virtual particle force shielding as gravitation

[hoola]

Some time ago I saw some reference to virtual particle appearance / annialation creating a positive pressure in empty space, and that the presence of physical matter causes a reduction of the number of particles that can appear within matter, or proximate to matter, as demonstrated by the casimir effect. The overall thrust of the idea was that matter (a planet) shielded the force from behind any particular surface point, so the positive force would be expressed as gravity function on the surface. The effective surface gravity force would be higher with higher matter density shielding, the ultimate model being a black hole, which would shield all the counteracting pressure, allowing a max of gravity force to be derived from the particle pairs. I write this only to have it dismissed as a working model of gravitation as I could not find a reference to this in the search engine..

[Strange]

This, and variations of it, is a very old idea, long disproved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Sage%27s_theory_of_gravitation

 

People ressurect it every now and again with claims that neutrinos or virtual particles or dark matter or <insert random nonsense> will make it work. For some reason, these people never do the maths to show that it could work. They sometimes claim that the maths, if they did it, would look exactly like relativity therefore they don't have to do it. (But they never do the maths to prove that claim either.)

[Mordred]

Lol I keep forgetting about that model.

[hoola]

still a very cute idea especially in consideration of the early 1690 origins. Even if the effect were to be proved, the cause of gravity would still be elusive and would hinge upon why virtual particles exist in the first place...similar to why does matter warp space of today...thanks for the link strange

[MigL]

I thought the Casimir effect referred to the case where two plates, minimally separated, restrict the wavelength supported between them and thereby, the number of virtual particles.

Don't see how this would apply to large bodies like planets.

[Mordred]

There are numerous variations of virtual productions and mechanisms. Casimmir effect is an electromagnetic variation. Le Sage however isn't due to the Casimir effect but rather a particle aether exerting pressure the force of gravity is defined by the ultra mundane corpuscle particles exerting pressure. Keep in mind this model was developed back when the aether was thought to be a requirement. They didn't have virtual particle theories back in the 1700's

As Strange mentioned though there have been later modifications to the Le Sage model including forms of virtual particles producing the same effect. Big Nose pointed out the primary problem of medium based space in the other thread

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/81656-the-universe-is-a-continuum-of-matter/?p=843991

Edited January 2, 2015 by Mordred