17 Feb 1600 for upholding the Copernican heliocentric view, and further stating that
the universe was infinite and that other solar systems also existed.

Back to Isaac Newton (1642 – 1737). It should be obvious from the mood of his time (as presented above) that the geocentric model was absolutely dominant – all the churches expounded it, the universities taught it, all rich and important people

believed it utterly. Exactly as they believe in special and general relativity, quantum theory, big bang, expanding universe, black holes, quarks, bosons, string theories, neutrinos, photons, fusion, e=mcc, spacetime, nothing can go faster than light,
etc. etc. etc. these days, following Einstein, Feynman and Hawking. Newton was evidently too smart to fall for the geocentric model – but how could that make him popular with the powers that were in his time? Newton had a miserable time as a student,
and did his best work when he was on his own, away from the mediocre professors professing the Aristotleian geocentric model. But, he did not have anything really substantial to smash the geocentric model. The angular differences in the positions of the
heavenly bodies could be dismissed with airy hand-waving, along with some spurious explanation like wobble in the crystal spheres, as a devil’s prank to confuse the faithful.

It is said that in 1666 (that is, when Newton was 24 and Galileo had been forced to recant his views only 33 years ago) that the famous apple fell on Newton’s head, or on the ground before him. Why did it fall to the ground? A simple question,

but no one had asked it before. Why was it moving faster and faster (accelerating) as it fell? Newton thought that there had to be an attractive force between the mass of the Earth and the apple, which caused it to fall. It was moving faster and faster
because till it fell, the force was working constantly upon it, causing acceleration. Newton then theorised that all bodies with mass are attracted to each other. The apple falls to the Earth, but the Earth is also influenced – the Earth also moves
towards the apple, but as the Earth is too big, and there are many other falls all over, the Earth’s movement is not discernible.

Newton theorized that the attractive force was proportional to the multiplicative product of the two masses attracting each other, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating them. This directly leads to the present formula,

F=GmM/r^2. However let us not forget that the gravitational constant G was not known until Cavendish measured it in 1797-98, some 131 years after Newton had his famous insight, which had so far eluded everyone else.

If masses did attract one another, just as the Earth attracts the falling apple, then why does not the Earth fall into the Sun, like the apple falling to the ground? Either gravity operated only on Earth (thus the Earth and the Sun did not attract

each other) or the sun being very small (like say Apollo’s chariot) revolved around the Earth; or - and this was supported by astronomical findings supporting Copernican model of the rotating Earth revolving around the Sun - the Earth actually moved
around the Sun.

It was obvious that the Sun was far bigger than the Earth, from the phenomena of eclipses and the knowledge of the Moon’s dimensions. It is still not known 100% that gravitation works for heavenly system, the way it does for the apple-Earth

system, thus the universal theory of gravitation remains a theory, although one of the most powerful theories known, like the atomic theory. It is still a theory, for it cannot explain why ionised masses escape from the Sun’s extraordinary
gravitational pull.

The Earth then has to move tangentially, always, for ever, to escape falling into the Sun. It certainly would do so if a giant hand stopped its motion! What Newton with his geometry and maths explained, clearly, was that the Earth is in fact always

“falling into” the Sun, but because of its tangential velocity, “falling out” by more or less the same amount. (The” more or less” accounts for the elliptic orbit, that is, not purely circular, as Kepler (1571-1639) had worked out before
Newton.)

The earlier point is worth pondering about, for a few minutes. It explains the motion of all satellites. The tangential motion allows the satellites to not fall back to the Earth, and keep constantly revolving unless the tangential speed is reduced

by drag of some kind, including rocketry.

Another point about gravity – the gravitational force simply depends upon the existence of mass. It never changes for that mass. It is constant, always there. This mass always attracts, thus its force never changes, it is exerted all around in

all angles. Always, always…. Such is the fundamental design of the Universe. Can we probe a bit deeper into its cause, now? I think some more groundwork is necessary.

22/04/2020

The cause of gravity – 3

The conception of force

Force is the central issue in physics – or at least, it should be the central issue in physics. It is from force that all things move, or stay put. Force moved over distance is work, and work has the same units as energy. Energy, then, is

expended when a force moves over a distance. There is a vast difference between force and energy – as I see it, force is for the physicists to better understand the workings of the Universe; and energy is for the businessmen to make money. So it is,
that as far as possible, to understand the fundamentals of Nature, I avoid the use of the energy concept.

The difference between force and energy is tricky. It is easy to confuse one for the other, and most people untrained in physics may do so. Force must have direction – it is thus called a vector. Because forces have direction, two separate forces

operating in the same direction add up to one double-force. In opposite directions, they cancel out to zero. But energy has no direction. It is thus called a scalar quantity. Energy is usually defined as the capacity of a body to do work. It is further
postulated that energy is always conserved. Its form however changes: when we drop a ball to the ground, the potential energy of the ball at the start changes to the maximum kinetic energy just near the point of impact. After this, though, the thinking
is not that clear. After impact, the kinetic energy is converted to heat energy. Instead of saying that this energy is lost, we say, as per classical physics, that the entropy, a mathematical concept about the state of disorder in the universe, has
increased. I have never been happy with this explanation – it seems to me pretty self-evident that energy is continuously getting created by the Sun and Earth, being used for various purposes, before being radiated out for destruction into deep space.
Thus, energy is pretty slippery. It is always getting used up. We need money to use energy, if we cannot make use of the natural sources like the Sun and wind and water and geothermal.

Is force equally slippery?

As far as I can see, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his Notes, made the first-ever proper description of force with the following statements:

“Force I define as a spiritual power, incorporeal and invisible, which with brief life is produced in those bodies which as the result of accidental violence are brought out of their natural state and condition. I have said spiritual because in

this force there is an active, incorporeal life; and I call it invisible because the body in which it is created does not increase in weight or in size; and of brief duration because it desires perpetually to subdue its cause, and when this is subdued it
kills itself.”

Such a definition of force is slippery indeed! From da Vinci’s definition, secularized, force is the “result of accidental violence” brought out “natural state and condition”. Thus it is random and violent. It is “brief in duration”,

meaning it is transient, certainly nothing permanent. A perpetual desire to “subdue its cause” means that it is revolutionary. When successful in that “it kills itself” so is suicidal. This appears as quite a statement of the violent political
mood of his times, based upon sneaky opportunisms, as elaborated upon by his contemporary Machiavelli (1469-1527)!

It will not be difficult to see how much da Vinci’s conception of force - which in his day had to be purely mechanical - influencing later scientists like Galileo, led to the formulation of the well-known Newtonian laws of motion. The phrase “

natural state and condition” is known as inertia, formulated in the first law of motion. “Result of accidental violence” refers to acceleration, and is formulated in the second law of motion. The statement “when this is subdued it kills itself”,
refers to the third law of motion which states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

From the above discussion we find that the conception of mechanical force is not just slippery; it is random, violent, transient and suicidal. Nothing constant about force! And yet, with such conception of force, formed from the greatest minds in

the West, all the wonderful works in engineering have been done, from locomotives to jet engine airplanes; from muskets to missiles; small cars to huge ships! As force is slippery, so energy too is slippery. Energy mutates from one form to another. Just
like force, its magnitude depends upon the frame of reference with respect to any observer. Thus two jet airplanes flying side by side may gently nudge each other, with minimal force or expenditure of energy involved. But if they collide, meaning the
reference frames are opposite now, the forces involved and the energy spent in the disaster is enormous.

The above conception of force, so widely accepted because it was correct, makes Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity all the more remarkable. For gravity is not slippery, nor random, nor violent, transient and suicidal. It is the very opposite. It

is constant, spreading out in all directions, relatively very gentle, and permanent. Being all that, it is gravity which holds us all together on this planet; and it is gravity that makes the entire universe a permanent moving system composed of
unlimited quantities of matter. Gravity, thus, is an entirely different kind of force. As we shall see, it is a much muted form of electrostatic force. Till now, despite their basic similarity, gravity and electrostatic forces are held to be independent:
one is not the manifestation of the other.

A few more points: the random nature of mechanical force had led Leonardo da Vinci to conclude that a device that would perennially give out energy (a perpetual motion machine) was impossible. Even when gravity was discovered as a constant force,

this was found to be true. This inability to construct a perpetual motion machine was a factor in the definition of the law of conservation of energy, that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. Certainly this law is much appreciated by the
fossil fuel industries!

Researching Leonardo da Vinci’s comment on the nature of force, this time with a more modern mindset, we note the words “I have said spiritual because in this force there is an active, incorporeal life”. Now concentrate on the words “in

this force” and “life”. Da Vinci is not talking of force as an expression of the inanimate – for him all forces relate to life and spring from some unknown higher purpose, thus blurring the line between physics and metaphysics.

“Life force” thus is essentially internal. It comes from within, but is related to without. Going by da Vinci’s perception, it is inherently random and self-destructing. But what if it can be made to act otherwise, with the purpose of steady

movement in one direction? What if instead of being pushed around by external forces, bodies can push themselves with internal “life force”? We all know that this is a dream monetized by science fiction. Can this fiction become fact? Can we overcome
the effects of gravity with internal force?

For over twenty years, I have wrestled with the above issues. My work has been presented online. In 2000 I published in my “adda” website my book “To the Stars!”. It attracted minimal interest, till in 2003 an article by myself was

published in the Science Section of Outlook Magazine, in India. I got fiercely hostile reactions to my article, which surprised me before I got disgusted with the low quality of scientific temper, from low personal attacks. For example, one Garg, a
junior scientist in the employ of the Govt. of India, offered gratuitous abuse.

The link for that article is at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/newt-is-old-hat/220728

I now believe, that the editors thought that I was attacking Newton with my new ideas, and that was the reason for its publication!

Arindam Banerjee
25 April 2020

The cause of gravity – 4

Measuring fundamental constants (G) and the meaning of research

(start rant)

Today the entire field of physics is thoroughly institutionalised, with standardised thinking dedicated to perpetuating the established orthodoxies, like any religion. These high priests – in the field of what is called “modern physics”

involving the theories of relativity, publish their weird notions, with amazing smoke screens of mathematical gibberish to confuse the most intelligent lay persons, in select journals and conferences, to maintain their high prestige. Their efforts are
very expensively funded by the Governments and various rich parties, blindly supporting the high priests ensconced in universities and Govt. laboratories. Amateurs or hobbyists have no place in this closed system. The best they can do is to publish their
work online; in social media, email, etc. unless they spend thousands of dollars for publication in some vague journal which will be automatically derided by the establishment because of its low ratings. In this system success is measured in terms of the
money squeezed out from the higher powers for some “output”. Like gravity waves, quarks, red shift, big bang, string theory, black holes, bosons, neutrinos… you name it, there will always be more coming!

So much is this notion prevalent, that only the expenditure of millions or billions of dollars involving vast projects such as making black holes, or fusion energy, is considered solely necessary to finding something new and wonderful – which,

however hardly ever happens. Anything revolutionary in physics, involving low budgets and lone endeavour is automatically discarded as cranky or plain wrong if it goes against the grain of the orthodoxies.

(end rant)

The greatest advances in physics did not require huge investments in money and manpower. What was needed was insight, dedication, patience, skill, tenacity… of the talented amateur, working with minimal help. Sir Isaac Newton is the best known

example, as the discoverer of the force of gravity. But his discovery in 1666 was far from complete. He could only indicate that the gravitational force between two masses was proportional to the product of the two masses, and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between their centres of gravity. Newton did not know what the proportionality constant was. We now know it as the gravitational constant G.

It was only in 1798 (that is 135 years after Newton’s discovery) that the Gravitational Constant was found from measurement, by Henry Cavendish. The experiment was painstakingly done by Cavendish, but the apparatus itself was simple. A recent

attempt to recreate a model of the original apparatus is shown in the Youtube video film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lCjq4IzJw

Cavendish’s experiment was conducted in a large sealed room, to prevent air currents. Two lead balls, spaced widely apart were joined by a thin light rod. A fine string suspended these two balls from their centre of mass, from the ceiling. Two

heavy lead balls were placed near the suspended balls, such that they could each attract the suspended ball in the same direction so as to produce the maximum twisting effect (torque) upon the string. How much the string would twist, could be found out
by the angular displacement of a very light long strip connected to the twisting string. The movement of the edge of this strip could be tracked from its initial position to find the angular displacement.

So much (from above) I have got from the literature, and the rest is my own construction, relating to the necessary calibration and measurement. The gravitational force is very small. And yet, it can be measured correctly with proper application.

The main issue is calibration, for any measurement.

What we have to know is how much the thread twists for a certain torque (twisting action). Let us say that the length of the suspended rod with its attached balls is ten meters. Torque is equal to the force F multiplied by the distance r to the

point of twist. Or T=F*r. With equal force from the other end it is T=F*r + F*r = 2Fr or F.d. The torque motion will be resisted by the material in the string – it cannot twist indefinitely - after a certain angle (depending upon the quality) the
string will no longer twist as a result of the torque. Thus T= k.theta, where theta is the angle of twist and k is a constant depending upon the quality of the string. F.d=k.theta then; now we need to find k.

The issue of calibration now comes in. Let us see how it can be done. From about 10 cm from the centre of the suspending string, tie a fine thread to the rod on both sides. Slide it over a pulley to a suspended mass of say 1 gram, on both sides. A

continuous torque now acts on the suspended string. It will twist by a certain angle, then stop twisting. Measure that angle. Now make more experiments with increasing or decreasing weights, and changing the distances involved, to get many values of
theta, and from F, d and theta, so many values of k which should all be more or less the same for a given torque applied with various values of F and d. Numerous experiments average out the experimental error, statistically, to get k.

The rest of the experiment is simple. Just get the very heavy balls of lead near to the suspended balls, at right angles and as near as possible without touching. The small balls will be attracted by this extra mass near them, and the torque will

be created till the suspended string twists by an angle theta. Knowing k and theta, the torque T is known. Knowing the torque T and the distance d, the gravitational force F between the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball of mass M is known.
Various values of F can be found with increasing or decreasing the static balls; that is fro. Now at the end position, the distance between the centres of gravity of the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball M is found. This is r. So now we have
all that is needed to find the gravitational constant G from the formula

G = F*r*r/(m*M)

With this formula, Cavendish could work out the mass of the Earth, knowing g, the acceleration due to gravity. Every apple of mass m falls to the Earth with mass M, by the law of universal gravitation (it is assumed now that as per Newton not just

lead balls in an experiment are attracted with the constant G, but all bodies in the universe) it falls with a force F which by Newton’s second law is equal to m.g

The above equation can be written as M=F*r*r/(G.m) With F=mg, it is M=r*r*g/G

For the fun of it, let us put in the values to get the mass of the Earth! r is the Earth’s radius which is 6371 Km or 6371000 m. g on the surface is 9.8 m/sec/sec. G is found to be 6.674*10^-11 in MKS units. The calculator result is that the mass

of the Earth is 5.96 *10^24 Kg. How nice! Knowing the mass of the Earth we can also find the mass of the Sun, Moon and so on. In the practical sense, we can know how much force is exerted by the Earth on distant objects like satellites or space vehicles.

**** NEW ****

So far we have been dealing with the known. Research to most means looking things up, but as a professional researcher I do not call that research; I call that search. Research (re-search or search again and again and again…) means looking at an

established search in a new way each time, with a slightly different angle, with the knowledge of relevant new knowledge and finally with special insight (from the Divine, in my case and with all my heroes in science: Plato, da Vinci, Newton, Maxwell,
Tesla, my great-uncle Sir U N Brahmachari) for its own sake, or for some practical purpose.

Applying that notion of research to the notion of the gravitational constant G, what do we find?

**** INSIGHT ****

We find that none of the masses involved in the experiment were charged with electricity.

*****************

Which amounts to, the law of universal gravitation may or may not apply to charged masses. This explains why ions stream out of the Sun, despite the Sun’s huge gravitational force. However up till now, we had assumed that charged masses were

subject to gravitational forces, so the ion streaming from the Sun is a mystery.

But what is charge? Sir Isaac Newton had no idea about charge, no clue about electricity. Cavendish may have had some idea, for his apparatus was a large torsion balance, used to measure electrostatic forces. We will go into the details of

electrostatics in the next instalment. That will be the prelude to expressing the equation of universal gravitation in electrostatic terms.

Arindam Banerjee
29 April 2020

Further comments in my facebook post: 29 April 2020

understand this, that the Gravitational Constant was measured only with masses with no charge in them. Both were uncharged. This is a small but vital point. It shows that assuming that the law of universal gravitation is valid for charged masses is

an assumption. It is the job of the researcher, that is, one who searches old stuff with new eyes, to point this out. And that is what I have done. And will be doing, in later instalments.

With the measurement of the slightest twist of a string, one may thus weigh the Earth, Sun, Moon and the planets! Direct the course of spaceships! Such is the power of the correct theory. Or rather, the more correct theory. Science is always

provisional, that is, in for change.

Thus I wonder, how much mad those around the likes of da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Cavendish, Franklin, Faraday thought them to be! They would not have had the faintest clue of what was going on. They would stoutly believe in established notions

expounded from some pulpit or altar. Things have not changed, have they!?

The cause of gravity – 5

The fundamentals of electrostatic attraction leading to the structure of the atom

[continued in next message]

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Saturday, 1 April 2023 at 05:51:06 UTC+11, Enes Richard wrote:

czwartek, 30 marca 2023 o 00:04:38 UTC+2 Arindam Banerjee napisał(a):

On Thursday, 30 March 2023 at 07:49:01 UTC+11, Enes Richard wrote:

piątek, 3 lutego 2023 o 14:13:00 UTC+1 Arindam Banerjee napisał(a):

Note: I will be writing a series of articles about the cause of gravity in my facebook timeline, to satisfy my loyal school friends who seem interested. This is the first of such articles. I will also be posting them to sci.physics.

The cause of gravity – 1

Brief:

The formula for universal gravitation is well known to be, as the force F acting between two masses m and M, parted by a distance r from their centres of mass, as F=GmM/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant found by experiment. Recently the

author has updated this formula to F=BnN/r^2 where B is a constant, and n and N are the number of protons or electrons in the masses m and M. It is obvious that as n and N are proportional to m and M, this is essentially the same formula with the
difference that instead of masses, the new formula involves charges. Thus the gravitational force is expressed electrostatically, as a manifestation of electrostatic force. In other words, there is no difference between electrostatic force and
gravitational force.

As such, there should be, among reasonable people, no quarrel with the new electrostatic representation of gravity, as on the surface it is a re-statement of the earlier statement. The curious may well be satisfied that an electrostatic

representation of gravity may somehow explain what is so far unexplained and not understood about the manifestations of Nature: such as capillary action in plants and narrow tubes where fluid rises up defying gravity and the law of conservation of energy;
and how charged winds streaming from the Sun can be formed despite the Sun’s huge gravity.

But, as presented – so far - without supporting logic as to its derivation, the new formula seems to be a trivial form of the existing formula, imparting no new knowledge. It may also seem preposterous as uncharged masses, by definition, do not

emit any measurable electric field. Finally, the electrostatic forces are estimated to be as per physics literature to be some 10^39 times stronger than the gravitational force. For all these reasons, the gravitational force has been held to be something
entirely independent, yet similar to the electrostatic force.

It is my purpose, in the following articles, to show that despite the above sound objections arising from the existing scientific viewpoints, indeed the gravitational force is a manifestation of electrostatic force.

Instead of the just the physics community, I will make my appeal primarily to the intelligent lay public, who are innocent of whatever passes for modern physics. For that purpose, prior to making my new points, I will try to impart a crash course

in the fundamentals of electrostatics, as simply as possible. Furthermore, I will as my target audience have my old school friends, whose loyalty and faith in my abilities I most deeply cherish. My sole request to them – and all my other friends in
Facebook and beyond in the online world - is to tell me, as bluntly as possible, exactly what they do not understand about what I will be writing, in further instalments on my Facebook timeline. (I will post my writings in the Usenet newsgroup sci.
physics as well).

Cheers,
Arindam Banerjee, 21/4/2020

The cause of gravity – 2

Historical background:

Sir Isaac Newton, in his great work known as the “Principia”, primarily stressed upon two factors; the role of geometry in modelling reality, and the use of mathematics to make correct and accurate predictions in idealised environments, like

say a body in free space surrounded by nothing. Let us have this in mind when we discuss how he managed to discover gravity, from the general level of the scientific thinking in his time

.
The scientific thinking of his time was Aristotleian. For many hundreds of years, it was believed that the Sun went around the Earth – exactly as we can all see for ourselves. The stars were the openings to Heaven, sending down heavenly light.

They moved in crystal spheres that too revolved around the fixed Earth. The Christian Church devoutly followed the Aristotleian model, for it was perfectly, obviously, correct with the stars being proof of Heaven and the need to be religious and dutiful
to get there, via the Church of course. Let us not forget, no one had a clue about gravity, or even force as a scientific measurement construct, for that matter.

So the ancients did their science in their own way, basically through empirical methods as they lacked the theory and the resulting mathematical modeling. To the extent they were practical, following geometry, they got good results. As an example,

let us see how the Greeks calculated the distance to the Moon. They used parallax. This means that when one points to an object at one point, there is a certain angle with respect to a common plane. From another point on the same plane, there is a
different angle. To experiment (P.S. try this), point at anything a bit distant with a finger or scale with just one eye. Then shut it and open the other eye. The object will have “moved” but it is just the parallax effect. You will have to shift the
finger or the scale to the original object to find the angle of parallax. From the distance between your eyes, and the angle, the distance to the object can be found.

Hipparchus of Nicaea (190-120 BC) used the parallax method to get the distance to the Moon with reasonable accuracy. The ancients may not have known about force and gravity the way we do, but they did know about parallax, geometry - and

Hipparachus himself is also credited with inventing trigonometry! Incidentally, the parallax method is still used to this day to find the distance of stars and galaxies from our planet.

Thus Isaac Newton was heir to the great Greek scientific traditions. He had been further influenced by Copernicus and Galileo. About these two, now: let us also get in touch with dates, we are doing some history after all!

Copernicus (1473-1543) is credited with discovering (in the West that is) the heliocentric system, that is, the Sun is fixed and the planets revolve around it. He did it without a telescope, just his naked eye with some pointing tools. And that

was enough. What he found was that the angular positions of heavenly bodies (stars, planets) changed the most every six months, constantly. The same old parallax system is at work, this time instead of the space between two eyes from our earlier example,
twice the distance of the Earth from the Sun! Copernicus concluded that the dominant and hallowed geometric system (Sun and planets and stars going around the Earth each in its own crystal sphere) was wrong. The explanation, to account for this anomaly,
was that the Earth was revolving around the Sun. It was a perilous explanation, for it went against the doctrines of the Church. Galileo (1564-1642) was persecuted in 1633 for supporting Copernicus, by the famous Church Inquisition where he was forced to
recant, and say that Copernicus was wrong and Aristotle was right. He was more fortunate than Giordano Bruno, the talented Dominican friar who was burned at the stake on 17 Feb 1600 for upholding the Copernican heliocentric view, and further stating that
the universe was infinite and that other solar systems also existed.

Back to Isaac Newton (1642 – 1737). It should be obvious from the mood of his time (as presented above) that the geocentric model was absolutely dominant – all the churches expounded it, the universities taught it, all rich and important

people believed it utterly. Exactly as they believe in special and general relativity, quantum theory, big bang, expanding universe, black holes, quarks, bosons, string theories, neutrinos, photons, fusion, e=mcc, spacetime, nothing can go faster than
light, etc. etc. etc. these days, following Einstein, Feynman and Hawking. Newton was evidently too smart to fall for the geocentric model – but how could that make him popular with the powers that were in his time? Newton had a miserable time as a
student, and did his best work when he was on his own, away from the mediocre professors professing the Aristotleian geocentric model. But, he did not have anything really substantial to smash the geocentric model. The angular differences in the
positions of the heavenly bodies could be dismissed with airy hand-waving, along with some spurious explanation like wobble in the crystal spheres, as a devil’s prank to confuse the faithful.

It is said that in 1666 (that is, when Newton was 24 and Galileo had been forced to recant his views only 33 years ago) that the famous apple fell on Newton’s head, or on the ground before him. Why did it fall to the ground? A simple question,

but no one had asked it before. Why was it moving faster and faster (accelerating) as it fell? Newton thought that there had to be an attractive force between the mass of the Earth and the apple, which caused it to fall. It was moving faster and faster
because till it fell, the force was working constantly upon it, causing acceleration. Newton then theorised that all bodies with mass are attracted to each other. The apple falls to the Earth, but the Earth is also influenced – the Earth also moves
towards the apple, but as the Earth is too big, and there are many other falls all over, the Earth’s movement is not discernible.

Newton theorized that the attractive force was proportional to the multiplicative product of the two masses attracting each other, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance separating them. This directly leads to the present

formula, F=GmM/r^2. However let us not forget that the gravitational constant G was not known until Cavendish measured it in 1797-98, some 131 years after Newton had his famous insight, which had so far eluded everyone else.

If masses did attract one another, just as the Earth attracts the falling apple, then why does not the Earth fall into the Sun, like the apple falling to the ground? Either gravity operated only on Earth (thus the Earth and the Sun did not

attract each other) or the sun being very small (like say Apollo’s chariot) revolved around the Earth; or - and this was supported by astronomical findings supporting Copernican model of the rotating Earth revolving around the Sun - the Earth actually
moved around the Sun.

It was obvious that the Sun was far bigger than the Earth, from the phenomena of eclipses and the knowledge of the Moon’s dimensions. It is still not known 100% that gravitation works for heavenly system, the way it does for the apple-Earth

system, thus the universal theory of gravitation remains a theory, although one of the most powerful theories known, like the atomic theory. It is still a theory, for it cannot explain why ionised masses escape from the Sun’s extraordinary
gravitational pull.

The Earth then has to move tangentially, always, for ever, to escape falling into the Sun. It certainly would do so if a giant hand stopped its motion! What Newton with his geometry and maths explained, clearly, was that the Earth is in fact

always “falling into” the Sun, but because of its tangential velocity, “falling out” by more or less the same amount. (The” more or less” accounts for the elliptic orbit, that is, not purely circular, as Kepler (1571-1639) had worked out
before Newton.)

The earlier point is worth pondering about, for a few minutes. It explains the motion of all satellites. The tangential motion allows the satellites to not fall back to the Earth, and keep constantly revolving unless the tangential speed is

reduced by drag of some kind, including rocketry.

Another point about gravity – the gravitational force simply depends upon the existence of mass. It never changes for that mass. It is constant, always there. This mass always attracts, thus its force never changes, it is exerted all around in

all angles. Always, always…. Such is the fundamental design of the Universe. Can we probe a bit deeper into its cause, now? I think some more groundwork is necessary.

22/04/2020

The cause of gravity – 3

The conception of force

Force is the central issue in physics – or at least, it should be the central issue in physics. It is from force that all things move, or stay put. Force moved over distance is work, and work has the same units as energy. Energy, then, is

expended when a force moves over a distance. There is a vast difference between force and energy – as I see it, force is for the physicists to better understand the workings of the Universe; and energy is for the businessmen to make money. So it is,
that as far as possible, to understand the fundamentals of Nature, I avoid the use of the energy concept.

The difference between force and energy is tricky. It is easy to confuse one for the other, and most people untrained in physics may do so. Force must have direction – it is thus called a vector. Because forces have direction, two separate

forces operating in the same direction add up to one double-force. In opposite directions, they cancel out to zero. But energy has no direction. It is thus called a scalar quantity. Energy is usually defined as the capacity of a body to do work. It is
further postulated that energy is always conserved. Its form however changes: when we drop a ball to the ground, the potential energy of the ball at the start changes to the maximum kinetic energy just near the point of impact. After this, though, the
thinking is not that clear. After impact, the kinetic energy is converted to heat energy. Instead of saying that this energy is lost, we say, as per classical physics, that the entropy, a mathematical concept about the state of disorder in the universe,
has increased. I have never been happy with this explanation – it seems to me pretty self-evident that energy is continuously getting created by the Sun and Earth, being used for various purposes, before being radiated out for destruction into deep
space. Thus, energy is pretty slippery. It is always getting used up. We need money to use energy, if we cannot make use of the natural sources like the Sun and wind and water and geothermal.

Is force equally slippery?

As far as I can see, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), in his Notes, made the first-ever proper description of force with the following statements:

“Force I define as a spiritual power, incorporeal and invisible, which with brief life is produced in those bodies which as the result of accidental violence are brought out of their natural state and condition. I have said spiritual because in

this force there is an active, incorporeal life; and I call it invisible because the body in which it is created does not increase in weight or in size; and of brief duration because it desires perpetually to subdue its cause, and when this is subdued it
kills itself.”

Such a definition of force is slippery indeed! From da Vinci’s definition, secularized, force is the “result of accidental violence” brought out “natural state and condition”. Thus it is random and violent. It is “brief in duration”,

meaning it is transient, certainly nothing permanent. A perpetual desire to “subdue its cause” means that it is revolutionary. When successful in that “it kills itself” so is suicidal. This appears as quite a statement of the violent political
mood of his times, based upon sneaky opportunisms, as elaborated upon by his contemporary Machiavelli (1469-1527)!

It will not be difficult to see how much da Vinci’s conception of force - which in his day had to be purely mechanical - influencing later scientists like Galileo, led to the formulation of the well-known Newtonian laws of motion. The phrase “

natural state and condition” is known as inertia, formulated in the first law of motion. “Result of accidental violence” refers to acceleration, and is formulated in the second law of motion. The statement “when this is subdued it kills itself”,
refers to the third law of motion which states that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

From the above discussion we find that the conception of mechanical force is not just slippery; it is random, violent, transient and suicidal. Nothing constant about force! And yet, with such conception of force, formed from the greatest minds in

the West, all the wonderful works in engineering have been done, from locomotives to jet engine airplanes; from muskets to missiles; small cars to huge ships! As force is slippery, so energy too is slippery. Energy mutates from one form to another. Just
like force, its magnitude depends upon the frame of reference with respect to any observer. Thus two jet airplanes flying side by side may gently nudge each other, with minimal force or expenditure of energy involved. But if they collide, meaning the
reference frames are opposite now, the forces involved and the energy spent in the disaster is enormous.

The above conception of force, so widely accepted because it was correct, makes Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity all the more remarkable. For gravity is not slippery, nor random, nor violent, transient and suicidal. It is the very opposite.

It is constant, spreading out in all directions, relatively very gentle, and permanent. Being all that, it is gravity which holds us all together on this planet; and it is gravity that makes the entire universe a permanent moving system composed of
unlimited quantities of matter. Gravity, thus, is an entirely different kind of force. As we shall see, it is a much muted form of electrostatic force. Till now, despite their basic similarity, gravity and electrostatic forces are held to be independent:
one is not the manifestation of the other.

A few more points: the random nature of mechanical force had led Leonardo da Vinci to conclude that a device that would perennially give out energy (a perpetual motion machine) was impossible. Even when gravity was discovered as a constant force,

this was found to be true. This inability to construct a perpetual motion machine was a factor in the definition of the law of conservation of energy, that energy could neither be created nor destroyed. Certainly this law is much appreciated by the
fossil fuel industries!

Researching Leonardo da Vinci’s comment on the nature of force, this time with a more modern mindset, we note the words “I have said spiritual because in this force there is an active, incorporeal life”. Now concentrate on the words “in

this force” and “life”. Da Vinci is not talking of force as an expression of the inanimate – for him all forces relate to life and spring from some unknown higher purpose, thus blurring the line between physics and metaphysics.

“Life force” thus is essentially internal. It comes from within, but is related to without. Going by da Vinci’s perception, it is inherently random and self-destructing. But what if it can be made to act otherwise, with the purpose of

steady movement in one direction? What if instead of being pushed around by external forces, bodies can push themselves with internal “life force”? We all know that this is a dream monetized by science fiction. Can this fiction become fact? Can we
overcome the effects of gravity with internal force?

For over twenty years, I have wrestled with the above issues. My work has been presented online. In 2000 I published in my “adda” website my book “To the Stars!”. It attracted minimal interest, till in 2003 an article by myself was

published in the Science Section of Outlook Magazine, in India. I got fiercely hostile reactions to my article, which surprised me before I got disgusted with the low quality of scientific temper, from low personal attacks. For example, one Garg, a
junior scientist in the employ of the Govt. of India, offered gratuitous abuse.

The link for that article is at https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/newt-is-old-hat/220728

I now believe, that the editors thought that I was attacking Newton with my new ideas, and that was the reason for its publication!

Arindam Banerjee
25 April 2020

The cause of gravity – 4

Measuring fundamental constants (G) and the meaning of research

(start rant)

Today the entire field of physics is thoroughly institutionalised, with standardised thinking dedicated to perpetuating the established orthodoxies, like any religion. These high priests – in the field of what is called “modern physics”

involving the theories of relativity, publish their weird notions, with amazing smoke screens of mathematical gibberish to confuse the most intelligent lay persons, in select journals and conferences, to maintain their high prestige. Their efforts are
very expensively funded by the Governments and various rich parties, blindly supporting the high priests ensconced in universities and Govt. laboratories. Amateurs or hobbyists have no place in this closed system. The best they can do is to publish their
work online; in social media, email, etc. unless they spend thousands of dollars for publication in some vague journal which will be automatically derided by the establishment because of its low ratings. In this system success is measured in terms of the
money squeezed out from the higher powers for some “output”. Like gravity waves, quarks, red shift, big bang, string theory, black holes, bosons, neutrinos… you name it, there will always be more coming!

So much is this notion prevalent, that only the expenditure of millions or billions of dollars involving vast projects such as making black holes, or fusion energy, is considered solely necessary to finding something new and wonderful – which,

however hardly ever happens. Anything revolutionary in physics, involving low budgets and lone endeavour is automatically discarded as cranky or plain wrong if it goes against the grain of the orthodoxies.

(end rant)

The greatest advances in physics did not require huge investments in money and manpower. What was needed was insight, dedication, patience, skill, tenacity… of the talented amateur, working with minimal help. Sir Isaac Newton is the best known

example, as the discoverer of the force of gravity. But his discovery in 1666 was far from complete. He could only indicate that the gravitational force between two masses was proportional to the product of the two masses, and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between their centres of gravity. Newton did not know what the proportionality constant was. We now know it as the gravitational constant G.

It was only in 1798 (that is 135 years after Newton’s discovery) that the Gravitational Constant was found from measurement, by Henry Cavendish. The experiment was painstakingly done by Cavendish, but the apparatus itself was simple. A recent

attempt to recreate a model of the original apparatus is shown in the Youtube video film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1lCjq4IzJw

Cavendish’s experiment was conducted in a large sealed room, to prevent air currents. Two lead balls, spaced widely apart were joined by a thin light rod. A fine string suspended these two balls from their centre of mass, from the ceiling. Two

heavy lead balls were placed near the suspended balls, such that they could each attract the suspended ball in the same direction so as to produce the maximum twisting effect (torque) upon the string. How much the string would twist, could be found out
by the angular displacement of a very light long strip connected to the twisting string. The movement of the edge of this strip could be tracked from its initial position to find the angular displacement.

So much (from above) I have got from the literature, and the rest is my own construction, relating to the necessary calibration and measurement. The gravitational force is very small. And yet, it can be measured correctly with proper application.

The main issue is calibration, for any measurement.

What we have to know is how much the thread twists for a certain torque (twisting action). Let us say that the length of the suspended rod with its attached balls is ten meters. Torque is equal to the force F multiplied by the distance r to the

point of twist. Or T=F*r. With equal force from the other end it is T=F*r + F*r = 2Fr or F.d. The torque motion will be resisted by the material in the string – it cannot twist indefinitely - after a certain angle (depending upon the quality) the
string will no longer twist as a result of the torque. Thus T= k.theta, where theta is the angle of twist and k is a constant depending upon the quality of the string. F.d=k.theta then; now we need to find k.

The issue of calibration now comes in. Let us see how it can be done. From about 10 cm from the centre of the suspending string, tie a fine thread to the rod on both sides. Slide it over a pulley to a suspended mass of say 1 gram, on both sides.

A continuous torque now acts on the suspended string. It will twist by a certain angle, then stop twisting. Measure that angle. Now make more experiments with increasing or decreasing weights, and changing the distances involved, to get many values of
theta, and from F, d and theta, so many values of k which should all be more or less the same for a given torque applied with various values of F and d. Numerous experiments average out the experimental error, statistically, to get k.

The rest of the experiment is simple. Just get the very heavy balls of lead near to the suspended balls, at right angles and as near as possible without touching. The small balls will be attracted by this extra mass near them, and the torque will

be created till the suspended string twists by an angle theta. Knowing k and theta, the torque T is known. Knowing the torque T and the distance d, the gravitational force F between the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball of mass M is known.
Various values of F can be found with increasing or decreasing the static balls; that is fro. Now at the end position, the distance between the centres of gravity of the suspended ball of mass m and the heavy ball M is found. This is r. So now we have
all that is needed to find the gravitational constant G from the formula

G = F*r*r/(m*M)

With this formula, Cavendish could work out the mass of the Earth, knowing g, the acceleration due to gravity. Every apple of mass m falls to the Earth with mass M, by the law of universal gravitation (it is assumed now that as per Newton not

just lead balls in an experiment are attracted with the constant G, but all bodies in the universe) it falls with a force F which by Newton’s second law is equal to m.g

The above equation can be written as M=F*r*r/(G.m) With F=mg, it is M=r*r*g/G

For the fun of it, let us put in the values to get the mass of the Earth! r is the Earth’s radius which is 6371 Km or 6371000 m. g on the surface is 9.8 m/sec/sec. G is found to be 6.674*10^-11 in MKS units. The calculator result is that the

mass of the Earth is 5.96 *10^24 Kg. How nice! Knowing the mass of the Earth we can also find the mass of the Sun, Moon and so on. In the practical sense, we can know how much force is exerted by the Earth on distant objects like satellites or space
vehicles.

**** NEW ****

So far we have been dealing with the known. Research to most means looking things up, but as a professional researcher I do not call that research; I call that search. Research (re-search or search again and again and again…) means looking at

an established search in a new way each time, with a slightly different angle, with the knowledge of relevant new knowledge and finally with special insight (from the Divine, in my case and with all my heroes in science: Plato, da Vinci, Newton, Maxwell,
Tesla, my great-uncle Sir U N Brahmachari) for its own sake, or for some practical purpose.

Applying that notion of research to the notion of the gravitational constant G, what do we find?

**** INSIGHT ****

We find that none of the masses involved in the experiment were charged with electricity.

*****************

Which amounts to, the law of universal gravitation may or may not apply to charged masses. This explains why ions stream out of the Sun, despite the Sun’s huge gravitational force. However up till now, we had assumed that charged masses were

subject to gravitational forces, so the ion streaming from the Sun is a mystery.

But what is charge? Sir Isaac Newton had no idea about charge, no clue about electricity. Cavendish may have had some idea, for his apparatus was a large torsion balance, used to measure electrostatic forces. We will go into the details of

electrostatics in the next instalment. That will be the prelude to expressing the equation of universal gravitation in electrostatic terms.

Arindam Banerjee
29 April 2020

Further comments in my facebook post: 29 April 2020

understand this, that the Gravitational Constant was measured only with masses with no charge in them. Both were uncharged. This is a small but vital point. It shows that assuming that the law of universal gravitation is valid for charged masses

is an assumption. It is the job of the researcher, that is, one who searches old stuff with new eyes, to point this out. And that is what I have done. And will be doing, in later instalments.

With the measurement of the slightest twist of a string, one may thus weigh the Earth, Sun, Moon and the planets! Direct the course of spaceships! Such is the power of the correct theory. Or rather, the more correct theory. Science is always

provisional, that is, in for change.

Thus I wonder, how much mad those around the likes of da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Cavendish, Franklin, Faraday thought them to be! They would not have had the faintest clue of what was going on. They would stoutly believe in established notions

expounded from some pulpit or altar. Things have not changed, have they!?

The cause of gravity – 5

The fundamentals of electrostatic attraction leading to the structure of the atom

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