Is the Gravitational Constant constant?

[snowflakeuniverse]

Is the gravitational constant constant, or does it vary over time?

There are a host of reasons to believe that the effect of gravity is a constant.

If the effect of gravity were greater in the past, then celestial objects in stable orbits would have to move faster in the past to avoid collapse. This would mean that as time passes, and the gravitational force diminishes, the velocity of orbiting systems would also have to diminish, resulting in a loss of kinetic energy. This violates the conservation of energy principle.

(But if we observed such orbiting systems in the past, it would appear that they are moving too fast to remain in stable orbit, which requires some kind of additional unobserved “dark matter” would have to be there to keep the systems in stable orbit).

All kinds of issues are raised if the effect of gravity were to vary. It seems that the very stable structure of our universe is built on certain fundamental relationships being constant.

But do the “constants of nature” need to be constant or can the change according to fundamental relationships? www.uniformexpansion.com

Is there any observational proof of this effect of gravity being greater in the past?

In a few days I will post an explanation for the energy output of Quasars without resorting to black holes.

To reduce the size of the next posting the following examples illustrate the use and application of the proposed formula.

The basic formula predicting how the effect of gravity varies with time is

"G2/G1" = (T1/T2) ^(4/3)

T is used to describe a measure of time called Cosmic time. It marks a point’s location historically from the beginning of time.

G can be understood to represent the gravitational constant.

The subscripts 1 and 2 are to be associated to when events are measured with 1 represented an earlier measure, and 2 representing a later measure.

T2 will normally be associated with the current age of the universe.


The following list illustrates the relationships, assume T2 = 8 x 10^9 years. (I know this is not the accepted age of the Universe, for now assume this to just be a number used to get a feel for the proposed relationships.)

Relative increase in gravity 100 years ago

"G1/G2" = (T2/T1) ^(4/3) = (8/8-.0000001) ^(4/3) = 1.000 000 16 times greater 100 years ago. We would have a hard time detecting this change. Most would just assume that we are improving on the accuracy of mass measurements.

Years ago................Proportional increase in “gravitational constant”
4 billion years ago; Effect of gravity 2.5 times
6 billion years ago; Effect of gravity 6.3 times
7 billion years ago; Effect of gravity 16 times
7.5 x 10^9..............Effect of gravity 40 times
7.9 x 10^9.................................345 times (Universe 1 million years old)
7.99 x 10^9..............................7,400 times (Universe 100,000 years old)
7,999,999,999.......16,000,000,000,000 times (Universe 1 year old)

It is with a bit of trepidation that any figures beyond ages of the universe of 1 million years old is given. They seem so preposterous that they defy credibility. Two powerful effects are balanced to each other, expansion and contraction. Gravity has to be very powerful at the beginning of the universe if there is going to be any kind of structure associated with an expansion that is capable of hurling the mass of 100’s of billions of galaxies with 100’s of billions of stars billions of light years away from each other.

Snowflake

[ExpErdMann]

Is there any observational proof of this effect of gravity being greater in the past?

There is a theory that the earth's radius is not constant, but rather expanding. This is sometimes linked to Dirac's theory of decreasing G. The topic was discussed in the thread "Expanding Earth Video".

The basic formula predicting how the effect of gravity varies with time is

"G2/G1" = (T1/T2) ^(4/3)

Any special reason to go for this equation, over Dirac's for instance?

Years ago................Proportional increase in “gravitational constant”
4 billion years ago; Effect of gravity 2.5 times

Biologists and geologists could analyze your numbers better if we dealt, say, with the last 500 Million years.

[Gsquare]

There are a host of reasons to believe that the effect of gravity is a constant.

If the effect of gravity were greater in the past, then celestial objects in stable orbits would have to move faster in the past to avoid collapse. This would mean that as time passes, and the gravitational force diminishes, the velocity of orbiting systems would also have to diminish, resulting in a loss of kinetic energy. This violates the conservation of energy principle.

Not true snowflake =; ; loss of kinetic energy happens all the time in orbital systems without violating conservation of energy.

The constant of orbital systems is the total energy (kinetic plus potential) of the system.
For a circular orbit of radius r, for example, the total energy, E, is given by:

E = Kinetic + potential = - GMm/2r

You can see by inspection that a change in G can be offset by a change in r without changing the TOTAL energy of the system.

G^2

[snowflakeuniverse]

Hi ExpErdMan

Thank you for your response. I am particularly pleased that you are aware of Dirac’s belief that gravity was a function of Cosmic time.

There is a reason Dirac’s relationship is not part of the mainstream, it did not maintain celestial stability. He hypothesized that there must be a loss of mass but stability was still a problem. Instead of Dirac’s Linear relationship, the one proposed is hyperbolic and it does establish celestial stability.


In the development of the uniform expansion theory you can see how the relationship for gravity was established based upon a theoretical model describing the algebraic expansion of space. (www.uniformexpansion.com)


Thank you for the thread to the expanding Earth video. I quickly reviewed it after using Yahoo as a search engine. I may have missed some of the theory but I found it ambiguous. If the Earth expands, then the surface gravity would be diminished. I noted that one of the explanations posed in the theory was that Dinosaurs were bigger because the effect of gravity was less in the past.

I also am surprised that you picked a date of 500 million years so that “biologists and geologists” could consider the theory in relationship to observation. I will be making a posting soon that provides evidence of effects in this time frame that are biologically based. It will explain the dinosaur / energy issue.

(While increasing the effect of gravity in the past would seem to make it more difficult for dinosaurs to be big and nimble, what is more than compensating that effect is the increased energy derived from biochemical reactions. Since the proposed expansion model also expands atoms, then the amount of energy derived from biochemical reactions was greater in the past. )

Thank you for your help

Snowflake.

[snowflakeuniverse]

Hi G^2

Yes you are right, celestial orbiting systems do loose energy all the time and the compensation is realized in the change in radius. The first example that comes to mind is the relationship between the Earth and Moon. As energy is “lost” due to tidal effects, the orbital velocity of the Earth and moon is reduced and the distance between the Earth and moon increases.

The point I was trying to get across was if G decreases with time, without providing a model that predicts how the velocity decreases, and the radius of the orbiting systems increases; there is no conservation of energy. This is particularly a concern if it appears that the R is constant, G decreases, and the velocity diminishes.

(I use two measures of distance, proportional and absolute. Double the size of two objects, double the distance between them, and double the size of all the rulers, what has changed? Proportionally everything has stayed the same, but by absolute measures the distance has doubled. This allows the necessary increase in the absolute distance R to maintain the necessary conservation of energy).

Thanks for the clarification

Snowflake

[Cougar]

Is the gravitational constant constant, or does it vary over time?

Well, this is not completely conclusive, but Tony Rothman (Harvard) has investigated this problem for at least one choice of variable-G theory and found that at three minutes after the Big Bang, G must have been essentially what it is now. Also...

"The Brans-Dicke [variable-G] theory has been constrained so much by observations of the binary pulsar's orbital period that it is virtually the same as special relativity. Probably the last believers in the Brans-Dicke theory died at the Port Authority Bus terminal five years ago [in 1984]."

[ExpErdMann]

Thank you for the thread to the expanding Earth video. I quickly reviewed it after using Yahoo as a search engine. I may have missed some of the theory but I found it ambiguous. If the Earth expands, then the surface gravity would be diminished. I noted that one of the explanations posed in the theory was that Dinosaurs were bigger because the effect of gravity was less in the past.

There are some versions of expanding Earth that are based on decreasing G, and in those the surface gravity was greater in the past. In other expanding earth theories, the Earth expanded due to a steady increase in mass. In those theories the surface gravity was less in the past. The dinosaurs have been used in both theories, and so it is necessary to examine which type of theory is involved when looking at the dinosaurs.

The 'increasing mass' versions hold that dinosaurs were able to be so big because of the lower surface gravity. But the 'decreasing G' version also has a case, because before dinosaurs the reptiles of the Permian were much shorter, stockier creatures, with powerful legs. This could suggest that surface gravity was even greater then, and that the dinosaur era was a rebound from this high g. There is another factor to consider. If the Earth was smaller then, and surface gravity larger, then the atmosphere must have been a lot thicker (since it is pulled over a smaller surface and more tightly). So plants would have had more CO2 and animals more O2, and all species would have been increased in size.

I will be making a posting soon that provides evidence of effects in this time frame that are biologically based. It will explain the dinosaur / energy issue.

Your chemical mechanism is novel. I look forward to your posting.

[Madcat]

If I take your meaning properly, that doesn't seem to add up. :-? If the Earth is gaining mass for no reason, (without, say, absorbing a planetoid or something) than it's violating conservation of energy isn't it? You just can't do that!

[ExpErdMann]

I agree it sounds pretty wild at first, but there are reasonable models that have been done on this. Some of them involve Le Sage's theory of gravity. Le Sage proposed long ago that gravity is caused by tiny particles or waves which fill up space. In Le Sage-type theories, most of these particles or waves pass right through a body, but a very small fraction is absorbed. This absorption causes bodies to shadow each other from the flux of particles/waves, and so they they are pushed together. This is what gravity is, according to Le Sage.

Getting back to Earth expansion, the absorption of particles/waves would presumably cause their mass to increase, perhaps in such a way that Earth expansion also occurs. But also, since the background fields of Le Sage particles/waves would also be diminished in this process, we might expect to see a decrease in G too. So Le Sage gravity could lie behind both the main possible causes of Earth expansion. Other causes have also been suggested for the 'increasing mass' versions, but they all have the quality of being exceptionally ad hoc. Le Sage's theory is different, in that it has long been held out as a simple mechanical way of explaining gravity, going all the way back to Newton's time.

[snowflakeuniverse]

Hi Courgar and thank you very much for the information provided in your response.

The Brans-Dicke theory is somewhat similar to my theory in that a “scalar field” is used to adjust relationships in space-time. Instead of a somewhat arbitrary scalar field, I am proposing a specific rate of expansion of space-time that conforms to a specific algebraic relationship. In my theory the scalar field is actually expansion in an unobserved dimension. Since all points in space time are moving in this unobserved dimension, all points in space time experience the same set of algebraic rules. This can be viewed as a scalar field, ie all points in space time are “adjusted” by some constant or a function that describes how all points must “change” relative to each other.

While Rothman may feel that the Brans-Dicke theory is dead, this is not the case. A quick search review of what is presently being published in the field indicates this is a very active field. Papers applying the theory to worm holes, brane theory, and string theory abound. ( If you wish to check this out yourself look at Harvard’s Nasa funded research site. http://adswww.harvard.edu/ use Brans-Dicke as search words. Over 358 abstracts should pop up with most written after 1984. )

Also regarding Rothman’s assertion that the present value of G was as a minimum established with its present value early in the evolution of the universe I would have to agree. (Actually I have the relationship established at the moment of creation, a “crystular” like formation).

This, I know sounds contradictory. One thing I have tried to be consistent with my description regarding gravity is that it is the “effect” that varies with the passage of cosmic time. I usually tried to capitalize g and put it in quotation marks in order to differentiate between the effect of gravity varying over time and the gravitational constant varying over time. In terms of practical application of the relationships, it is easiest to use them assuming that it is the gravitational constant that varies with the passage of time. In actuality this is misleading since the gravitational constant is constant, it is only because of a uniform expansion of space time that the effect of gravity changes with the passage of time.

Thankfully yours,
Snowflake.

[snowflakeuniverse]

Hi MadCat

Thanks for the comment. I do not know if my response is going to help. While the Earth expands with the expansion of the universe, no mass is added to the Earth. Actually according to the theory, the effect of mass actually diminishes over time. You, me, the Earth and the Universe itself, all loose the associated effect of mass and energy with the expansion of space.

To explain this phenomenon I use an expanding balloon. If no mass is added to a balloon that is expanded because the surface tension of the balloon is decreased, the energy within the balloon diminishes. There is a direct relationship between mass and energy, so if the energy of a system is diminished, so to must the effect of mass.

Snowflake

[Tobin Dax]

While the Earth expands with the expansion of the universe, no mass is added to the Earth.

Wait a minute, snowflake. I just read through your dinosaur post, and you say there that the mass of dinosaurs increases with the expansion of the universe. I don't see how the statements above and below can both be true.

Since matter itself is involved in the expansion of space, it means that in the past things were smaller. The size we measure T rex today is not the size it was in the past. This requires an additional adjustment to figure the “true” mass of t rex in the past. Once the adjusted size is found it then becomes possible to adjust the amount of mass, since the mass varies to the cube of the size. (If my size were twice as big, I would weigh 8 times as much).

D1/D2 = (T1 /T2) ^ (2/3) = 1.0083
This is less than a 1 percent reduction in actually size. T.Rex was smaller in the past by almost 1 percent.

Since the mass of an object varies to the cube of the linear dimension, this actually results in a 1.025 or 2.5 percent reduction in mass.

[snowflakeuniverse]

Hi Tobin Dax

I think my posting is a bit difficult to follow; I should have worked on the presentation a bit. I wasn’t going to even address in this site any of the biological issues, but personally I was most intrigued by applying the theory to dinosaurs.

I also admittedly have a tough time keeping terms straight since I have to rethink how I look at mass and it is easy to revert to habits I am used to. While mass is constant, it’s effect isn’t. While gravity is constant, it’s effect isn’t. The effect of gravity was greater in the past and the effect of mass was greater in the past. If I could be consistent in using the words “effect of “ more often it might be clear.

This way if I say that “if I were twice as big, I would weigh eight times as much” it would be understood that I am not talking about long term effects that are realized by the expansion of space.

This is different from being twice as “big” due to the expansion of space, (Big is in quotations since the locally measured size would not indicate any change in height, since rulers also expand with the expansion of space).

As an example of how the proposed relationships work, I thought I’d show how long it would take for an object to double in “absolute” size. (Relative size stays the same)

Assuming the current age of the universe is 8 billion years old how long will it take for an object to double in “absolute” size?

D1/D2 = (T1 /T2) ^ (2/3)
1/2 = (8/?)^(2/3)
? = 22.63 Billion years, 22.63 – 8 = 14.6 billion years from now we would be, according to my theory, twice as big, as measured in “absolute” measures (assuming an 8 billion year old universe)

The effect of gravity would be less by

"G2/G1" = (T1/T2) ^(4/3)

(8 /22.6) ^(4/3) = 0.25

Which could have been arrived at by just knowing that if you double the distance between two objects the gravitational force is reduced by a quarter, but I thought that a check of the relationships is in order.

Snowflake.

[snowflakeuniverse]

Sorry this is blank, I posted on the wrong topic. Only being able to place two postings at a time can be confusing, I have to go back and forth and it gets confusing.

Snowflake

[snowflakeuniverse]

Hi Anthrage


Thanks for the post.

You are right, the example application of the theory as applied to dinosaurs is not a particularly good test of the relationships since so many other possible explanations can resolve the situation. I was just responding to the question by ExpErdMann regarding biological implications. Turns out he has spent some time on similar ideas.

I am particularly grateful for you willingness to give due consideration before making up your mind.

Thank you

Snowflake.



Hi xbck1

Thank you for the interesting response. A lot of other information was nice to read about.

Snowflake

[snowflakeuniverse]

Hi Cougar

If I gave the impression that this is some kind of universally accepted theory I apologize. It is a theory that so far I am the only person in the world that believes is right. (Although I have gained a few supporters that think I might be right) While I started working on certain aspects of the theory almost 30 years ago, it is for the last 5 years of my life I have dedicated a tremendous amount of time working on the theory and checking for conformance to observation. I consider this the most important thing I have done in my life.

You are right you will not find this theory in any Journal, or presented at any Society. But it is not from a lack of trying. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity this forum provides. Believe me, I would rather be told I am wrong, even without justification, than be ignored.

Your also said
“Your original post on this topic appears to be riddled with false premises and correspondingly false conclusions. For example, you say, "Since matter itself is involved in the expansion of space, it means that in the past things were smaller." Here, the premise is completely uninvestigated, and the conclusion is baseless. In the past, the spatial distance between galaxy clusters was smaller.”

Did you check out my web site? www.uniformexpansion.com? You will find that the premise is investigated and evaluated for conformance to celestial and atomic stability. It also is theoretically consistent on a dimensional basis. It is a theoretical model that predicts the structure of gravitational relationships. It is the reason the inverse square law is relevant for celestial and atomic structures. The theory also provides a means to unite quantum and gravitational physics.

I look forward to your continued sharp-witted responses.

Snowflake.

[Alex W.]

Have a read of The Constants of Nature by Prof. John D. Barrow. As well as an enlightening journey through the great physicists' lives and work, it considers the idea of a variable gravitational constant- unfortunately, such ideas were contemplated during the early to mid 20th century and found to be incompatable with what we see in the universe.

[cyrek1]

To snowflake:

cyreks reply:

Yes. The gravitational constant (GC) is constant.
Since gravity is the direct result of attraction between matter (mass), that means that mass would have to vary also. This is highly improbable.

However, the GR can be reinforced by separated electric charges such as electrons and positive ions created in high temperature explosions.
This is my solution for the 'missing mass' problem that I have used and explained on other threads.

[Avatar28]

Of course it is. If it wasn't, it wouldn't very well be a constant now would it?