Alternative gravity theory

[Guest macman]

Hi,

 

I remebered something from a while back that I read in a Dilbert book. Scott adams proposes an alternative theory to gravity, that upon brief thought seems possible, but pretty impossible to prove. Here's an excert:

 

In this universe, there are only two objects: you and a huge planet-sized ball.There is no gravity in this hypothetical reality in the classic sense of objects being attracted to each other. There is only one rule: Every piece of matter in this universe is constantly expanding, doubling in size every second. You wouldn't notice the doubling, because both you and the huge ball would remain in the same proportion to each other. There would be no other reference points. And you wouldn't feel your own matter doubling any more than you feel the activity of the atoms in your body now.

In your current universe, you don't feel your skin cells dying, and you don't feel yourself being propelled at high velocity around the Sun or spinning with the Earth s rotation. So it shouldn't be hard to imagine how you could be doubling in size every second without being aware of it in the hypothetical universe. The only effect you would feel from this doubling in size is the illusion of gravity. The ball's growth would cause a constant pushing against you. If you tried to "jump" away from the growing ball, you would create some space temporarily, but the ball's growth would catch up with you and close The distance quickly To you, it would feel as though you were attracted to the huge ball and whenever you jumped "up," you would be sucked back down to it.

There would be no gravity, but it would look and feel exactly like gravity. Visually, it would seem that the huge ball had more "gravitational pull" than you do, because you seem to be attracted to it and not the other way around. This corresponds to our classic view of gravity‹that huge objects have more of it.

 

Imagine a marble and a bowling ball. Now imagine they both instantly double in size. The marble still looks pretty much like a marble, but the bowling ball appears huge. When a large object doubles in size, it seems to have a disproportionately significant impact compared to a smaller object. So if gravity is an optical illusion, large objects would appear to create more of the illusion than smaller objects. That's consistent with what we see.

 

Now let's move from the hypothetical universe to our current universe filled with planets and other matter. You'd have to add another rule in order for the expanding matter theory to replace gravity in the current universe. You'd have to have a universe where all the major planets are moving away from each other quickly, otherwise they'd grow until they all bumped together. In fact, the current universe does appear to be expanding, so that's no obstacle to the expanding matter theory. I can't think of anything in the "real" universe that would contradict the notion of gravity being an illusion caused by expanding matter.

 

Scott Adams , The Dilbert Future.

 

Can anyone explain why this is not faesible?

 

p.s. apologies for the sorta unformatted quote

[JaKiri]

How do orbits work?

[Atlantic]

Interesting theory, but if there are no reference points..........what is expanding and what isn't? Maybe it is contracting instead of expanding? think about it.

 

Another thing.......

The relation between the distance from the body to the "expanding" object, and the "gravity force" or "how fast you are being "pulled" toward the pulling object" is not linear, it is indeed a curve. So in my opinion, your theory can't work.

 

nice theory though

[JaKiri]

Well, it's not his theory. It's Scott Adams's jokey suggestion.

 

Contraction wouldn't work for definite though.

[NavajoEverclear]

yeah orbits was the question i had----- plus doesn't matter behave differently in different quantities (if it is matter doubling). If its the size, not the amount of mattere doubling--- i dont see that as possible, how would you define that? really its the quantity of it's particles that define its size.

 

So if the quantity of matter doubles, we would be able to detect it. We'd find higher concentration of atoms---- which since we can hardly see anyway would come a time that they would be impossible to detect at such concentration. except that time wouldn't COME, it would have already happened, every moment we'd need a microscope (or whatever you use to see atoms) twice as strong as the last. It would be extremely convenient for us to have created one microscope in time to see a single atom

 

------ i think i'll stop talking, it simply doesn't work---- unless theres a lot more to the theory and a reason why such a thing would occur.

[JaKiri]

The quantity of matter wouldn't double, just the space between the particles would.

 

This doens't really work with a constant speed of light, mind.