[A Navy Vet]

While I'm at it ... what is gravity? I'm not asking for measurable formulas according to mass...I'm asking what it is? We know that electro-magnetism consists of waves of energy. We know the light spectrum consists of photons. What does gravity consist of?...

Anyone?

[A Navy Vet]

And while I’m at it, I read some time back that there is no such thing as mass. It is supposedly concentrated energy. Was that proven correct?

[ETL]

While I'm at it ... what is gravity? I'm not asking for measurable formulas according to mass...I'm asking what it is?

The result of some still very mysterious interaction between mass and "space-time".

According to Einstein's General Relativity (E=mc^2), mass and energy are "equivalent". Perhaps, somehow, matter/mass zaps energy from space, thereby creating a "well" of negative pressure.

See "Casimir Effect"...

[ETL]

The Casimir effect

The Casimir effect is a small attractive force that acts between two close parallel uncharged conducting plates. It is due to quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field.

The effect was predicted by the Dutch physicist Hendrick Casimir in 1948. According to the quantum theory, the vacuum contains virtual particles which are in a continuous state of fluctuation (see physics FAQ article on virtual particles).

Casimir realized that between two plates, only those virtual photons whose wavelengths fit a whole number of times into the gap should be counted when calculating the vacuum energy. The energy density decreases as the plates are moved closer, which implies that there is a small force drawing them together.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/casimir.html

[ETL]

Is gravity a partial product of the Casimir effect? Thus, is gravity the partial macro effect of electromagnetism/quantum fluctuations?

From the Casimir effect, we know that when two plates are placed very close to each other in a vacuum, they attract each other because the ‘pressure’ of the quantum fluctuations that press on the two plates’ outer surfaces outweigh the quantum fluctuations on the inner surfaces.

Imagine two celestial bodies in a deep space.

The closer they get, the more the quantum fluctuations in between them get outweighed by quantum fluctuations not in between them.

Is gravity a partial product of the Casimir effect? Thus, is gravity the partial macro effect of electromagnetism/quantum fluctuations?

https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/376759/is-gravity-a-partial-product-of-the-casimir-effect-thus-is-gravity-the-partial

[ETL]

What is the Casimir effect?

Northeastern University experimental particle physicists Stephen Reucroft and John Swain put their heads together to write the following answer.

To understand the Casimir Effect, one first has to understand something about a vacuum in space as it is viewed in quantum field theory. Far from being empty, modern physics assumes that a vacuum is full of fluctuating electromagnetic waves that can never be completely eliminated, like an ocean with waves that are always present and can never be stopped. These waves come in all possible wavelengths, and their presence implies that empty space contains a certain amount of energy—an energy that we can’t tap, but that is always there.

Now, if mirrors are placed facing each other in a vacuum, some of the waves will fit between them, bouncing back and forth, while others will not. As the two mirrors move closer to each other, the longer waves will no longer fit—the result being that the total amount of energy in the vacuum between the plates will be a bit less than the amount elsewhere in the vacuum. Thus, the mirrors will attract each other, just as two objects held together by a stretched spring will move together as the energy stored in the spring decreases.

This effect, that two mirrors in a vacuum will be attracted to each other, is the Casimir Effect. It was first predicted in 1948 by Dutch physicist Hendrick Casimir. Steve K. Lamoreaux, now at Los Alamos National Laboratory, initially measured the tiny force in 1996.

It is generally true that the amount of energy in a piece of vacuum can be altered by material around it, and the term “Casimir Effect” is also used in this broader context. If the mirrors move rapidly, some of the vacuum waves can become real waves. Julian Schwinger and many others have suggested that this “dynamical Casimir effect” may be responsible for the mysterious phenomenon known as sonoluminescence.

One of the most interesting aspects of vacuum energy (with or without mirrors) is that, calculated in quantum field theory, it is infinite! To some, this finding implies that the vacuum of space could be an enormous source of energy—called “zero point energy.”

But the finding also raises a physical problem: there’s nothing to stop arbitrarily small waves from fitting between two mirrors, and there is an infinite number of these wavelengths. The mathematical solution is to temporarily do the calculation for a finite number of waves for two different separations of the mirrors, find the associated difference in vacuum energies and then argue that the difference remains finite as one allows the number of wavelengths to go to infinity.

Although this trick works, and gives answers in agreement with experiment, the problem of an infinite vacuum energy is a serious one. Einstein’s theory of gravitation implies that this energy must produce an infinite gravitational curvature of spacetime—something we most definitely do not observe. The resolution of this problem is still an open research question.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-casimir-effec/

[ETL]

Theorist suggests a way to test gravitational Casimir attraction

March 4, 2015
Bob Yirka, Phys.org

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2015-03-theorist-gravitational-casimir.html#jCp