Alex,

Thank you for your forthrightness. We have much to argue over. I see space as irreducible and time as an effect of action, no matter how fundamental it may be to our actions and mortality.(So is temperature.)

I agree what we perceive is past events and not only that, but static framings of otherwise dynamic processes. Yet it is because the perception of those events requires information to cross space and be carried by the action of light, that we don't perceive them instantaneously. Duration then is a function of how this information travels.

Our actions are part of the whole process and the more constructed they are, the necessarily more the momentum of prior form will define subsequent form. I don't have a problem with the concept of determinism and that what is past is determined, in which our will, conscious, subconscious and group conscious plays its part. To will is to determine. The term 'free will' is a bit of an oxymoron. We don't make distinctions between good and bad decisions and then decide. The decision is part of the process of making the distinctions. Then it becomes past, which is determined.

The problem with determinism is that while all the laws governing interaction might well be deterministic, otherwise they wouldn't be laws, the input cannot be fully known prior to the occurrence of the event in question. Otherwise the information and light carrying it, would have to travel faster than C. The event is the only sum of its input.

Meanwhile empty space has no features and properties which require a cause. Nothing physical to limit, move or bend it means it is inert and infinite. Consider that C is the speed of light in a vacuum. What is this vacuum, other than empty space? Currently Big Bang theory argues the entire universe is expanding and eventually those distant galaxies will be so far away their light will no longer reach us. Now that means more units defined by the speed of light will be required to cross this space. Presumably then it is being denominated in lightyears, which means the expanded space is the numerator. That's not expanding space, but an increasing distance in stable space, as measured by C.

When we measure time, we measure actions, but when we measure space, be it distance, area, or volume, we are measuring space.

So we have this void filled with cycles of radiation expanding and mass contracting. According to theory, this balances out to overall flat space and this is explained by inflation blowing the universe up so far that it only appears flat, but what if it really is flat? When we see light that has traveled billions of years, it has had to thread its way between all those gravity wells of galaxies. Not only that, but it's redshifted proportional to distance. Since I don't see how they can really use relativity to say space itself expands, when the speed of light doesn't increase proportionally to maintain C, so there really is only increased distance, then we would appear to be at the center of the universe. Now we do happen to be at the center of our view of the universe, so an optical effect would explain this quite well. So then the light in a basically gravity free environment expands, much as that in a gravity zone contracts. Think of space as the rubber sheet over water. Then when the ball pushes it down, the water pushes the rest back up proportionally, so that the overall effect is 'flat' and we only see light that travels the 'high ground.'

Convection cycles of expanding radiation and contracting mass in empty space is all we see and all we need.

Regards,

John M

Dear John,

Thank you for your reply. Your arguments forced me to have a look on some texts that came to my mind while reading you. Namely, I though about some of the ideas of Spinoza as you argued about space and time, for the Dutch philosopher thinks that thought and extent are the attributes of the one substance (which is infinite in itself, with an infinite number of attributes, each one of them being infinite), so that nothing is "outside" of it since, in fact, there does not exist any "outside". Well, I suppose that your own idea of space as an irreducible entity gets very close to Spinoza's conception. And referring to the concept of time as pure action, Spinoza says in the same tenor that action is the deployment of the substance (as a matter of fact, God, in the philosophical system of Spinoza) by means of the temporal unity of man. Ergo, time precedes existence, and human action needs time as a backdrop.

Indeed, information travels not at infinite speed, as we have a limit, c. Now, this reminds me that whatever we say, we pretend to know or to describe, we must have an irremovable referent, i.e. a frame of reference with respect to which we can say whatever: Ptolemy (Earth), Copernicus (Sun), Protagoras (man), sound (air), light (ether...or light itself), many human beings (God), etc., even this writing I am doing right now needs the referent of alphabet, language, syntax, and so on. Apparently infinite can only fit in human spirit; I think that is so for simultaneity as well. To will, more than to determine, is to get an idea of possibility: reality is the complex of possibilities. You remind me, once again, Spinoza when you say that free will is a sort of oxymoron, and I agree with you: we are not simply actors on the stage of space-time, but we rather create the stage being there and acting. But once this process begins, not only do we make the stage, but the stage makes us too. The main problem I see with determinism is not being simply false, because it is not, but that it pretends that everything is exclusively fixed by previous conditions, not allowing the appearance of novelty, of the radically unexpected, of emergence. Now, in fact, nature provides us with so many examples of emerging systems, proving that structures are not the ensemble of parts, but the collection of possible correlations between those parts, so far that even after the disappearance of them, correlations stay (e.g. fossils). That is why I think space as the trace of time (which is not duration), not as an effect coming out from a cause, unless we accept this view as the price to pay for our particular way on perceiving the phenomenal world.

About expanding universe, I do agree with you, provided they are not confused space and time as simple degrees of freedom. Physics has very often assumed homogeneity and isotropy of space, in an attempt to fulfill the conditions for solving non-linear equations, and that's understandable; however, we in general forget pretty soon that such conditions were exceptional and oversimplifying, so we entangle the feet with our own games. This is why I would like to talk about your phrase: "when we measure time, we measure actions, but when we measure space, be it distance, area, or volume, we are measuring space." What measuring is? Measuring is comparing couples of systems, assuming that one of them is, at least for a while, fixed. The "landing" or "shoulder" not in time, but in our understanding, are an indispensable condition for measuring anything. When we measure time we compare actions and when we measure space we compare historical moments, this is to say, places of the past. Of course, void is not the carbon copy of nothingness, since the former is actually something whilst the later cannot simply be, otherwise it wouldn't be nothingness. Light needs a propagation medium, which is light itself. Einstein spent almost twenty years before he realized that although it is true that ether as such doesn't exist, light does need a medium. I think that medium, light, is a direct property of the geometrical structure of space, this is to say, of time (from there the particular metrics of space-time).

I don't think there is a single center of the universe, i.e. it is nowhere or, equivalently, it is everywhere; as you assert right, each one is a fortiori the center of the universe; I'd rather prefer to say that each one is the center of his or her own universe. I am not quite sure though that either the presence or the absence of gravity is the only explanation of contraction or expansion, respectively, of space. I suppose science still has a very long way to go. However it is puzzling too the fact of remembering those old models (Greek atomists like Democritus, Descartes, etc.) praising vortices organizing reality; I am afraid that, for the time being, these are more philosophical than scientific subjects. Nevertheless, I hope scientific thought will eventually dig in them.

Thanks John and excuse me for the delay answering your deep reply.

Regards,

Alex

Alex,

You have infinite, but how do you have absolute? Like absolute zero and the state where that infinity of everything balances out. The vacuum without fluctuation. The void that is the medium for C.

Space may be infinite, but it is also that state of inertia. The motionless stability of everything pulling and balancing everything else. That 'geometrical structure' is vibrating, fluctuating, changing, yet because it is infinite, it also is balanced by the infinity. Energy radiating away in all directions is replaced by energy radiating in from all directions.

Change happens where structure is weakest relative to energy. Emergence is where energy exceeds order. The ice breaks, the bark splits, the flower blooms, the light escapes, the atom splits, etc. The problem with determinism is there is no way to objectively assemble relevant information prior to the event. It happens where your information is least. The pot boils faster when you don't watch it.

What seems to me to be the more useful relation is between information and energy. Energy is like time, it has to move and change, while information is the form it tries to manifest, fleetingly static. Like the absolute, a balancing of opposites, freezing the universe for a moment. The temperature of the fluctuation that creates change and time.

So space is both infinite and absolute. Like energy, stretching out to infinity, or a few billion lightyears. Absolute, as it tries to pull the ends back together and balance them in that larger medium of all. So we have these vortices of contracting form and radiating energy.

I know this is overly philosophical, but math and science are manifestations of form and see all as deterministic information. It is form falling into the vortex, not the energy being released.

Regards,

John M

5 days later

Your first three paragraphs hit the nail on the head. The outline also has one problem - I think the solution cannot be intellectually comprehended by a vast number of intelligent people. The vast numbers need comprehend only how to function within the solution. The solution must increase the complexity of society.

I like to think my paper presents a possible method to the Tower of Babel syndrome.

I offer some suggestions on a view of money. Milton Friedman's Free to Choose is a good reference. There is a difference between money and currency. Currency is the medium of exchange. Its advantage is people can trade for useful goods without having to possess the useful thing the other wants. Currency can be hard (gold or gold redeemable, etc.) or paper (backed by government fiat). Money can be currency or actual goods one trader wants such as in barter transactions. The US dollar is by government fiat and backed by force of arms. Therefore, the dollar is subject to government's fickle nature. The government is responsible for the vicissitudes to which you allude. Of course, the government wants to blame someone else. Banks and financial institutions must act as government desires. Otherwise, the government by force of arms will shut them down. Wealth can be stored by holding the useful items. Other ways of dealing with government currency crash are moving the money, people voting with their feet, preparing such as the doomsday preppers, etc. The more recent innovation of the bitcoin offers a way to a type of currency set by the market and not by the government. The bitcoin is enjoying some popularity but the world governments are disadvantaged and, therefore, will probably take a hard line against it. Also, the government has taken a regulatory line against barter and cash transactions, which easily avoids taxes (another form of money).

Today, religion seems to not include science. Indeed, when a tidbit of the universe becomes science, it ceases to be religion. However, science still fails to define morals to run a society. My paper offers a way around this. So, religion and science must coexist for mankind to advance.

    JH,

    To a certain extent, my argument is that by viewing money as a contract, rather than a commodity, it would be viewed in fundamentally moral terms, as a force that holds society together and makes the parts function as a whole. Which is what the essence of morality is, the principles by which society can function. Essentially it is the economic blood flowing through the system. As it is, treating it as a commodity makes it morally neutral. Rather than a broad public contract which is dependent on its economic fungibility, it is treated as personal property. While the average person likes this principle of freedom, it also applies to those who run the system and feel it their right to be able to skim off as much as they possibly can. Many people get quite offended when I make this point, as though I am trying to socialize their wealth, but I try pointing out that it is in the interest of the government and the banks for people to think of it as personal property, because then it insinuates itself into every possible exchange and this allows the banks and the government to control and tax society to a much deeper level, because they control the flow and value of this medium. So if it was thought of a medium, similar to a road system, then people would much better understand its uses and limitations and hopefully better appreciate far more organic relationships, than ones processed through and dependent on these global systems.

    Yes, few people will be willing to really see this now, because it is radically different than what we are taught to believe, but at some point in the not too distant future, that particular belief system is going to implode on a massive scale and every current effort to prevent that will only make the eventual crash that much bigger.

    Both gold and bitcoin are commodities. They are morally neutral. Should the market forces controlling supply to demand break down, so does their value. A national currency is a reflection of faith in the durability and integrity of a particular nationstate. That is not personal property.

    Regards,

    John M

    You seem to agree that currency by government is morally evil. The result is inflation or the low interest rates fostered by government in an attempt to have their cake and eat it without tax.

    How would you change the system to have currency or money be viewed as a social contract that government could not abuse?

    JH,

    You are not going to find perfect. What you are looking for is balance. The point I make in my entry is that just as the body reflects the dichotomy of energy and information, so is society, so as we reached the point where government no longer worked as private business, ie. monarchy, we are now finding limits on banking as a private practice. This is not to say it's bad, think Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. But the point which needs emphasizing here is that government and finance are as separate as the nervous system and the circulatory system. We don't want short term executive type thinking running our heart rate, though it does affect it. Then again, systems do get old and corrupted, broken etc. So we need to keep that deeper understanding of the physical dynamic and do what we think is best for those we value. In nature, some of it is completely local and some is light coming from a billion miles away and water coming from a thousand miles away.

    Personally I live on a farm and exercise and break racehorses. It doesn't make me much money, but the farm doesn't have any debt beyond the bills and I find the more you have, the more you have to worry about. So I'm putting up a sort of vision thing and figure time will decide otherwise. Most people who know me thought I'd die young, but that didn't happen.

    Regards,

    John M

    Also I usually prefer discussing more elemental questions, because of all the emotional issues attached to politics, economics and religion, but this question was one I couldn't resist.

    Here are some of my entries in previous FQXI contests;

    What is Information

    The Problem: We See Time Backward

    Comparing Apples to Inches

    Explaining Time

    Not that you would want to read them all, but it gives some insight into how my mind thinks and what I find interesting.

    Regards,

    John M

    JM

    I think I'm beginning to see our difference. Reading between the lines, I think you are following the Keynesian derived doctrine (political/government). As the essay suggests, the Keynesian derived doctrine predictions have not only failed, the opposite of their forecasts has happened. I have limited understanding of economics, but I can recognize Friedman's predictions were correct. Therefore, I think his model (monetarists) is the better model. I argue this without real economic understanding, but based of the science that the model that predicts is better regardless of how weird it sounds.

    I suggest your next step should be to get Free to Choose. It is a book and a 10 part TV series (DVD) (comes in 2 series - the first/older is much better, the second is nearly worthless). The end of each segment has his opponents asking questions and making statements with Friedman replying. As near as I can tell, everything you are addressing is in the series. You may know more than I at the end of the series as you have a real interest in the subject. BTW part of Friedman's solution was to abolish the Federal Reserve.

    I left a copy of this on my site, also

    Friedman's view of the 30s is different than your's.

    As a teenager on a farm, I had a pacer. Her foals helped finance my college.

    John H,

    While I haven't made economics an obsession, I do have some idea what has been going on. The monetarists have pretty much been one half the cycle all along. The problem, as I've pointed out, is everyone wants to save piles of money and so excess money becomes necessary to keep things going. Presumably Volcker was the big monetarist to bring the supply of money back into line, after the 70s, but it only really worked when the Reaganites started borrowing hand over fist. That's Keynesian borrowing the piles of excess wealth back and running it through the system and now we are where we are. Like I said, it's really mostly politics and the two sides balances each other and no one is going to do anything different until it finally blows up.

    The reason there was a shortage of capital in the 30's was because the credit bubble blew up and Hoover and the Fed at the time were looking at what inflation was doing to Germany and refused to pump alot of extra money into the system, like they did in 2008.

    Regards,

    John M

    I think Friedman's view is different. The start of the depression about the end of 1929 was a normal correction. What the government did was to restrict or stop the flow of gold (the currency backing). This amounted to the opposite of using debt to increase the velocity of money. That is, it acted like deflation by taking money out of the system. This caused the normal (3 year) correction to become a decades long major catastrophe. I think Friedman's analysis has been accepted but repressed by the politics for it blames the government action for being the bad guy. Enter FDR. He attempted to get the money flowing but didn't fix the core problem.

    John H,

    You forced me to wikipedia that. Yes, you are right and so is just about everyone else. There were an enormous number of factors. Primarily, as the Austrians said, lots of debt in the 20's and as the monetarists said, insufficient money creation after the bubble popped. Apparently the Fed was limited by regulations to 40 percent gold to cash and was reaching its limits. I would argue the credit expansion prior to the crash was a lot bigger than any previous, so it likely would have been a significant depression anyway. Especially given the various external, weather, WW1 issues. It was a big mess!

    Regards,

    John M

    A thought provoking essay John..

    But I guess we should expect that by now. I hope you do well, and that your message gets across. In this particular contest; I think your ability to editorialize issues benefits you and us more than your scientific knowledge and insights. If not for the ability to move people emotionally, nobody could communicate certain points adequately to give humanity the wake up call it needs to survive.

    I think you went off the tracks a bit, extemporizing about the role of God as either limited in scope or of distant concern for humans. I assure you that it is easier to know everything at once, in some regards, than it is to have a detailed knowledge of all individual things. But the ability to immerse oneself in that state of consciousness does not preclude the possibility to examine details of things, if that is one's proclivity. The example that comes to mind is this.

    When playing complicated musical passages, one focuses on the start notes of phrases, rather than each individual note, then you fill in the gaps. If one does try to play fast and focus on every note, it falls apart. In a Piano improv workshop, Alaudin Bill Mathieu suggested that one could free up the mental capacity for right-hand improvisation by focusing on what the left hand is doing, and keeping that regular. In some regards, it is the very distraction from the difficulty of the complex task that lets it proceed automatically.

    It is known that sometimes Mozart would deliberately distract himself with billiards, while transcribing music, which would still his mind's internal chatter by tying up the part of the brain that would otherwise get in the way, so that again this work could proceed automatically. I guess that's all for now.

    All the Best,

    Jonathan

      Hi John,

      Your essay shows deep thought about our current human condition. Although you say some may be offended, it is better to question and correct rather than wait for disaster. Your comments on the need for balance between opposing forces is right on. Society depends on meeting the needs of people and we can expect conflict as more people with powerful communication tools start to suffer in-balances. You are right, the original concepts and functions of our institutions have indeed been corrupted. Government and banking are intended to serve. They work well when people know and care for each other, but as you point out money is no longer an exchange medium. It is an end unto itself and a symbol of power. Community bankers used to know people and lending was an exchange of trust to help people. Originally government didn't even have the power to tax because that was not its primary purpose. Representatives used to represent but they lost contact and see us as a vote to get to keep their jobs.

      Thanks for reading and commenting on my essay. I see some small differences in our thoughts but we totally agree on information and energy being two sides of the same coin. I proved (at least to myself) that information and energy are fundamentally related. The June 2012 essay is now: Barbee, Gene H., A Top-Down Approach to Fundamental Interactions, FQXi essay, June 2012 and vixra:1307.0082 revised Mar 2014. Also, I also proved to myself that life is a consequence of quantum mechanics operating in an information based reality. That essay is now: Barbee, Gene H., Life from Information, vixra:1311.0124v1, FQXi 2013 essay contest.

      We think a little differently in the following regard: I view the laws of nature as information transitions and energy as the result so I tend to believe that information is pre-eminent. I believe in creation from zero energy (a flat cosmology demands this). Several authors, one being Charles Seife, have made the statement "the universe appears to be a giant thought". I tend to agree but I also agree with your thoughts about absolute knowledge. If she exists, can't she just be a devine friend?

      If you have time: Barbee, Gene H., On the Source of the Gravitational Constant at the Low Energy Scale, vixra:1307.0085, revised Feb 2014. Prespacetime Journal Vol. 5 No. 3 March 2014.

        Jonathan,

        I did go into a bit of a spiel there, but something like what you are saying is where I'm trying to go, that the essence of that universal being is also necessarily elemental, rather than lots and lots of information based and that in fact lots of complex information is part of that dynamic cycle of creation and dissolution, which does then lay down those layers and create more interactions.

        To a very real extent, we have many 'voices' in our heads and life can often be a process of deciding which to listen to, when. Whether they are background chatter, or that idea just hiding right out of sight, or those rude comments which offer themselves up, or even the dark fears, or the happy little pops.

        Often my work tool is an eleven hundred pound animal and I have to completely zone out and lose all focus and simply let the pieces fall together, with what is my executive function as little more than a cloud of awareness, with a checklist of what needs to be accomplished. The horse itself doesn't focus on much of what its body and legs are doing and so like any hand tool, I have to keep it balanced and going at a proper rate, etc. Then I'm trying to essentially get the horse zoned out and relaxed at it as well. Not to mention there are usually several other horses and riders and have to keep them all in some degree of order and sense when things might be going wrong, such as one horse planning to kick another. So there is both the bottom up detail and the top down strategy, as one whole process, even in that.

        Part of the problem is that modern society requires individuals to be focused entirely on specific jobs and not question the top down strategy, yet when those actually at the top and making the decisions start doing things that are shortsighted, self-centered, corrupted, etc, we don't necessarily have effective feedback loops to correct them. How often do people at the top ignore feedback? Sometimes it's necessary, but sometimes it is ignorance. I think in this contest, we need to consider how those feedback loops function in society and ways they can be fixed. Right now, I see the obsession with monetary gain as the loudest voice in the collective head and since it has created an enormous bubble of notational value that looks like it might pop in the not too distant future, then finding ways to lasso it when it's down this time, is a necessary goal and that is sort of why I take my entry in the direction that I do.

        Regards,

        John M

        Gene,

        In some of my other essays I make a basic point about time, which runs significantly counter to most conventional thinking, that it is not the present moving from past to future, which physics distills to measures of duration, but the process by which future becomes past. For instance, rather than the earth traveling Newton's flow, or Einstein's dimension from yesterday to tomorrow, tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. Now not only is spacetime based on measures of duration and so much of current cosmology, but history and thus civilization is based on that narrative vector, so I know I'm going against the flow with this. Yet if time is an effect of action, it explains alot. Rather than trying to figure out how to transition from a determined past to a probabilistic future and assuming the future must already be determined, since the laws of physics only yield one outcome of many possibilities, or taking the opposite tack and considering the past remains probabilistic and branches out into many worlds, with every option, we can just accept the fate of the cat is determined by actual actions and then recedes into the past.

        Now this makes time an effect of action, similar to temperature. While we think of temperature as a cumulative effect, it is based on lots of individual actions. With time we measure lots of individual actions, but wonder what the universal rate is, ie, Newton's absolute flow. The problem is there really is just the cumulative effect of these separate actions. Thus it is like temperature, lots of particular actions adding up to a larger effect. One is rate of change and the other is level of activity, so time is to temperature, what frequency is to amplitude.

        Now you may not agree with this, but suspend judgement while I tie it into our current discussion;

        Cosmology is flat, as the positive curvature of gravitational contraction is balanced by the negative curvature of universal expansion. So where is the additional expansion for the universe to grow, if this effect is balanced by gravity? We can only measure the light of distant galaxies that hasn't been drawn into gravity wells, so it only travels the 'high ground' of 'expanded space,' not the gravitational 'low ground.' Not to mention that Big Bang theory says those distant galaxies will recede over time, but that implies the speed of light is not affected by this expansion, so it can't be a relativistic effect, since C is not maintained relative to this expanded space. Thus it's only increasing distance in terms of lightyears. Now we are at the center of our view of the universe, so it makes more sense that redshift is an optical effect and in essence is the cosmological constant to balance the effect of gravity and so explain why space is ultimately flat.

        What this means, is that rather than the universe beginning 13.8 billion years ago, with all we have to explain, from how it began, to inflation, to dark energy, it is instead a cosmic convection cycle of expanding radiation and contracting mass.

        Among other things, this goes to the relationship between energy and information, as well as past and future. Energy is that light expanding out, radiating away from old forms and eventually coalescing into new ones, as the information/structure becomes ever more dense and defined, eventually to break down and radiate away, or be shot out the galactic poles.

        With gravity as an overall effect of energy coalescing into mass, rather then just a property of mass. This explains why the outer parts of galaxies spin as fast as the inner parts, since it is a vortex of the radiation, far out into intergalactic space starting the process and eventually falling into this whirlpool and why the outermost stars lack heavy elements.

        Now I do get lots of grief for this and prefer not to dig the hole any deeper than necessary, so think of it as a form of story of how all the parts might fit together and not all the ways it conflicts with established models.

        I put this up to show we are likely quite far apart on some fundamental ideas, but the quest is the same, to try and fit all the pieces together and not have too many imagined elements, such as multiverses, to explain it.

        I think a big part of the strength of information as a field of study, is that our knowledge is expanding exponentially, yet when you look at how society functions, those controlling the energy, control the information. Bankers and oilmen tell politicians what to do.

        Now a bunch of horses need my attention, because most of the other people are doing weekend stuff and I'm the designated worker.

        Regards,

        John M

        Thanks John,

        I appreciate the time taken for such a detailed and thorough response. We are, in many ways, on the same page with how society needs to change, to support human survival and the evolution or development of a better way. First we need to survive long enough for that positive change to happen, which is by no means automatic.

        More later,

        Jonathan

        Jonathan,

        That there are no 100 percent guarantees is a fact of nature and in some ways, is a good thing. That reset button is part of the process. It makes one go under the surface, so to speak. It makes you get into that sense of all. The spiritual DNA.

        Regards,

        John M

        The present state of cosmology is very confused so no one has a basis to give you grief. The problems I see are: No one really knows what space and time are. We only can see 4% of what is apparently out there. We really don't know what dark matter and dark energy are. The standard model has three sets of particles, not one. Many believe in inflation but where.why does it stop? etc. etc.

        I spent a serious amount of time on WMAP results and primordial nucleosynthesis and find both full of constants that they don't admit to.

        I wrote a paper proposing a fundamental gravitational theory but no one seems to care.

          Gene,

          I originally got interested in physics as a way to make sense of how society functions, but then I found the rules of how society functions determine a lot of how physics as a field of study has evolved, what is understood and what can be discussed.

          There has to be that conceptual foundation and yet prior knowledge is necessarily more limited than current knowledge, so these rules and models get laid down and then become the filter through which subsequent information is processed. Then the better the models get, the longer their flaws go undetected and the more committed the society of physics gets to them. So the process then has to get that much further off the tracks before it breaks down enough to do a complete enough review. As I keep arguing, we need to think of time, not in terms of the point of the present 'moving' from past to future, but the physical dynamic turning future into past. While it seems simple enough, it does undermine the physical premise of spacetime, even if the math still works, so I may as well be talking another language.

          The math of epicycles worked quite well too, but the physical premise of giant cosmic gearwheels proved unnecessary.

          I would have to say up front that understanding gravity is beyond my paygrade, so I tend to avoid discussions of it, because as with most topics in physics, one could spend a lifetime trying to learn all the details. My personal view of gravity is that it is an effect of energy coalescing into mass and as such is part of the broad spectrum of causes, not one particular force. Much as releasing energy from mass creates expansion and pressure, be it nuclear, chemical, structural, entropy, etc, the amount of energy occupies more space relative to the equivalent amount of mass, so put it in reverse; How does the energy go from intergalactic light to the black hole of crushing pressure. I suspect it's lot of things, from magnetism, to momentum, to structural order, plus all those relations between radiation and subatomic particles we are only scratching the surface of, all working along the spectrum which relativity models as the geometric contraction of space.

          Then there is the topic of this contest, which is in physical terms, a very broad topic, as the diversity of the entries prove.

          Regards,

          John M