Gravity is the force of Feynman diagram gauge bosons coming from distances/times in the past. The Standard Model, the quantum field theory of electromagnetic and nuclear interactions which has made numerous well-checked predictions, forces arise by the exchange of gauge bosons. This is well known from the pictorial ‘Feynman diagrams’ of quantum field theory. Gravitation, as illustrated by the mechanism above and proved below, is just this exchange process. Gauge bosons hit the mass and bounce back, like a reflection. This causes the contraction term of general relativity, a physical contraction of radius around a mass: (1/3)MG/c² = 1.5 mm for Earth. Newton’s gravity law is (written in tensor calculus notation):

R_{m n} = 4p GT_{m n} /c². Einstein’s result is: R_{m v} – ½g_{m n} R = 8p GT_{m n} /c².

Notice that the special term introduced is the contraction term (in red). Mass (which by the well-checked equivalence principle of general relativity is identical for inertial and gravitational forces), arises not from the fundamental core particles of matter themselves, but by a miring effect of the spacetime fabric, the ‘Higgs bosons’. Forces are exchanges of gauge bosons: the pressure causes the cosmic expansion. The big bang observable in spacetime has speed from 0 to c with times past of 0 toward 15 billion years, giving outward force of F = ma = m(variation in speeds from 0 to c)/(variation in times from 0 to age of universe) ~ 7 x 10⁴³ Newtons. Newton’s 3rd law gives equal inward force, carried by gauge bosons, which are shielded by matter. The gauge bosons interact with uniform mass Higgs field particles, which do the shielding and have mass. Single free fundamental rest mass particles (electrons, positrons) can only associate with other particles by electromagnetism, which is largely shielded by the veil of polarised vacuum charges surrounding the fundamental particle core. Quarks only exist in pairs or triplets, so the fundamental particles are close enough that the intervening polarised vacuum shield effect is very weak, so they have stronger interactions.

Correcting the Hubble expansion parameter for spacetime:

At present recession speeds are divided into observed distances, H = v/R. This is ambiguous for ignoring time! The distance R is increasing all the time, so is not time independent. To get a proper Hubble ‘constant’ therefore you need to replace distance with time t = R/c. This gives recession constant as v/t which equals v/t = v/(R/c) = vc/R = cH. So the correct spacetime formulation of the cosmological recession is v/t = cH = 6 x 10^- 10 ms^-2. Outward acceleration! This means that the mass of the universe has a net outward force of F=ma = 7 x 10⁴³ N. (Assuming that F=ma is not bogus!) Newton’s 3rd law says there is an implosion inward of the same force, 7 x 10⁴³ N. (Assuming that Newton’s 3rd law is not bogus!) This predicts gravity as the shielding of this inward force of gauge boson radiation to within existing data! (Assuming that the inward force is carried by the gauge bosons which cause gravity.)

The net force is simply the proportion of the force from the projected cone (in the illustrations above), which is due to the asymmetry introduced by the effect of mass on the Higgs field(reflecting inward directed gauge bosons back). Outside the cone areas, the inward gauge boson force contributions are symmetrical from opposite directions around the observer, so those contributions all cancel out! This geometry predicts the strength of gravity very accurately!

Causal approach to loop quantum gravity (spin foam vacuum): volume contains matter and spacetime fabric, which behaves as the perfect fluid analogy to general relativity. As particles move in the spacetime fabric, it has to flow out of the way somewhere. It goes into the void behind the moving particle. Hence, the spacetime fabric filling a similar volume goes in the opposite direction to moving matter, filling in the void behind. Two analogies: (1) ‘holes’ in semoconductor electronics go the other way to electrons, and (2) a 70 litre person walking south along a corridor is matched by 70 litres of air moving north. At the end, the person is at the other end to the end he was in when he started, and 70 litres of air has moved up to fill in the space he vacated. Thus, simple logic and facts give us a quantitative and predictive calculating tool: an equal volume of the fluid goes in the opposite direction with the same motion, which allows the inward vacuum spacetime fabric pressure from the big bang to be calculated. This allows gravity to be estimated the same way, with the same result as the other method. Actually, boson radiations spend part of their existence as matter-antimatter pairs. So the two calculations do not duplicate each other. If the fraction due to radiation (boson) pressure is f, that due to perfect fluid pressure is 1-f. The total remains the same: (f) + (1 - f)= 1.

About 10 years ago I wondered why the Hubble constant is defined as recession velocities divided into the star distances, when those distances are themselves increasing while the light comes to us!

Because of spacetime, you can divide the recession velocities into the time past instead, which is a true constant as it is a fixed rate of change of velocity in spacetime. It also has useful units, (m/s)/s = ms^-2, acceleration.

This implies outward force of big bang F=ma, and equal reaction due to the 3rd law. We are immediately talking the physics of a real explosion, in which there is outward pressure and thus outward force (outward force = outward pressure multiplied by area of a sphere of the radius of that pressure), and inward or 'implosion' force. Implosions are used in all nuclear weapons: TNT is placed around fissile material. When the TNT is detonated, the 3rd law of motion shows that half the force goes inward and half goes outward. That going inward compresses the core and makes it supercritical.

So this kind of physics is not really innovative: all the ingredients are well accepted. But calculating gravity by putting together known facts was dismissed as "nonsense". While at the same time, string theory approaches to gravity (based on speculative untestable assertions about 10/11 dimensions in invisibly small strings, etc.), were applauded by the media. What you want to do of course is to get the idea published so other people can develop it. I don't think you want to get a half-baked idea published for egotistic reasons. When you do get it published, say in somewhere inoffensive (unread by the mainstream!), you realise that nobody will take it up as they prefer mainstream ideas.

You don't really want to develop your own ideas, partly because it opens up a can of worms - having to get into areas of physics you don't want to be submerged in, and partly because you have no support or hope of getting anywhere.

For me the main motivation in trying to think about the big bang problems was after reading Catt's letter in the May 1995 issue of Electronics World. I had previously had an article printed there (Nov 94 issue).

Catt's long letter was quite good and well argued. My first reaction was that he (Catt) and others should not try to dismiss existing physics without putting forward a proper replacement.
In hindsight I made a massive error in studying Catt's articles (in the Victorian SRIS - Science Reference and Information Service - library in London, now long since closed down and integrated into the British Library at St Pancreas).

There were other papers in back copies of Wireless World, all ignored for the 10-20 years since publication. The problem with 'negative crackpotism' is that, if you look hard enough, you can find reasons to doubt anything. For example, several individual pieces of evidence for the big bang are not conclusive proof of the big bang because of different interpretations, but taken together it is convincing.

But when you build from one set of accepted facts to another, without speculating, that seems to be proper science. Of course proper science has been suppressed many times in the past, due to prejudice toward mainstream ideas which are really the pet speculations of a dictatorial elite (flat earth, epicycles, caloric, phlogiston, elastic solid aether, Maxwellian gear cog and idler wheel ether, Kelvin vortex atoms, etc.).

A year ago I came across Dr Peter Woit's weblog, called Not Even Wrong, which sets out to examine 'string theory' objectively. Catt's response to Woit is to dismiss it as a farce, a kind of straw man for the string theorists to use as evidence that their outlandish ideas are critically reviewed! I think differently. It doesn't matter whether string theory is right or wrong, but it does matter if it is Not Even Wrong. He has put a lot of work into running that blog efficiently, endlessly deleting off-topic or unhelpful comments, or replying to queries with helpfully constructive, readable dialogue. It would just have been too frustrating and hopeless to continue spending a lot of time on 'altarnative ideas' without that to read. Before reading Woit's blog, I was only interested in the weak nuclear force as the mechanism of beta radioactivity. Now I'm interested in electroweak symmetry breaking via the Higgs mechanism, and the problems in quantum field theory, the Standard Model, and reading some interesting arXiv.org papers he draws attention to.

Dr Lubos Motl attacked the Discovery magazine interview by saying 'It's not an alternative to anything.' Motl's diatribe then says 'crackpots' read Woit's blog, and Motl suggested that people's scholarly credentials should be checked on http://scholar.google.com/. I tried this for 'Nigel Cook' and found on page 5 of the results the 'alternative' to (actually, replacement of) string theory, with a link to an abstract here:

An electronic universe. Part 2: The Electronic Big Bang. Cook, Nigel Electronics World. Vol. 109, no. 1804, pp. 47-52. Apr. 2003 This is another article in the series questioning established theories. It discusses the concept of the single velocity universe - ie that the speed of electrical energy entering and leaving a pair of wires is that of the speed of light; the unification of quantum mechanics and relativity; the four fundamental forces in the universe; and deriving the basic equations of electromagnetism. Descriptors: ANTE; Electronics; Electromagnetism; Quantum theory; Relativity

What a shame for Motl! Similarly, Lunsford's replacement of the 5-d Kaluza-Klein theory, is listed on Google Scholar: with links to here and here. Lunsford’s CERN document server paper discusses errors in the historical attempts by Kaluza, Pauli, Klein, Einstein, Mayer, Eddington and Weyl. It proceeds to the correct unification of general relativity and Maxwell’s equations, finding 4-d spacetime inadequate. Lunsford shows that 6 dimensions in SO(3,3) is the simplest irreducible system unifying GR and electromagnetism: ‘One striking feature of these equations ... is the absent gravitational constant - in fact the ratio of scalars in front of the energy tensor plays that role. This explains the odd role of G in general relativity and its scaling behavior. The ratio has conformal weight 1 and so G has a natural dimensionfulness that prevents it from being a proper coupling constant - so this theory explains why ordinary general relativity, even in the linear approximation and the quantum theory built on it, cannot be regularized.’ Lunsford's unification also discredits the cosmological constant, in agreement with the mechanism suggested for gravity back in 1996.

Illustration credit: top illustration (showing virtual particles in the quantum foam vacuum) is from Connecting Quarks with the Cosmo: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century, Committee on the Physics of the Universe, Board on Physics and Astronomy, Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES, THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS, Washington, D.C. 2003, www.nap.edu: 'Quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle tell scientists that the vacuum can never be truly empty: the constant production and then annihilation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs make it a seething sea of particles and antiparticles living on borrowed time and energy . … [it has] measurable effects, causing shifts in the spectrum of atomic hydrogen and in the masses of elementary particles that have been measured (e.g., W/Z bosons).'