Polarizable-Vacuum (PV) representation of general relativity
H. E. Puthoff
Abstract and summary · read the original at the source
In one page
Hal Puthoff sets out a way of doing general relativity without curved-space tensors. In the polarizable-vacuum picture — built from H. A. Wilson’s 1921 idea and Robert Dicke’s 1957 development — empty space is treated as a dielectric medium, and gravity becomes a change in that medium’s electrical properties. One number does all the work: K, the dielectric constant of the vacuum. Near a mass K grows, and everything follows. Light slows to c divided by K. Clocks tick more slowly. Rulers, atoms and energies shrink; effective mass rises. Puthoff then shows that the interval written in terms of K is the standard metric tensor in disguise, and runs the three classical tests of general relativity — the gravitational redshift, the bending of starlight, the advance of Mercury’s perihelion — getting the accepted answers each time. He derives the exponential form of K from a Lagrangian rather than assuming it, and extends the method to charged masses. His own phrase for what the approach is: a metric engineering approach.
Why it matters hereChapter 4 treats the metric as something you build rather than something you inherit, and this paper hands over the handle: change the permittivity and permeability of the vacuum and you have changed the metric locally, because the speed of light is a property of the medium and not of light. That is the same knob chapters 2 and 3 turn when they treat the zero-point field as the substrate that matter, inertia and gravity come out of.
What it claims
01General relativity can be represented without curved-space tensors by treating the vacuum as a polarizable medium whose dielectric constant K varies with position, so that a single scalar function carries every gravitational effect the paper considers.Section 2, Equation 3; Section 6, Discussion
Published and peer-reviewed02Observational limits require the fine-structure constant to stay fixed, and that constraint forces the permittivity and permeability of the vacuum to change together — each scaling as K — so the impedance of free space is preserved, the weak equivalence principle survives, and the underlying velocity of light becomes c divided by K.Section 2A, Equations 4 to 7
Published and peer-reviewed03Where the vacuum is more polarizable, self-energy falls as one over the square root of K, effective mass rises as K to the power three halves, emitted frequencies redshift, clock intervals lengthen as the square root of K, and every fundamental length measure — the Bohr radius, the classical electron radius, the Compton wavelength — shrinks as one over the square root of K; there is therefore no such thing as a perfectly rigid rod.Sections 2B and 2C, Equations 8 to 13; summary Table
Published and peer-reviewed04Because the measuring rods and the clocks are distorted by the same K as the light they measure, the locally measured speed of light renormalises from its underlying value of c divided by K back to exactly c, so the polarizable-vacuum formalism preserves the universal constancy of the locally measured light speed.Section 2C, Equations 14 and 15
Published and peer-reviewed05Written in terms of K the infinitesimal interval takes the standard metric-tensor form of an isotropic coordinate system, and with the exponential solution for K derived from a Lagrangian in which the dielectric constant is a variable function of space and time, the three classical tests of general relativity — redshift, light bending and the perihelion advance — come out at the accepted values, with the charged-mass case reproducing the Reissner-Nordstrom result.Section 2D, Equations 17 to 19; Section 3; Sections 4A and 5, Equations 47 to 64
Published and peer-reviewed06Puthoff hands the method on as unfinished business: the treatment is confined to spherically symmetric cases, gravitational radiation and frame-dragging are not addressed, and he asks that every extension be cross-referenced against conventional general-relativistic results to confirm that the polarizable-vacuum route introduces no spurious ones.Section 6, Discussion
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Read it · abstract
Abstract
Standard pedagogy treats topics in general relativity (GR) in terms of tensor formulations in curved space-time. Although mathematically straightforward, the curved space-time approach can seem abstruse to beginning students due to the degree of mathematical sophistication required. As a heuristic tool to provide insight into what is meant by a curved metric, we present a polarizable-vacuum (PV) representation of GR derived from a model by Dicke and related to the "TH-epsilon-mu" formalism used in comparative studies of gravitational theories.
The way in
https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9909037Posted to arXiv in 1999 under the arXiv assumed licence for 1991 to 2003 submissions, which is not an open licence, so this page carries the summary, the claims and the author’s own abstract and sends the reader to the source. Published as Foundations of Physics 32, 927 (2002).
How to cite it
H. E. Puthoff (1999) Polarizable-Vacuum (PV) representation of general relativity. arXiv:gr-qc/9909037
Where it sits in the curriculum
The metric, warp drives and wormholesWhat the vacuum isInertia and gravity from the vacuumEnergy from the vacuum