GRAVITY AND BUOYANCY

GRAVITY: THE SHADOW FORCE

It seems persuasively possible to me that the phenomenon of gravity is a shadow effect that surrounds bodies due to partial absorption of a transmitted radiant energy that exerts a pressure, perhaps a dark energy generated by subatomic particles in space which is equally and omnidirectionally radiated from points of origin. Energy approaching a body would exceed the energy that moves away from it, which has passed through the penetrable body and suffered partial absorption in transmission according to mass. The resulting penumbra-like shadow zone of directionally biased energy, that is formed about each body, would cause adjacent bodies to be urged toward each other.

It may seem initially contradictory, but such a radiant pressure that could most notably urge bodies of comparative adjacency toward each other, could also be a persistent weak force that drives more widely separated bodies further apart in the increasingly rapid expansion of the Universe that appears evident and has been recently and repeatedly confirmed. This would be a cumulative addition to whatever initial ballistic impetus the "Big Bang" may have imparted.

The term "Gravity Wave" is not to be associated with the force in question, since this term may be inherently misleading and has also been previously and variously used to describe:

1. An oscillation caused by displacement of a parcel of air or water which is restored to its original position by gravity. The lifting force is buoyancy, while the restoring force is gravity. It has been wisely suggested that the term be changed to "Buoyancy Waves".

2. Ripples in Einsteinian space-time, typically caused by stellar body motion and made difficult to detect due to a minimal interaction with matter. The work of Nobel Laureates Hulse and Taylor has been devoted to recognition and detection of such waves.

While the dark force is being described as radiant and there may thus be a naturally assumed association with wave-form emanations such as those included in the electromagnetic spectrum, there is no particular reason to believe that there is a direct correlation. If a wave-form is eventually discovered to be responsible it is likely to be on an unfamiliar level. While absorption of the force by transmitting matter is inherent in the theory, there is no present reason to suspect that it has wave-form characteristics which would make it display optically related phenomena such as refraction, diffraction and reflection, with a related rate of propagation, or that it has an emitted particle form, comparable to the solar wind, that would provide inertial properties or make it subject to electrical charge effects. It is suspected that the force in question is a most fundamental one, perhaps only superficially similar to any other and lacking any implemented effect other than gravitation and the energizing of a Universal expansion.

Where bodies are less than recognizably adjacent, the radiant force simply pushes a body more strongly toward another body where the intervening space and the force generated by such space is less, and away from a body in an opposing direction, where the intervening space and the force generated by such space is greater. This would result in a summarizing effect of expansion in the Universe, increasing the separation of bodies of greatest initial separation while driving bodies of least initial separation toward each other. This would account for the deviation in the departure phase that gradually forms the aphelion curvature of return in the highly eccentric path of comets, as well as for the more notable gravitational force created by the intense effect of shadowing when body proximity is relatively great.

A comparatively isolated body, a body having no other body of appreciable adjacency would still be subject to a directional inequality of dark force, however small. All distances would be directionally defined by the material interruptions of space and would provide force according to the generating expanse of such defined space. A more distant interruption would directionally define a greater expanse, generating more force and overcoming a smaller force generated by a smaller expanse as defined by a less distant material interruption in a diametrically opposing direction. All directional variations in the force, however miniscule in the immediate sense, could be expected to have an eventual and perhaps considerable effect with sufficient time.

If the Cosmic Background Radiation, which appears to impinge our earth from all regions of space with substantially equal intensity, has an origin in common with the more physical exertions of the Dark Force, minutely measurable variations may be detected which can serve to indicate the directional bias of the dark force in our region that affects the entirety of our immediate system.

Energy that is absorbed, according to mass, that creates the effect of gravity, may also be exhibited as heat. This heat of absorption could tend to compensate for radiant losses to space by lesser bodies and assist the compressive heat generation of sufficiently massive bodies that initiates the fusion/fission reactions that make them stars.

Many years ago, I was troubled by various attempts to extend the general theory of relativity to encompass electromagnetic force, the force between nuclear particles and that of gravity. It would have made an attractively neat package, but there were too many inherent differences in the phenomena to afford common principles.

There is the matter of polarity associated with field effects, exhibited by ferromagnetic and electrostatic influences. which gravity lacks. Also, while Newtons early calculations, as to the effects of gravity on eccentrically orbiting bodies such as comets, mathematically proved that a force that varied in proportion to the inverse square of the distance, would cause a body to move in one of a family of curves known as conic sections, the mechanics of the concept was never fully addressed. The anomalous gravitational effect of urging a departure phase of an eccentric orbit into such a curvature that afforded a return path, especially when it occurs long after diminishment to negligibility in accordance with the inverse square law, has never been adequately explained. An influence that would cause such an effect cannot be experimentally demonstrated as a field-effect phenomenon.

The only bodies that have been used to demonstrate an eccentric orbit within a ferromagnetic field, have had a pendular suspension which permitted gravity to both initiate and assist the return. Otherwise, an escape velocity within such a field that permits a body's departure does not include a means for creating the aphelion of an eccentric path and a subsequent reapproach.

Inspired by this concern, my above-described explanation for the gravitational effect has seemed more and more plausible as the years passed and I have had occasion to reconsider it. The causative principles of this concept remove gravity from any possibility of unification with field theories and redefine the matter of "gravitational attraction", as the result of a radiant pressure external to the space between two such influenced bodies that is greater than the radiant pressure between them.

As an addendum, relating to gravitational phenomena, I wish to note that there appears to be a great difference between the pressure effects of the natural vacuum of space and that of an artificially created, containerized vacuum. This difference would seem to account for the anomaly of planetary atmospheric retention which has concerned me for some time. While our atmosphere has weight and has been traditionally explained as being singularly retained by the force of gravity, there is a much greater resistance to diffusion of atmospheric gases into the natural vacuum of space than when the same gases are exposed to a like degree of artificial vacuum. At a sea level location, where the gravitational effect is many times greater than at the ionospheric periphery of our retained atmosphere, there is only an explosive equalization of pressure. No gravity induced gradual rarefaction of density into vacuo can be observed that even remotely resembles that resulting from the behavior of gases when the periphery of our ionospheric envelope is included. In space, gas clouds can apparently maintain a low density, cohesive integrity that cannot be maintained when the same degree of surrounding vacuum is artificial.

Lawrence Edward Bodkin, Sr.

BUOYANCY REVISITED

A typical statement of the buoyancy law (Archimedes Principle) reads:

"A body wholly or partially immersed in a liquid will be buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the liquid it displaces."

This is a somewhat misleading simplification of the facts that has led to the widespread belief that the weight of the displaced liquid must equal the weight of the body in order for it to float, which it does not.

In the demonstration device I keep on my desk, a smaller cylindrical glass tumbler weighing 303.6 grams is fully floated within a larger glass cylinder while displacing less than 134 grams of water (the total weight of water in the device). The device demonstrates the fact that a body can be buoyed up by a force that greatly exceeds the weight of the displaced liquid, given the proper circumstances, such as enclosure within a conformal cavity (cavity shaped like the body). This relatively unsuspected and rarely appreciated fact, rejected as theoretically illogical by most, has a great but ignored utility.

REVISED BUOYANCY LAW

A body, placed in a liquid, will be buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the volume of the liquid it displaces in a space not closely confined, but can be buoyed up by the same force while displacing a smaller weight and volume of liquid within a cavity having a close horizontal spacing from the body, which enables the liquid to immerse the body to the same extent.

AVALANCHE

Much more can be understood about the processes of wet avalanche once the revised law of buoyancy is fully understood and applied, once it is realized that the force of buoyancy is related only to the extent of immersion and that the amount of the liquid required to achieve it is irrelevant. The bodies involved in the mass of an avalanche expectedly reside on a slope and benefit from the run-off that the incline provides, not normally achieving a simultaneous extent of water immersion that would afford them the contribution to motility that a mutually achieved and substantial loss of weight would provide. This is most particularly true when the bodies are discrete and have an appreciable degree of separation. However, if an upper-level portion of the mass should begin a downward movement and push the bodies of the next level closer together, all of this changes. A relatively rapid "crowding" of the bodies in successively lower levels will materially contribute to the motility of the whole.

When the space between the bodies is suddenly reduced and the water in such interstices is made to rise to temporarily high levels, it will cause the bodies to increase their extent of immersion and thus the force of buoyant support. They will often become fully submerged and receive a maximum weight loss, before the water can flow away. Such bodies will thus be much more easily moved against those at the immediately lower level and the wave of sequential crowding that ensues will enable a minimal amount of water to provide a surprisingly powerful facilitating force of buoyancy and provide a major contribution to the process of avalanche.

Lawrence Edward Bodkin, Sr.

CROWDING EFFECT ON BUOYANCY

The physics of the "crowding" effect mentioned in the "Buoyancy Revisited" essay, as a contributing factor in wet avalanche, seems questionable to some and thus demands demonstration. | keep the glass tumbler on my desk, that is kept floating in far less than its weight of water, to display the basis for the revised principle of buoyancy. I also keep a small square container of wooden cubes that are dense enough to float low in water, and these are used to demonstrate how the principle applies to such "crowding".

To confirm the crowding effect, I put enough water into the container to form a shallow layer and place one of the cubes in the water. It is quite obvious that the water is insufficient to float the cube.

I usually say "We could float the one cube by adding more water, but could we make the cube float without adding water? If we could do that, could we make the small amount of water lift and float even more than one cube?"

I start adding cubes. "When we started, we saw that we didn't have enough water, to float the cube, but perhaps we would have been just as correct if we said that we didn't have enough cubes to float the cube."

I then continue adding cubes, one at a time, until the container can hold no more in a single layer. At this point it can easily be seen that all of the cubes have begun to float freely in the quantity of water that could not previously float even one.

In one of my containers, I floated nine cubes. In another of my containers, I floated twenty-five of the same size and weight, and in even less water, simply by increasing the extent of crowding.

In wet avalanche, mud of varying consistency (viscosity) is more likely to be the supporting liquid. Flow rate, in the increase and decrease of immersion, is lessened with a resulting increase in duration of increased immersion and weight loss for stones as well as for other, perhaps temporarily solid, segments of the movable mass.

Merely stating a physical fact is insufficient to convince those who are relatively adept at reasoning but who lack enough information to make the reasoning represent reality. Even a demonstration fails to convince everyone. There are still those who feel that there must be some factor other than the Laws of Buoyancy at work, no matter how often they see the demonstration. It would help if they would expend the energy and go to the trouble of constructing their own demonstration to eliminate their suspicions of error or illusion. If they do, they will eventually agree that the force of buoyancy is determined by the depth of immersion, no matter how the immersion is achieved, and no matter how little water is used in the immersion. Increasing the number of cubes in the container simply forced the small amount of water into less and less horizontal space, making it rise about the cubes until it reached the level required for flotation.

Lawrence Edward Bodkin, Sr.