PrintAugust 1, 2010
Pushing Gravity
Both Newton and Einstein knew for a certainty that God created our universe. They both tried to figure out God's physical mechanisms that make up our universe. Newton was such a devout Christian that he mathematically constructed a timeline for the return of Christ. (Only a few more years to go, according to Newton!) Einstein summed up his mission in scientific discovery: "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
But Newton and Einstein were flummoxed by the nature of gravity. Both men measured it, Newton with his apple and Einstein with the sun and Mercury. Both men advanced our understanding of gravity as far as they scientifically could. But both were still not satisfied. They wanted to know how God did gravity.
Einstein's theory of general relativity was as close as he could come in cornering gravity. But he still struggled to explain its nature. He decided that gravity must be a result of a solid object like a planet causing a dimple in the fabric of space-time. Einstein even reckoned that perhaps the "force" we know as gravity does not pull at all. Perhaps it pushes. Einstein proposed a "cosmological constant" to explain the expansion of the universe. After all, the universe is expanding, and not slowing down! What we think of as the "force" of gravity should slow this process. Yet the universe is accelerating in all directions from the point of God's creation.
The discovery of dark energy may shed some light on the matter. Dark energy makes up over 75% of our known universe. It is safe to say that until we learned of dark matter, we were like fish who did not know we were in water. If dark energy surrounds us and makes up 75% of our known universe, then it is likely that the bodies of matter that make up the visible universe are merely trespassing in dark energy's space-time. Dark energy would pressure the matter to reclaim its space (think of the phrase "nature abhors a vacuum"). The matter that makes up us and all that we see in the universe is a constant obstacle to dark energy reclaiming its space. Dark energy would necessarily "push" from all directions at an equal and constant pressure. Could this pressure or "force" be the "cosmological constant" that Einstein was looking for to explain our expanding universe?
The air balloon thought experiment: Say we were conducting this experiment in the "zero gravity" of space. Instead of being fish in water, say our entire known universe was submerged into dark matter like a balloon of air into a water container. The container of water has pressure applied to it. We know from hydraulics that this pressure is uniform throughout the container. Since the water applies pressure to the air balloon equally in every direction, the air balloon would tend to keep its global form. Add more pressure and the globe of air becomes smaller and smaller until it goes bang. Without gravity, the air bubbles would explode in all directions as the water rushed in to replace the air, and the air bubbles would speed up as they raced away from the pressure the water rushing in. The air, for its part, would go in all directions until it reached perfect equilibrium and was dissolved equally and everywhere in the container. If the container was a limitless space, like our universe, then the air molecules would speed up in all directions infinitely to reach equilibrium.
Now think of oil and water. We know that they do not mix. If we drip oil onto water, it expands rapidly. After a while, the water reclaims its space and dissolves the oil into smaller and smaller droplets. Soon, the oil droplet universe is completely dissolved as each molecule goes on its own way and the water reclaims its space. While the mechanisms are different, the effect we see is the same. Expansion and/or dissolution until equilibrium is established. We even see this today in the Gulf of Mexico.
Perhaps this is what is happening to our universe. Perhaps as dark energy presses in to reclaim its lost space, the matter it displaces (our universe) expands. And as it expands, it does so at a faster rate. This could help explain our rapid and accelerating expanding universe. Perhaps what we know as gravity does not pull us at all. Perhaps it pushes.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
Just a thought.
