Physicist Tom Van Flandern lays down the law… Newton’s law 😉

The Speed of Gravity What the Experiments Say

Van Flandern T. ,Physics Letters A, Vol. 250:1-11 (1998)

www.metaresearch.org…
Abstract.

Standard experimental techniques exist to determine the propagation speed of forces. When we apply these techniques to gravity, they all yield propagation speeds too great to measure, substantially faster than lightspeed. This is because gravity, in contrast to light, has no detectable aberration or propagation delay for its action, even for cases (such as binary pulsars) where sources of gravity accelerate significantly during the light time from source to target. By contrast, the finite propagation speed of light causes radiation pressure forces to have a non-radial component causing orbits to decay (the “Poynting-Robertson effect”); but gravity has no counterpart force proportional to to first order. General relativity (GR) explains these features by suggesting that gravitation (unlike electromagnetic forces) is a pure geometric effect of curved space-time, not a force of nature that propagates. Gravitational radiation, which surely does propagate at lightspeed but is a fifth order effect in , is too small to play a role in explaining this difference in behavior between gravity and ordinary forces of nature. Problems with the causality principle also exist for GR in this connection, such as explaining how the external fields between binary black holes manage to continually update without benefit of communication with the masses hidden behind event horizons. These causality problems would be solved without any change to the mathematical formalism of GR, but only to its interpretation, if gravity is once again taken to be a propagating force of nature in flat space-time with the propagation speed indicated by observational evidence and experiments: not less than 2×1010 c. Such a change of perspective requires no change in the assumed character of gravitational radiation or its lightspeed propagation. Although faster-than-light force propagation speeds do violate Einstein special relativity (SR), they are in accord with Lorentzian relativity, which has never been experimentally distinguished from SR—at least, not in favor of SR. Indeed, far from upsetting much of current physics, the main changes induced by this new perspective are beneficial to areas where physics has been struggling, such as explaining experimental evidence for non-locality in quantum physics, the dark matter issue in cosmology, and the possible unification of forces. Recognition of a faster-than-lightspeed propagation of gravity, as indicated by all existing experimental evidence, may be the key to taking conventional physics to the next plateau.

Numerous experiments have shown that the force of gravity MUST propagate faster than the speed of light. Such speeds violate the theory of special relativity, which explicitly states that nothing may travel faster than the speed of light.

If SR is wrong, so too must GR be wrong.

Einstein was wrong.

Newton’s gravity propagates at INFINITE speed, this is universally accepted as the basis for his theory, and it’s also the gravitational theory we used to calculate orbits and trajectories for the Apollo moon missions.

Van Flandern raises some questions:

Why do photons from the Sun travel in directions that are not parallel to the direction of Earth’s gravitational acceleration toward the Sun?

Why do total eclipses of the Sun by the Moon reach maximum eclipse about 40 seconds before the Sun and Moon’s gravitational forces align?

How do binary pulsars anticipate each other’s future position, velocity, and acceleration faster than the light time between them would allow?

How can black holes have gravity when nothing can get out because escape speed is greater than the speed of light?

For example, take the simple observation of the Earth in orbit around the Sun. If gravity was delayed to the speed of light, the Earth would fly off its orbit after a mere 1200 years.

As viewed from the Earth’s frame, light from the Sun has aberration. Light requires about 8.3 minutes to arrive from the Sun, during which time the Sun seems to move through an angle of 20 arc seconds. The arriving sunlight shows us where the Sun was 8.3 minutes ago. The true, instantaneous position of the Sun is about 20 arc seconds east of its visible position, and we will see the Sun in its true present position about 8.3 minutes into the future. In the same way, star positions are displaced from their yearly average position by up to 20 arc seconds, depending on the relative direction of the Earth’s motion around the Sun. This well-known phenomenon is classical aberration, and was discovered by the astronomer Bradley in 1728.
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If gravity were a simple force that propagated outward from the Sun at the speed of light, as radiation pressure does, its mostly radial effect would also have a small transverse component because of the motion of the target. … the net effect of such a force would be to double the Earth’s distance from the Sun in 1200 years. There can be no doubt from astronomical observations that no such force is acting. The computation using the instantaneous positions of Sun and Earth is the correct one. The computation using retarded positions is in conflict with observations.

There can be no doubt that gravity does indeed propagate at a speed faster than that of light.

This blatant violation of Einstein’s theories is so clear even a 10 year old can grasp it.

Einstein’s theories must be rejected.

It’s time for new cosmologies that can actually explain what we see in space without the need for black holes, dark matter, dark energy, wimps, machos, multiple dimensions, worm holes, pulsars that spin around 67 thousand times per minute, and all other make believe fairy dust concocted by physicists.

Plasma (electric) cosmology is one such cosmology.

Read more about it here.