It is known that our ideas about the global picture of the external world directly depend on the presence of all kinds of information, which comes from the material objects present in the universe. At the domestic level, a person perceives information about the surrounding world with the help of sensory organs, with its subsequent semantic processing. With development of science people have learned to apply various auxiliary tools, which essentially expand and increase our abilities to receive and process streams of information coming from the surrounding world.
The overwhelming majority of information available for registration, a person receives in the range of electromagnetic interactions. This range of receiving information is quite universal, in it can function a lot of different research tools, ranging from physiological visual system, to powerful astrophysical radio telescopes. In fact, the global picture of the external world, which is offered by modern science, is mainly composed and adapted to the electromagnetic channel of information exchange.
It is not by chance that Einstein entitled his seminal work devoted to the kinematics of relative motion with the words: "Toward the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". With this title, the scientist directly indicated that his ideas about relative motion are related to the observer, who registers information about the surrounding world in the range of electromagnetic interactions. Thus it is fair to say that Einstein developed the theoretical concept of relative motion for a global picture of the external world in which the information exchange of electromagnetic origin is realized.
Meanwhile, it is not difficult to imagine in what resolution the picture of the surrounding world could look like for people deprived of visual organs and generally closed for perception of electromagnetic information range. Nothing fantastic, there are many blind people in the world. We will only aggravate the situation and make an assumption that all people on the Earth were always blind. Most likely they would draw for themselves a picture of the external world, mainly on the basis of acoustic information perception. At the same time, they could use auxiliary technical means expanding the efficiency of using the sound range for information exchange. And even in these hypothetical conditions Albert Einstein could create his theory of relativity, of course, adapted to the sound channel of information exchange. With the only difference that the famous mental experiments with the observer, registering the relative motion, would have to be based on the calculation of the propagation of the speed of sound, instead of the speed of light, as it is done in the current theory of relativity.
We wonderfully hope that the Universe is designed for our cognitive capabilities, which fully cover all fundamentally permissible channels of information exchange. However, these are only naive dreams and good wishes. It may well turn out that in reality the Universe exists and develops much more complex and diverse, and we use only a small segment of the information exchange channels existing in Nature. It is not excluded that more mature civilizations register for themselves a completely different picture of the surrounding world, as they receive and process information on other channels of mutual communication. Then all our efforts to establish electromagnetic information exchange with extraterrestrial cultures resemble a person knocking on the door, behind which no one lives.
With high probability we can assume that more advanced civilizations carry out information exchange in the range of gravitational interactions. World gravitation is the most mysterious and the most powerful physical interaction, which we have not mastered at all. We do not even approximately imagine what content of the picture of the external world can unfold before scientists, if one day the prospects to freely register and control gravitational waves will be opened. It will be not just a scientific and technical revolution, in fact, a new Universe may emerge for the human community.
Recently we have made many efforts to create all sorts of detector devices capable of registering gravitational waves. Sometimes there even appear bold reports about successful positive results. At the same time some oddity is alarming. As a rule all positive results are attached to very distant exotic material objects, for example, double black holes, from which, according to the assumption, gravitational waves emanate. Meanwhile, we literally under our noses is a source of very powerful gravitational radiation, which even causes ocean tides. So, we have not been able to register gravitational waves coming from the mass of the Moon until now. However, from poorly studied, largely hypothetical objects, distant from Earth for billions of light years, manages to register gravitational greetings with great joy. What is worth just one report that the detector of gravitational waves caught a signal that appeared at the origin of the Universe. All together suggests that the results of experiments in reality only serve preconceived ideas. Similar examples abound in the history of science.
As a rule, a modern detector device for registration of gravitational waves is a complex, several kilometers in size, underground construction. Schematically, it consists of a set of mirrors, which are located in special tunnels. It is believed that when a gravitational wave passes through the tunnels, it leads to a curvature of space-time and changes the distance between the mirrors, which in turn is recorded with a laser signal and interferometer.
There is a small hidden irony in the fact that all these bulky technical constructions suspiciously symmetrically resemble the device with which the famous Michelson-Morley researchers tried to detect traces of the ether wind. What it ended up well known to all. Then the researchers, who carried out a daring experiment, did not take into account the fundamental principle of invariance of the speed of light, when moving from one coordinate system to another.
By the way, according to another heuristic, the so-called "equivalence principle", which Einstein used in the construction of the general theory of relativity, acceleration cannot be distinguished from the presence of a gravitational field. Thus at occurrence of new gravitational waves, we simply pass to another accelerated coordinate system. From what inevitably follows that there is no physical experiments to register by any physical experiments the change of distances between the detector mirrors, in the presence of new gravitational waves, there is no possibility in principle. Otherwise, we will have to give up the fundamental Einsteinian principle of general covariance. According to which all physical laws and mathematical consequences following from them do not change at transition from one accelerated coordinate system to another. Of course, there are all sorts of reservations about the peculiarities of laser light flux, but these are just reservations that cannot cancel the fundamental laws of nature. Sooner or later we are bound to agree with nature.
Among other things, for a deep dive into the world of gravitational interactions, it is necessary to understand well that this world cannot be entered from the back door. The difference between the gravitational and electromagnetic picture of the external world is about the same as the perception of the external world between a totally deaf and a totally blind person. First of all, we need to gain intellectual readiness to draw for ourselves and comprehend a fundamentally updated picture of the external world. Precisely because this picture will be based not on the basis of electromagnetic information, but on the basis of information of gravitational origin. It is not excluded that for this purpose it will be necessary to rethink and update our whole conceptual arsenal in relation to the fundamental categories of the Universe. We mean "matter", "space" and "time".
This boundary transition from the electromagnetic picture of the Universe to the gravitational one turned out to be fatal for Albert Einstein himself. Above we have already noted that his special theory of relativity, describing the uniform and rectilinear motion of test bodies, is completely adapted to the electromagnetic information range. Even the mathematical equations of the special theory are fundamentally borrowed from Maxwell's electrodynamics.
When Einstein set out to create a general theory of relativity capable of describing gravitational interactions, it seemed to him that it was simply enough to modernize his ideas about the electrodynamics of moving bodies, which are implemented in the special theory of relativity. The scientist was convinced that such modernization would be quite sufficient to describe the electrodynamics of moving bodies with different accelerations or along curvilinear trajectories. As is known, he declared four-dimensional space-time curved and introduced a special metric tensor into the equations of the theory of relativity.
It is impossible not to pay tribute to the genius and courage of the scientist, who, in the end, was able to erect a slender building of his general theory of relativity. But in doing so, Einstein drove himself into a dead end. It is no coincidence that his general theory of relativity has not received further progressive development. Because, in principle, it is impossible, relying on the electromagnetic information channel, to adequately describe gravitational interactions. All told in no case does not diminish merits of Albert Einstein, however we should move forward. Therefore, we will have to talk about a lot of things.
I must say that in 2022 my book "What is Motion" was published in St. Petersburg. In this book I tried to reveal the mystery of universal gravitation, relying on the information channel of gravitational origin. It is clear that for this purpose I had to radically change the usual, adequate for electromagnetic information range, picture of the external world. In this article it is not necessary to dwell in detail on the book itself, as the article is devoted exactly to gravitational waves. Those who wish can always download the book on my personal site www.boris-dmitriev.com.
Now let's come to the most important thing. The existence of gravitational waves was predicted by the general theory of relativity and in itself this prediction does not cause any doubts. But the extremely important question remains open - in what natural design, what physical property should be these gravitational waves? In answers to these not at all trivial questions there can be serious discrepancies.
We well understand that Einstein's theory of universal gravitation was created on the basis of electromagnetic information channel. It is quite natural that in the scientific worldview of the author of the theory of relativity, there was an analogy between gravitational and electromagnetic waves. Not only the mathematical apparatus of the theory of relativity, borrowed from Maxwell's electrodynamics, but also the postulate of the speed of light propagation in vacuum, everything pointed to the deep physical unity between electromagnetic and gravitational waves. However at careful consideration, it is possible to find and essential differences.
It is well known that the topology of an electromagnetic field is strongly related to its source of origin. For example, if an electromagnetic armature rotates in an electric motor, the electromagnetic field rotates along with it. But experiments with Foucault's pendulum show the opposite. Science has long established that the mass of the Earth rotates around its axis, but this rotation does not affect the trajectory of the Foucault pendulum. So the gravitational field of the Earth does not rotate together with the mass of the planet. This fact alone is enough to think about the legitimacy of drawing parallels between electromagnetic and gravitational fields.
There is another existential difference between electromagnetic and gravitational waves. We know for a fact that electromagnetic waves are subject to curvature in spatial dimensions because they are transverse and cause diffraction. Gravitational waves have no curvature in spatial dimensions. World gravity waves set the topology of the gravitational field through curvature in the time dimension. Thus the very geometrical structure of these two kinds of physical waves testifies to a deep fundamental difference of their origin.
For gravitational waves the physical state and geometrical structure of the so-called "standing waves" corresponds most of all. We realize that standing waves arise at interference of coherent waves perturbing along mutually opposite directions. In the course of curvature of three-dimensional space into the fourth time dimension, there is also interference of coherent waves, but with perturbation along mutually opposite directions, which occurs in the past and future time. This superposition of two spatial perturbations in the past and future time leads to the appearance of standing gravitational waves.
A convincing argument in favor of the fact that gravitational waves belong to the category of standing waves is indicated by the following circumstance. Running electromagnetic wave can move to the right and left, while carrying from point to point energy, thanks to which and works electric motor. A standing gravitational wave has no propagation in the spatial direction, because this wave perturbation is characterized by an oscillatory state of the spatial medium in the time dimension and there is no energy transfer from point to point of space. That is why Foucault's pendulum refuses to respond to the rotation of the Earth's mass.
A legitimate question arises, and how can one objectively register the presence of standing gravitational waves? The answer to this question lies in two planes.
First, it is impossible to register standing gravitational waves with the help of stationary instruments that are at rest, say, as installed in tunnels mirror systems. If there is a control instrument in place and standing waves waiting to be detected, it is hardly possible to get a positive result. Most likely to register gravitational waves will have to resort to the invaluable practice of Galileo Galilei. Of course, you should not climb the Leaning Tower of Pisa and throw bricks from it. But you will have to raise the gravity detector high above the Earth and let it go into free fall.
Secondly, we must be prepared for the fact that the readings for registration of gravitational waves will have to be taken only with the help of specially adapted chronometers. A series of such, specific manufacture of chronometers, should be located in the cavity of the free-falling detector and record the presence of gravitational waves.
We can continue the conversation, but, as they say, that's another story.
16. 04. 24. Dmitriev Boris.
