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The phenomena I listed are demonstrably due to the presence of gravitational sources, so of course they are gravitational in nature. You don’t get (eg) a Shapiro delay, or Thirring-Lense precession of gyroscopes, or any of the other examples, without the presence of energy-momentum distributions such as a planet. You claiming that this isn’t so is...’bizarre’ is the only word I can think of. It is easy to show that no forced-based model can ever accurately describe the correct degrees of freedom for real-world gravity, irrespective of its details. This is why Newtonian gravity only works as an approximation in the weak field regime. For one thing, the source term for gravity is a rank-2 tensor (this follows from Noether’s theorem), so whatever dynamical quantity you couple to it has to be rank-2 also. This rules out vector field models such as the one you propose, but is fully consistent with GR. Furthermore, a model for gravity based on forces alone predicts incorrect polarisation states for gravitational radiation. A rank-1 theory means that these polarisation states are inclined at 90 degree angles - which is not what we observe. You need a rank-2 theory to obtain the observed 45 degree angle between quadrupole polarisation states - which is, again, consistent with GR. This is a basic result from general field theory, and not exclusive to just gravity. And then of course there’s the trivial fact that accelerometers in free fall always read exactly zero - so no forces act on freefalling bodies, yet they are obviously still affected by gravity. That massless particles are indeed influenced by gravitational sources is an observational fact. Unfortunately your idea is falsified by the above points - gravity cannot be a force in the Newtonian sense, because that’s simply not consistent with what we observe. I think you got this all backwards - of course GR predicts DM. That’s the whole point of postulating DM in the first place. We can see based on observational data that there are various gravitational dynamics happening that are not due solely to baryonic matter that we can see; hence we deduce, based on GR, that there are additional sources of gravity that don’t appear in the visual or radio spectra. That’s a solid prediction. Now we are in the process of checking this prediction. If, in due time, no such thing as DM is found, then we know that GR isn’t the correct model on larger scales, and we can look at appropriate modifications to the theory. That’s how the scientific method works. However, what you propose as an alternative is trivially wrong on fundamental grounds, so it’s a non-starter. It doesn’t even work locally, never even mind on larger scales.

Then don't talk gibberish and stick to the topic. What the hell have Siamese twins got to do with either rates of change or the differentiation of planetary bodies? And what the hell do you mean by volcanoes as "retrothrusters"? We're not talking bloody Buck Rogers. Get a grip of your thoughts, for Christ's sake, and stop wasting people's time with this nonsense.

I absolutely support this in spirit, but worry a LOT about how it’s going to siphon votes from the least bad / less crazy candidates given our lack of a ranked choice voting option. For example, maybe I’d like to vote for Yang as my first choice, but if the other 2 candidates are Trump and Biden, I’d HATE for my Yang vote to lead Biden to lose and allow Trump to slide his greasy thieving fascistic self back into office. Would be ideal instead to say, “I want Yang, but if he doesn't win then my vote must be counted for Biden.” But we don’t have that, so my concerns outweigh my support for these Forward folks.

Sure. But that’s not due to forces, because these stars in free fall. Of course. Coincidentally though this is not a gravitational phenomenon. I don’t know what you mean by “knee shift” - can you provide a source? GR is a purely classical theory, so it does not predict any gravitons. I have explained this in my previous post. Also, GR only indicates that there is an additional source of gravity that is distributed in a certain way - it does not say anything about the nature of this source. In particular, GR does not say that DM is particulate matter. The search for DM is currently underway, but not finding DM particles does not mean that DM isn’t there; there are options other than it being made of new particles. Lastly, if it turns out that DM isn’t there, then that still doesn’t mean that GR is wrong - it means only that GR’s domain of applicability is limited to shorter scales, and needs to be modified for longer scales. Either way, your idea is not a contender, since it is ruled out on fundamental grounds, as I’ve explained. This is what MOND tries to do - unfortunately the resulting model is inconsistent with observational data, so this approach does not work. It also requires extra vector and scalar fields, for which there is no evidence. No, see above. DM is a prediction about there being additional sources of gravity, but GR says nothing about their nature. So it doesn’t predict new particles. How could it? It’s a purely classical model that has no concept of quantum fields.

Really ? How does a meteorite impact show that "the distance from the planet's centre is constant " ? And if I was standing at the North Pole ? Apparantly not. Repetition does not improve understanding or veracity. Actually responding to the points of others migh go some way to achieving this. No, in my day (the 1970s) we did gravimetric surveys the hard way from on board ship or sometimes aircraft.

If I could, I would give your post many +1s, Markus. Unfortunately kba is so 'obsessed' with his pet idea, that it'll be totally disregarded by him.

So why did you not address the question I asked you ? G is a universal scalar constant. g is a vector which is not proportional to G and is the variable that measures the Earth's gravity field. They do not have the same units or dimensions. I quoted exactly which of your many points I was objecting to. Here it is again. And here is what I asked you. I should like to point out that there is a whole branch of Science called Geodesy, which I studied for postgrad, devoted to measuring and studying the fact that the Earth's gravity field does not follow these predictions.

I meant in the cooking, not the mixing. The more important thing, probably, is to really jam those patties together tight and firm, so the breadcrumbs can get a grip on the meat. And if you think beef is a challenge, try frying an intact quinoa, beet or soy burger! (pork and turkey are easy; veggie is really hard!)

You posted an idea to a scientific discussion forum, so it is not unreasonable for me to expect you to work within the scientific method. That entails putting down a formalism for your idea, so that one can extract predictions from it and compare these to experiment and observation. All scientific models in physics - without exception - work that way. If there’s no mathematical formalism, then your idea is useless, because it can’t be used to model or predict anything; it’s just a personal opinion. Having a formalism, besides allowing for numerical predictions, also removes ambiguity. That’s really important. Writing a mathematical statement means everybody knows precisely what it is you mean to say, in a way that verbal description can never really do. This is in fact one of the chief problems on this thread, because evidently I’m not the only poster here being confused on what you are actually trying to say. The other problem of course is that if your idea isn’t amenable to the scientific method, then you yourself have no way of knowing whether there’s any value to it or not. You need to be honest with yourself on this. Don’t just assume you are right and everyone else here is wrong - some of us here have spent years studying gravitational physics, so we know precisely what GR says and how it works, and based on that we have the tools to give honest feedback on people’s alternative ideas. Don’t just dismiss us - instead, use us as a valuable resource to further your own understanding. I guarantee that you’ll get much more out of this thread that way. I can see you are frustrated. That’s understandable, but you must realise that I merely gave you the perspective of the current scientific consensus on the subject of gravity (being GR). As far as I can see your own ideas do not conform to that, and, this being a science forum, you will thus naturally be challenged on them. This isn’t personal, that’s just the nature of discussion forums. You are correct, gravity isn’t a force - which is why we have GR to correct the shortcomings of Newton. However, gravity in GR isn’t merely due to time-related effects (which is what you seem to be saying) - you have to consider spacetime in its entirety, and it’s dynamics are a pretty subtle thing. Crucially, you can’t really separate time from space, except perhaps for illustrative purposes under very special circumstances. Even the simplest spacetime geometries (ie Schwarzschild spacetime) have tidal components in the spatial parts, it is not just about time alone.