Photon-Graviton Recycling as Cause of Gravitation: Difference between revisions

Scientific Paper
Title	Photon-Graviton Recycling as Cause of Gravitation
Read in full	Link to paper
Author(s)	Matthew R Edwards
Keywords	graviton, photon, black hole, Newton, Hubble, CBR
Published	2007
Journal	Apeiron
Volume	14
Number	3
No. of pages	20
Pages	214-233

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Abstract

Previously, the author proposed that graviton energy and photon energy are everywhere being interconverted at fractional rates proportional to the Hubble constant H0. Evidence for the postulated graviton decay was suggested to lie in observable planetary heating and expansion. The greatest quantity of gravitational potential energy associated with a mass resides in its interactions with the most distant matter of the visible universe. Assuming that this graviton energy is also decaying to photons, then long wavelength electromagnetic radiation is being generated almost uniformly at every point in space. A universe in equilibrium requires that this radiation is reconverted to gravitons at the same relative rate, closing the energy cycle. Supposing that photons are reconverted to gravitons through absorption by matter, a simple mechanism for universal gravitation can be developed. In a mechanism analogous to Le Sage's and Brush's theories of gravity, bodies mutually screen each other from a portion of the radio photon background and consequently are pushed towards each other. It is shown that Newton's law is reproduced and some possible connections to the General Theory of Relativity are discussed. Lastly, it is suggested that the luminosities of neutron stars, white dwarfs and black holes may be primarily due to graviton decay therein.

Overview

Matthew R. Edwards, a University of Toronto science librarian and the editor of the Le Sage-revival collection Pushing Gravity, here attempts something that most alternative-cosmology papers do not: to derive Newton's inverse-square law as a consequence of a tired light redshift, rather than treating the two subjects separately. The paper is the sequel to Edwards (2006), in which he argued that the energy stored in a body's own gravitational field decays into heat at a fractional rate set by the Hubble constant H₀, offering the excess heat emission of the giant planets and the expanding-Earth hypothesis as evidence. The present paper carries that premise up to cosmological scale.

The departure from the mainstream account is twofold. First, the expansion of the universe is set aside entirely: Edwards works in a static cosmos, so the redshift must be a real energy loss and that lost energy must go somewhere. Second, gravitation is not geometry. Where general relativity offers either curved spacetime or a field of no deeper explanation, Edwards proposes a closed energy cycle: photons crossing space give energy to gravitons (this is the redshift), gravitons decay back into very long-wavelength photons (this generates a radio background), and the absorption of that radio background by matter produces a shadowing effect that pushes bodies together. Gravity, in his phrase, becomes a matter of masses seeing "a general deficit of background photons in the direction of each other."

The argument

Gravitons as virtual photons

Edwards assumes gravitons are "photon-like" — most simply, a species of virtual photon exchanged between masses in the same way virtual photons are exchanged between atomic charges. Because every mass exchanges gravitons with every other mass in the visible universe, the collection of exchanges may be pictured as "filaments" of virtual photons connecting all masses. This cosmic graviton lattice is offered as the physical counterpart of the spacetime of general relativity, and possibly also as the medium of the matter waves of quantum physics. He notes that identifying gravitons with virtual photons sits well with Mach's idea that inertia derives from the distant stars, and with the QED result that virtual photons add to the mass of the system that exchanges them.

Redshift as energy transfer to the lattice

The redshift law is taken in the standard tired-light exponential form, E(r) = E₀e^−α_Lr, which for small z gives z ≈ α_Lr and hence, comparing with z ≈ H₀r/c, the absorption coefficient α_L = H₀/c (following Assis 1992). Crucially, the energy a photon loses is not lost from the universe: it becomes graviton energy in the lattice. Edwards emphasises that because the interaction is with a diffuse lattice rather than with atoms, the model escapes the standard objection that tired-light mechanisms should blur distant images.

The finite gravitational potential energy of the universe

Summing the gravitational potential energy of a mass m against all other masses, with the tired-light attenuation included, over concentric shells of density ρ gives

U_U = −4πGmρ/α_L²

Substituting α_L = H₀/c and a typical cosmic density recovers U_U ≈ −mc² — the relation of Tryon (1973), earlier anticipated by Haas (1936) and Jordan (1947), which Edwards notes does not actually require expansion. Because the exponential attenuation makes the sum converge, the Seeliger–Neumann paradox of gravitational instability in an infinite static universe is also resolved.

The radio wave background

If this graviton energy decays at rate H₀, photons are being produced at essentially the same rate everywhere in space. Since the graviton energy tied to any one distant mass is minuscule, the decay products must be extremely long-wavelength radio waves, which Edwards labels the radio wave background radiation (RWBR). He stresses that, unlike the CMBR, the RWBR would not have a uniform blackbody spectrum, and cites Reber's (1968) report of an intense 144 m radio background as possible evidence.

Recovering Newton's law

The screening step is where the model departs from classical Le Sage schemes. Absorption does not require the flux to pass through the bulk of a body; instead photons are absorbed into the whole graviton filament array associated with a mass, which acts "as a vast antenna system." Because filament density falls as r⁻², the attenuation a nearby mass M₂ imposes at m is proportional to M₂/R². Setting the absorption rate equal to the production rate (equilibrium: A_U = L_U) and converting energy to momentum with a factor 1/c, the force comes out as F = −GmM₂/R² — Newton's law. Edwards remarks that the result "oddly does not depend directly on any of the factors ρ, H₀ or α_L," since a larger density would raise U_U but also raise H₀ and α_L, cancelling out; and that G enters at the start and passes through untouched.

Compact objects and the Eddington limit

For a single body, decay of its internal potential energy gives a luminosity L_G ≈ GM²H₀/R. For a one-solar-mass black hole of 3 km radius this is ~10³⁶ erg s⁻¹, below the Eddington luminosity; but black holes above roughly 5–10 solar masses at similar radii would exceed it and be unstable. For Sagittarius A* (3.7 million solar masses, radius ~1 AU) he obtains L_G ~ 10⁴³ erg s⁻¹ against L_E ~ 10⁴⁴, marginally stable — which he offers as a possible origin of bipolar jets, and more generally suggests that the luminosities of white dwarfs and neutron stars may be graviton decay rather than anything else.

Energy balance test

Equilibrium demands that the graviton and photon energy densities be comparable, else their ratio would drift. Taking baryonic ρ ≈ 1.5 × 10⁻³¹ g cm⁻³ and H₀ = 2.2 × 10⁻¹⁸ s⁻¹ gives ρ_G = 4 × 10⁻¹² erg cm⁻³, against a CMBR density of ~4 × 10⁻¹³. The model therefore requires the RWBR to carry about ten times the CMBR energy density — a prediction, and a demanding one.

Assessment

The genuinely attractive feature of this paper is its economy. A single postulate — photon and graviton energy interconverting at a fractional rate H₀ — is asked to do the work of the redshift, Olbers' paradox and the Seeliger–Neumann divergence, the CMBR, the excess heat of planets and compact stars, and Newton's law itself. That the last of these falls out with the correct form and with the density and Hubble rate cancelling is a real result, not a fitted one, and Edwards is honest that G is imported rather than explained. His modification of Le Sage screening — absorption distributed over an extended filament array rather than requiring flux to traverse the body — also neatly sidesteps two classic Le Sage objections at once: the null results of eclipse and laboratory screening experiments, and the blurring problem that afflicts collisional tired light models. It is a more careful piece of work than most push gravity proposals.

The difficulties are equally clear. The central mechanism is asserted rather than derived: nowhere is there a physical account of how a photon transfers a fraction H₀/c per unit length to a virtual-photon lattice, nor of why the transfer should be exactly frequency-proportional (as a genuine redshift requires) rather than energy-subtractive. The equilibrium condition A_U = L_U is imposed by fiat and is the step that makes Newton's law appear; a different balance would give a different force law. The classic Le Sage heating problem is not addressed — indeed the model embraces it as planetary heating, but does not show the heat budget of the Earth is quantitatively consistent with the same H₀ that fixes the redshift.

Two conflicts with measurement deserve naming. First, the (1+z) time dilation of Type Ia supernova light curves, established by Leibundgut et al. (1996) and since confirmed to high precision over a wide redshift range, is not explained; Edwards' response is a hope — that time dilation "may perhaps be inevitably associated with redshifts whatever their cause" — which is a promissory note, not a mechanism. Second, the required RWBR energy density, an order of magnitude above the CMBR, is a strong and testable claim, and the isotropic radio background as measured (including the ARCADE 2 excess) falls far short of it; leaning on Reber's 1968 144 m observation, never independently confirmed, is thin support. The identification of the CMBR's precise 2.7 K blackbody spectrum as thermalised RWBR is likewise stated rather than shown, and the spectral perfection of the CMBR is exactly what such models have historically failed to reproduce. Finally, the black hole luminosity numbers come out "fairly close in value" to the Eddington limit, which Edwards reads as significant; but L_G/L_E ∝ M/R by construction, so the coincidence follows from the algebra rather than confirming the physics.

Taken on its own terms, the paper is a coherent and internally tidy piece of static-universe reasoning that deserves a serious reply rather than dismissal — but its key transitions are postulates, and its most distinctive prediction points the wrong way against the observed radio background.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 Previously, the author proposed that graviton energy and photon energy are everywhere being interconverted at fractional rates proportional to the Hubble constant H0. Evidence for the postulated graviton decay was suggested to lie in observable planetary heating and expansion. The greatest quantity of gravitational potential energy associated with a mass resides in its interactions with the most distant matter of the visible universe. Assuming that this graviton energy is also decaying to photons, then long wavelength electromagnetic radiation is being generated almost uniformly at every point in space. A universe in equilibrium requires that this radiation is reconverted to gravitons at the same relative rate, closing the energy cycle. Supposing that photons are reconverted to gravitons through absorption by matter, a simple mechanism for universal gravitation can be developed. In a mechanism analogous to Le Sage's and Brush's theories of gravity, bodies mutually screen each other from a portion of the radio photon background and consequently are pushed towards each other. It is shown that Newton's law is reproduced and some possible connections to the General Theory of Relativity are discussed. Lastly, it is suggested that the luminosities of neutron stars, white dwarfs and black holes may be primarily due to graviton decay therein.
+==Overview==
+Matthew R. Edwards, a University of Toronto science librarian and the editor of the Le Sage-revival collection ''[[Pushing Gravity]]'', here attempts something that most alternative-cosmology papers do not: to derive Newton's inverse-square law as a ''consequence'' of a [[tired light]] [[redshift]], rather than treating the two subjects separately. The paper is the sequel to Edwards (2006), in which he argued that the energy stored in a body's own gravitational field decays into heat at a fractional rate set by the [[Hubble Constant|Hubble constant]] ''H''<sub>0</sub>, offering the excess heat emission of the giant planets and the expanding-Earth hypothesis as evidence. The present paper carries that premise up to cosmological scale.
+The departure from the mainstream account is twofold. First, the [[expanding universe|expansion of the universe]] is set aside entirely: Edwards works in a static cosmos, so the redshift must be a real energy loss and that lost energy must go somewhere. Second, gravitation is not geometry. Where general relativity offers either curved spacetime or a field of no deeper explanation, Edwards proposes a closed energy cycle: photons crossing space give energy to gravitons (this is the redshift), gravitons decay back into very long-wavelength photons (this generates a radio background), and the absorption of that radio background by matter produces a shadowing effect that pushes bodies together. Gravity, in his phrase, becomes a matter of masses seeing "a general deficit of background photons in the direction of each other."
+==The argument==
+===Gravitons as virtual photons===
+Edwards assumes gravitons are "photon-like" — most simply, a species of virtual photon exchanged between masses in the same way virtual photons are exchanged between atomic charges. Because every mass exchanges gravitons with every other mass in the visible universe, the collection of exchanges may be pictured as "filaments" of virtual photons connecting all masses. This cosmic graviton lattice is offered as the physical counterpart of the spacetime of general relativity, and possibly also as the medium of the matter waves of quantum physics. He notes that identifying gravitons with virtual photons sits well with [[Ernst Mach|Mach]]'s idea that inertia derives from the distant stars, and with the QED result that virtual photons add to the mass of the system that exchanges them.
+===Redshift as energy transfer to the lattice===
+The redshift law is taken in the standard tired-light exponential form, ''E''(''r'') = ''E''<sub>0</sub>e<sup>−α<sub>L</sub>''r''</sup>, which for small ''z'' gives ''z'' ≈ α<sub>L</sub>''r'' and hence, comparing with ''z'' ≈ ''H''<sub>0</sub>''r''/''c'', the absorption coefficient α<sub>L</sub> = ''H''<sub>0</sub>/''c'' (following [[Andre K T Assis|Assis]] 1992). Crucially, the energy a photon loses is not lost from the universe: it becomes graviton energy in the lattice. Edwards emphasises that because the interaction is with a diffuse lattice rather than with atoms, the model escapes the standard objection that tired-light mechanisms should blur distant images.
+===The finite gravitational potential energy of the universe===
+Summing the [[gravity|gravitational]] potential energy of a mass ''m'' against all other masses, with the tired-light attenuation included, over concentric shells of density ρ gives
+''U''<sub>U</sub> = −4π''Gm''ρ/α<sub>L</sub><sup>2</sup>
+Substituting α<sub>L</sub> = ''H''<sub>0</sub>/''c'' and a typical cosmic density recovers ''U''<sub>U</sub> ≈ −''mc''<sup>2</sup> — the relation of Tryon (1973), earlier anticipated by Haas (1936) and Jordan (1947), which Edwards notes does not actually require expansion. Because the exponential attenuation makes the sum converge, the Seeliger–Neumann paradox of gravitational instability in an infinite static universe is also resolved.
+===The radio wave background===
+If this graviton energy decays at rate ''H''<sub>0</sub>, photons are being produced at essentially the same rate everywhere in space. Since the graviton energy tied to any one distant mass is minuscule, the decay products must be extremely long-wavelength radio waves, which Edwards labels the radio wave background radiation (RWBR). He stresses that, unlike the [[Cosmic Microwave Background|CMBR]], the RWBR would not have a uniform blackbody spectrum, and cites Reber's (1968) report of an intense 144 m radio background as possible evidence.
+===Recovering Newton's law===
+The screening step is where the model departs from classical Le Sage schemes. Absorption does not require the flux to pass through the bulk of a body; instead photons are absorbed into the whole graviton filament array associated with a mass, which acts "as a vast antenna system." Because filament density falls as ''r''<sup>−2</sup>, the attenuation a nearby mass ''M''<sub>2</sub> imposes at ''m'' is proportional to ''M''<sub>2</sub>/''R''<sup>2</sup>. Setting the absorption rate equal to the production rate (equilibrium: ''A''<sub>U</sub> = ''L''<sub>U</sub>) and converting energy to momentum with a factor 1/''c'', the force comes out as ''F'' = −''GmM''<sub>2</sub>/''R''<sup>2</sup> — Newton's law. Edwards remarks that the result "oddly does not depend directly on any of the factors ρ, ''H''<sub>0</sub> or α<sub>L</sub>," since a larger density would raise ''U''<sub>U</sub> but also raise ''H''<sub>0</sub> and α<sub>L</sub>, cancelling out; and that ''G'' enters at the start and passes through untouched.
+===Compact objects and the Eddington limit===
+For a single body, decay of its ''internal'' potential energy gives a luminosity ''L''<sub>G</sub> ≈ ''GM''<sup>2</sup>''H''<sub>0</sub>/''R''. For a one-solar-mass [[black hole]] of 3 km radius this is ~10<sup>36</sup> erg s<sup>−1</sup>, below the Eddington luminosity; but black holes above roughly 5–10 solar masses at similar radii would exceed it and be unstable. For Sagittarius A* (3.7 million solar masses, radius ~1 AU) he obtains ''L''<sub>G</sub> ~ 10<sup>43</sup> erg s<sup>−1</sup> against ''L''<sub>E</sub> ~ 10<sup>44</sup>, marginally stable — which he offers as a possible origin of bipolar jets, and more generally suggests that the luminosities of white dwarfs and neutron stars may be graviton decay rather than anything else.
+===Energy balance test===
+Equilibrium demands that the graviton and photon energy densities be comparable, else their ratio would drift. Taking baryonic ρ ≈ 1.5 × 10<sup>−31</sup> g cm<sup>−3</sup> and ''H''<sub>0</sub> = 2.2 × 10<sup>−18</sup> s<sup>−1</sup> gives ρ<sub>G</sub> = 4 × 10<sup>−12</sup> erg cm<sup>−3</sup>, against a CMBR density of ~4 × 10<sup>−13</sup>. The model therefore requires the RWBR to carry about ten times the CMBR energy density — a prediction, and a demanding one.
+==Assessment==
+The genuinely attractive feature of this paper is its economy. A single postulate — photon and graviton energy interconverting at a fractional rate ''H''<sub>0</sub> — is asked to do the work of the redshift, [[Olbers' Paradox|Olbers' paradox]] and the Seeliger–Neumann divergence, the CMBR, the excess heat of planets and compact stars, and Newton's law itself. That the last of these falls out with the correct form and with the density and Hubble rate cancelling is a real result, not a fitted one, and Edwards is honest that ''G'' is imported rather than explained. His modification of Le Sage screening — absorption distributed over an extended filament array rather than requiring flux to traverse the body — also neatly sidesteps two classic Le Sage objections at once: the null results of eclipse and laboratory screening experiments, and the blurring problem that afflicts collisional [[tired light]] models. It is a more careful piece of work than most [[push gravity]] proposals.
+The difficulties are equally clear. The central mechanism is asserted rather than derived: nowhere is there a physical account of ''how'' a photon transfers a fraction ''H''<sub>0</sub>/''c'' per unit length to a virtual-photon lattice, nor of why the transfer should be exactly frequency-proportional (as a genuine redshift requires) rather than energy-subtractive. The equilibrium condition ''A''<sub>U</sub> = ''L''<sub>U</sub> is imposed by fiat and is the step that makes Newton's law appear; a different balance would give a different force law. The classic Le Sage heating problem is not addressed — indeed the model embraces it as planetary heating, but does not show the heat budget of the Earth is quantitatively consistent with the same ''H''<sub>0</sub> that fixes the redshift.
+Two conflicts with measurement deserve naming. First, the (1+''z'') time dilation of Type Ia supernova light curves, established by Leibundgut et al. (1996) and since confirmed to high precision over a wide redshift range, is not explained; Edwards' response is a hope — that time dilation "may perhaps be inevitably associated with redshifts whatever their cause" — which is a promissory note, not a mechanism. Second, the required RWBR energy density, an order of magnitude above the CMBR, is a strong and testable claim, and the isotropic radio background as measured (including the ARCADE 2 excess) falls far short of it; leaning on Reber's 1968 144 m observation, never independently confirmed, is thin support. The identification of the CMBR's precise 2.7 K blackbody spectrum as thermalised RWBR is likewise stated rather than shown, and the spectral perfection of the CMBR is exactly what such models have historically failed to reproduce. Finally, the black hole luminosity numbers come out "fairly close in value" to the Eddington limit, which Edwards reads as significant; but ''L''<sub>G</sub>/''L''<sub>E</sub> ∝ ''M''/''R'' by construction, so the coincidence follows from the algebra rather than confirming the physics.
+Taken on its own terms, the paper is a coherent and internally tidy piece of static-universe reasoning that deserves a serious reply rather than dismissal — but its key transitions are postulates, and its most distinctive prediction points the wrong way against the observed radio background.
+==See also==
+* [[Matthew R Edwards]]
+* [[Pushing Gravity]]
+* [[Tired Light]]
+* [[Redshift]]
+* [[Steady State Theory]]
+* [[Expanding Universe]]
+* [[Cosmic Microwave Background]]
+* [[Olbers' Paradox]]
+* [[Mach's Principle]]
+* [[Black Hole]]
+* [[Toivo Jaakkola]]
+* [[Fritz Zwicky]]
+* [[Halton Arp]]
 [[Category:Scientific Paper|photon-graviton recycling cause gravitation]]
@@ Line 23: / Line 89: @@
 [[Category:Light]]
+[[Category:Cosmology]]
+[[Category:Push Gravity]]
+[[Category:Redshift]]