"If we cling only to that which we know, then we'll only know that to which we cling."  

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Since the days when Newton discovered what gravity was by witnessing an apple falling from a tree, mankind has believed that a large mass (ie, the earth) pulls smaller masses (ie, an apple) to it. The apple pulls on the earth too, but since the earth's mass is considerably larger than the apple's mass, the apple moves. Apples pull on each other as well, however, since the earth is so close and has such an enormous mass, the apples remain fixed by the earth. If the earth were removed leaving only two apples floating in space, then they would be pulled to one another. This is, of course, according to our commonly held belief of how gravity works. You see, we say that gravity pulls, but why do we think this? Why does it pull? What inherent power does a mass possess that can "reach" out into space and pull objects together? It does not seem reasonable that objects simply pull on each other, in fact, I don't think that gravity pulls at all. I believe it pushes.

I developed this hypothesis several years ago and presented it to members of the Department of the Navy, Jet Propulsion Labs, Hughes Aircraft and Cal Poly Pomona (California State Polytechnic University). I also discussed it with a number of physicists.

Here is the hypothesis:

Some years ago, while I was in junior high, my science teacher (actually he was the basketball coach who taught science) taught that if two bodies (any two objects) were suspended in space, even billions of miles apart, with nothing else to interfere with them, they would eventually collide. This fascinated me. I pondered, literally for years, about this gravitational phenomenon. By the time I entered college and began to study and understand science, I asked a professor if this explanation by my junior high teacher were indeed correct. With the exception that the two bodies would collide, rather they would likely rotate around each other in close proximity, I was assured that this was indeed true about gravity. Keep in mind that, like electricity, gravity is defined primarily by observing its applications, rather than by really knowing what it is.

As I considered the forces of gravity that could cause such an elaborate feat as this, I immediately began to doubt the assumptions upon which science understands gravity. How indeed does a body possess the energy needed to stretch across, not only billions of miles, but billions of light years (there are almost six trillion miles in a light year) sufficient to "grab a hold" of another body and pull on it and continue to pull on it for the billions upon trillions of years the journey would take.

It occurred to me suddenly one day, I remember the day well, that it simply could not do that. I decided that a better answer would be that energy, in the various forms in which it exists, is everywhere and constantly interacting with other energy forms. For example, light, certainly a form of energy, exists on a very large (perhaps infinitely so) spectrum. A portion of that spectrum can be understood in the low frequency short-wave radio waves, the FM waves on up to the visible light spectrum (you remember Roy G. Biv) and continuing through X-Rays, Gamma Rays and way up until you get to the ever-elusive, extremely energetic and ubiquitous neutrinos. That may seem a tad bit complicated, but let it suffice that light exists in a very wide variety of forms.

Now, this light is either very high energy, like the neutrino, or very low energy, like your desk. Yes, your desk, in its most fundamental form, is extremely low energy light. So low, that it interacts enough with itself to form dense matter... like the atoms which combine into more complex matter, like molecules, which comprise the desk.

So this energy is bombarding us from all sides and at all times. Imagine that an apple were to "float" out in space, and let's assume that there aren't any large bodies (like the planets or the stars) to interfere, the apple would remain static. In other words, it would just stay there. But of course, energy is everywhere and in an almost infinite spectrum of forms. Some of those forms would pass through the apple virtually "unnoticed" by the apple, other forms would be slowed as it passed through the apple, transferring some of that energy. Still other forms would hit the apple and bounce off, back the way it came whereby transferring much of the energy into the apple. But of course this would happen constantly and from all directions. Net effect on the apple, zero. The apple remains static, it doesn't move.

Now... Let's place an enormous object, like the earth, near the floating apple. The energy that would otherwise strike the apple from the earth-side of the apple, would be shielded by the earth. Of course some of the really high energy forms would pass through both the earth and the apple undisturbed, but the other, lower forms would be either slowed or even stopped by the earth; then, by the time the energy reaches the apple (if it got there at all), from the earth-side, it is less. Now the net effect on the apple is no longer zero. There is less energy striking the apple from the direction of the earth and consequently more from every other direction... what happens? Energy begins to push the apple to the earth!

What Newton witnessed those many years ago was not the earth pulling the apple down, but the invisible, yet ever-present (ubiquitous) energy pushing the apple until it rams into the earth (we call that hitting the ground).

There is no definitive evidence that what I propose here is correct, but it would certainly provide, at the very least, a better explaination of gravity. It would also explain, or at least provides a springboard to explain, some of what scientists refer to as the missing mass in the universe. Whatever gravity is, whether it pushes or pulls, the energy required to do so could very possibly be involved in that mass.