What we usually think of as opposites are two things that are identical in

some way but opposite in another, like up and down. They are identical in that

they are measured along the gravitational gradient, but opposite in that they are

measured in different directions along that gradient. Now if we see the Universe

as made of protons and electrons and falling together by gravity, and if we see

gravity and electricity as opposites, then the question is: In what way are gravity

and electricity identical, and in what way are they opposite?

They are identical in that both operate on what we call the inverse square

law. If the particles are twice as far apart, both the gravitational and the electrical

field fall off to one quarter. But they are opposite in that their fields are directed in

opposite directions. Gravity is condensational, in that it pulls protons toward each

other. And electricity is dispersional, in that it pushes protons apart. Also, gravity

and electricity are identical in that the gravitational rest energy of the protons,

due to their dispersion in the gravitational field, is the same thing as their

electrical rest energy, due to their condensation in the electrical field.

But since Einstein has already shown the identity of acceleration and

gravity, perhaps we should see a merry-go-round as having a two dimensional,

dispersional, gravitational field with a Coriolis effect. If, then, we consider

electricity as a three dimensional, dispersional, gravitational field, it would appear

that magnetism may be the Coriolis effect of electricity. Like the Coriolis effect of

the merry-go-round, the magnetic field is perpendicular to the direction of motion

and proportional to the speed.

These ideas occurred to me in the Vedanta monastery nearly half a

century ago, and Michael Fell, charmed by the ideas, was sure that they had

been used before. So he promised to look them up when he got to Cal Tech, but

he later reported no sign of it.

I write these things up now because I see a connection between the

notion that electricity might be a manifestation of gravity and the ideas of those

old physicists in India a few thousand years ago. They saw energy as the

underlying existence seen in time and space. The underlying existence, being

not in time or space, was seen as neither changing, finite nor divided. And since

that is what we see in time and space, the changeless, the infinite and the

undivided must show through in our physics.

So far, so good, the changeless shows through in time as inertia or mass,

and the infinite and the undivided show through in space as electricity and

gravity. And that gives us the physics which we have, the physics of gravity,

electricity and inertia. But what always bothered me is that we have only one

energy of position in time, and two energies of position in space. Now if electricity

can be considered a manifestation of gravity, then that duality disappears.

We are left, then, with the duality of space and time which showed up in

Einstein's 1905 geometry as a pair of opposites, but on what?

John L. Dobson July 16, 2002

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