Cutting Edge

Gravity remains an enigmatic force. You could be forgiven for thinking it is a well-understood phenomenon, but in truth we do not understand its mechanism. It is described mathematically. See Newton quote, right. Einstein sought to improve upon this by introducing time as a fourth dimension, leading to the concept of curved spacetime: a mathematical geometry in which mass tells space how to curve, and space tells mass how to move — but does this abstraction illuminate gravity, or obscure the underlying mechanism? This approach has led to claims that we now live in an age of mathmagics, where theoretical physics has drifted away from reality.

"You can imagine that I look back on my life's work with calm satisfaction. But from nearby it looks quite different. There is a not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm, and I feel uncertain whether I am in general on the right track."
Albert Einstein

Gravity is also described as a property of mass, of course, but this helps little given that mass also remains a hypothetical entity. The Higgs boson (God particle) of the Standard model remains elusive (see below), much like hypothesised graviton particles and gravity waves. In General Relativity, gravity results from the curvature of space-time, whatever that means beyond pretty pictures of bending lines. Incidentally, these also seem to warp minds.

"There is no model of the theory of gravitation today, other than the mathematical form."
Richard Feynman

Either way, there is not enough mass in our own galaxy, The Milky Way, to account for it's fortunate tendency not to disintegrate. Hence the invention of further contentious hypotheticals like Dark Matter.

Energy, Mass, and Light by Mathias Hüfner is well worth a read.

More than ten billion dollars have been invested in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) near Geneva. Its principal objective was to search for the long-predicted Higgs boson — the particle popularly nicknamed the "God particle" — while exploring physics beyond the Standard Model.

The announcement in July 2012 was rightly celebrated as a remarkable experimental achievement. In science, however, major breakthroughs rarely mark the end of a story. More often, they open the door to new questions. Did the Higgs boson finally explain the origin of mass, or did its discovery simply reveal how much remains unknown?

Peter Higgs proposed a new field and its associated boson to explain how certain elementary particles acquire mass within the Standard Model. Unlike the charged particles that make up ordinary matter, however, the Higgs boson carries no electric charge. That immediately raises interesting questions. How can a massive particle exist without charge? What is its structure? Is it truly elementary, or might it itself be composed of something more fundamental?

Throughout the history of science, elegant mathematics has sometimes pointed towards profound physical truths. At other times it has described nature successfully without revealing the underlying mechanism. Ptolemy's epicycles produced respectable predictions for centuries, yet ultimately proved to be a mathematical description rather than a physical explanation. The question is not whether mathematics is useful — it unquestionably is — but whether every mathematically successful concept necessarily corresponds to physical reality.

The Standard Model particle chart is shown below, with the Higgs boson at its centre.

More than 2100 users from various US institutes are registered at CERN, making the United States the laboratory's largest user community. As if in tribute to this fact, it was on American Independence Day, 4th July 2012, and with much fanfare, that the discovery of the Higgs boson was announced. Given the enormous investment in the LHC, expectations were understandably high.

Following the 2012 discovery, the LHC underwent major upgrades to explore the Higgs boson in greater detail and to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. Those searches have confirmed many of the Higgs' expected properties, while excluding a number of proposed extensions within specific energy ranges. At the same time, many fundamental questions remain unanswered, including whether the Higgs is truly elementary or part of a richer underlying structure.

One such search, led by Dmitri Denisov and colleagues at Fermilab, looked for evidence of additional Higgs bosons predicted by certain extensions of the Standard Model. Reporting the results, Denisov commented:

“We do not see the signal. If it existed, we would see it. But when we look at our data, we basically see nothing.”

The story did not end there. In another Higgs hiccup, New Scientist reported that the bad boy was "refusing to misbehave."

"Physicists have spotted the Higgs boson performing a new trick, but one that brings us no closer to understanding the workings of fundamental particles. The Higgs boson, discovered at the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, in 2012, is the particle that gives all other fundamental particles mass, according to the Standard Model of particle physics. However, despite the work of thousands of researchers around the world, nobody has been able to figure out exactly how it does that or why some particles are more massive than others."

More than a decade after the announcement, the Higgs boson continues to raise as many questions as it answers. Some physicists have proposed that it may itself be a composite particle rather than a truly elementary one. Others continue to search for additional Higgs particles or entirely new physics beyond the Standard Model. The discovery appears not to have closed the book, but merely opened the next chapter. Dark Higgs, perhaps?

None of this is to suggest that the scientists at CERN are anything other than exceptionally talented. Quite the opposite. If nothing else, they have demonstrated an admirable ability to answer one question by uncovering half a dozen new ones. The search continues... and, one suspects, so too does the funding.

"The underlying assumptions of cosmologists today are developed with the most sophisticated mathematical methods and it is only the plasma itself which does not 'understand' how beautiful the theories are and absolutely refuses to obey them."
Hannes Alfvén

"We are in a period of utter confusion!"
Nobel laureate David Gross

An examination of the Electromagnetic Gravity hypothesis.

EM Gravity? From principia-scientific.org

An interesting and balanced analysis from a mainstream source. All too often the idea of gravity being of EM origin is dismissed out of hand. Because electromagnetism can be shielded and gravity can't, it is generally assumed that the two forces must be irreconcilable. Such a view is clearly too simplistic, however. This article is therefore strongly recommended.

Wal Thornhill on Gravity. From Holoscience.com

"...The equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass implies that gravity is also an electrical force. Before Einstein, some noted scientists were suggesting that the gravitational force between neutral particles might ultimately be due to electrical polarization within the particles. In 1882, Friedrich Zöllner wrote in the introduction to his book, Explanation of Universal Gravitation through the Static Action of Electricity and The General Importance of Weber's Laws, "…we are to conclude that a pair of electrical particles of opposite signs, i.e. two Weberian molecular pairs attract each other. This attraction is Gravity, it is proportional to the number of molecular pairs." Indeed, gravity can be represented as the sum of the radially aligned electric dipoles formed by all subatomic particles within a charged planet or star.

"This new electrical concept suggests that Newton's "universal constant of gravitation," or "G," is a dependent variable. G depends upon the charge distribution within a celestial body. Highly charged objects like comets look like solid rock, yet they have a gravitational field that suggests they are fluff-balls. And as they discharge they suffer what is euphemistically called "non-gravitational" accelerations. The extreme weakness of the force of gravity, compared to the electric force, is a measure of the minuscule electric dipolar distortion of nucleons. Gravity cannot be shielded by normal electrostatic shielding because all subatomic particles within the gravitational field respond to the dipolar distortion, whether they are metals or non-metals.

"What about magnetism? Ampere's law for the magnetic force between two current carrying wires is found to be equivalent to the transverse electric force caused by the distortion of electrons in an electric field. This distortion causes them to form tiny collinear electric dipoles. That is, the magnetic force is simply another manifestation of the electric force.

"This simple electrical model of matter has the great virtue of reducing all known forces to a single one – the electric force. However, it has a price. We must abandon our peculiar phobia against a force acting at a distance. And we must give up the notion that the speed of light is a real speed barrier. It may seem fast to us, but on a cosmic scale it is glacial. Imposing such a speed limit and requiring force to be transmitted by particles would render the universe completely incoherent. If an electron is composed of smaller subunits of charge orbiting within the classical radius of an electron, then the electric force must operate at a speed far in excess of the speed of light for the electron to remain a coherent object. In fact, it has been calculated that if released, the subunits of charge in the electron could travel from here to the far side of the Andromeda galaxy in one second!

"We have direct evidence of the superluminal action of the electric force, given that gravity is a longitudinal electric force. Indeed, Newton's celebrated equation requires that gravity act instantly on the scale of the solar system. It has been calculated that gravity must operate at a speed of at least 2x1010 times the speed of light, otherwise closely orbiting stars would experience a torque that would sling them apart in mere hundreds of years. Similarly, the Earth responds to the gravitational pull of the Sun where it is at the moment, not where the Sun was 8 minutes ago. If this were not so, the Earth and all other planets in the solar system would be slung into deep space within a few thousand years. Gravity is therefore an electrical property of matter, not a geometrical property of space.

"What is the nature of light? Einstein's special theory of relativity was disconfirmed right at the start by the Michelson-Morley experiment, which showed a residual due to the æther. This was later confirmed by far more rigorous repeats of the experiment by Dayton Miller. But by then popular delusion and the madness of crowds had taken hold and contrary evidence would not be tolerated. The Dayton Miller story makes interesting reading. If it weren't for the extraordinary power of self-delusion, commonsense would tell us that a wave cannot exist in nothing. So Maxwell was right, light is a transverse electromagnetic wave moving through a medium, the æther.

"But what is the æther? In the vacuum of space, each cubic centimetre is teeming with neutrinos. And since neutrinos are resonant orbiting systems of charge, like all matter, they will respond to the electric force by distorting to form a weak electric dipole aligned with the electric field. The speed of light in a vacuum is therefore a measure of the delay in response of the neutrino to the electric force.

"What about the bending of starlight by the Sun, which discovery raised Einstein to megastar status? The residual found in the Michelson-Morley experiments shows that the Earth and all ponderable bodies "drag" the æther along with them. The bending of starlight near the Sun is simply the effect expected of an extensive neutrino atmosphere held to the Sun by gravity. Light will be slowed in the denser medium – causing normal refraction or bending of light..."

Eric Roberts Laithwaite 1921-1997 was a British electrical engineer and professor of engineering best known as the 'Father of Maglev' for his development of the Linear Induction Motor and Maglev rail system.

He gave a lecture at the Royal Institution which was televised by the BBC in 1974. This can still be found on YouTube, and is well worth viewing. Fascinating about this lecture was the apparent demonstration of weight loss shown by gyroscopes. Laithwaite did not claim to have invented an anti-gravity machine. He merely pointed out that the laws of Newtonian physics do not seem to apply to objects when moving like a gyroscope! All the same, following the publication of his research in this field, many people did contact him about 'antigravity' effects. He was always cautious in his responses, but nevertheless critical of those who dismiss such anomalous effects out of hand.

Laithwaite referred to such people as 'The Abominable Knowmen'. These are the people who simply 'know' that what Laithwaite highlights is 'of no interest' because it has already been 'explained'. The trouble being that explaining something away is quite different from explaining it, as the iconoclastic philosopher Charles Forte was wont to say. Laithwaite was always keen to remind people of what science is really about – observation, exploration, curiosity, wonder, and the occasional flash of insight.

Despite the importance of the electron, we know surprisingly little about it. For example, we don't know whether it's a wave or a particle, as it displays properties consistent with both (hence the term wave-particle duality) and, according to conventional wisdom, it has no structure.

"All attempts to measure the radius of the electron have failed! All we know is that the radius is less than 10-18 m; that is, its radius is one hundred million times smaller than that of the atom. All the known properties of the electron are consistent with the assumption that its radius is zero. As far as we know, the electron has no structure."

The above is quoted from the London Science Museum web site.

Independent New York researcher Ralph Sansbury has proposed a model in which the electron is not fundamental and indivisible, but instead composed of smaller charged constituents he termed subtrons, orbiting within the classical radius of the electron.

In this framework, simple calculations imply extremely high internal velocities far exceeding the conventional speed of light constraint if interpreted literally. Sansbury argued that such internal dynamics would imply effectively instantaneous electromagnetic cohesion at subatomic scales.

Whether or not his conclusions withstand scrutiny, the broader point is provocative: any successful theory of gravity must ultimately account for how matter maintains coherence across space. The question of action at a distance remains central to that challenge.

Further

Rupert Sheldrake, a professor at Cambridge University, has popularised the idea of morphic fields. To oversimplify, he theorises that memory is inherent in nature, and that all natural systems, from crytals to animals, inherit a memory of their kind. Each system is shaped by this pooled or collective memory. It is a view, of course, that has parallels with the Electric Universe, where there is a complex dance of electric particles and sub-particles.

www.sheldrake.org

From the link: "The implication is that many phenomena which until now have been regarded as purely statistical in character — such as the distribution of fluctuations in the momentary rates of radioactivity measured in a sample — are somehow controlled or at least strongly influenced by an astrophysical factor..."

If radioactive decay is linked to astronomical cycles, as these scientists argue, then this could challenge conventional chronologies. Additionally, if the solar system has suffered upheavals in recent millenia, especially of an intense electrical nature as many catastrophists contend, then traditional dating methods become almost obsolete.

The Diehold Foundation was founded by Douglas Vogt, who passed away in 2023. His work focused on polar reversals and ice ages — both well-established features of Earth’s geological record. Where Vogt diverged from mainstream climate explanations was in his view that long-term temperature variations are driven principally by solar cycles rather than anthropogenic CO₂. This has parallels with the Electric Universe and Electric Sun models, which place greater emphasis on solar variability and electromagnetic influences than purely atmospheric narratives.

Vogt was sceptical that human-produced CO₂ is the dominant climate driver. Carbon dioxide constitutes roughly 0.04% of the atmosphere, and large exchanges of CO₂ occur naturally via ocean-atmosphere cycling, biological activity and volcanism. From this perspective, he questioned whether reductions in human emissions alone can meaningfully regulate climate over long timescales. While many climate scientists maintain that anthropogenic forcing plays a measurable role in recent warming, others argue that solar variability and longer cycles deserve more weight. The debate is often presented as settled, but the relative contributions of different drivers remain contested at the margins and are still actively researched.

Predictably, scepticism toward carbon-centric policy has produced a spectrum of responses — from straightforward criticism of taxation and regulation to broader institutional distrust. Some go further into speculative territory, pointing to deep underground military installations (DUMBs) as evidence that powerful actors anticipate future disruption. Whatever one makes of such claims, it is worth separating structural questions about incentives and policy from narratives that move beyond what can be demonstrated.

Central to Vogt’s thesis was the idea that the Sun follows a long-term “clock cycle,” which he believed could be traced through geological and historical markers. In his model, the cycle crosses a neutral point roughly every 12,068 years, with a full oscillation of 24,136 years corresponding to two geomagnetic reversals.

On this timeline, Vogt suggested that humanity may be approaching another transition. He proposed that a polar shift could occur around 2046, potentially bringing severe climatic and geophysical disturbance. In his more dramatic descriptions, he argued that a rapid shift could coincide with a short-term disruption of Earth’s rotation, leading to catastrophic ocean displacement and widespread upheaval — an event he sometimes framed in biblical language as a “Day of Judgment.” He also maintained that preparation and mitigation could reduce the severity of some impacts.

Catastrophic cycles and end-time predictions are nothing new, and caution is warranted when precise dates are proposed. Nonetheless, the broader themes Vogt emphasised — solar variability, magnetic weakening, and geomagnetic instability — are increasingly discussed across both academic and independent research circles.

The work of SpaceWeatherNews.com (formerly Suspicious0bservers.org) overlaps in part with Vogt’s emphasis on solar monitoring. The organisation tracks solar flares, coronal mass ejections and geomagnetic disturbances with close attention.

In May 2023, auroras were observed at unusually low latitudes, including Spain. Some observers noted that the associated solar activity did not appear exceptional by standard flare classifications, raising questions about whether Earth’s magnetic shielding may be weakening. The geomagnetic field has shown measurable decline since the nineteenth century, with some estimates placing noticeable reduction beginning around 1850.

Whether magnetic weakening contributes meaningfully to recent warming trends — often attributed primarily to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing — remains debated. The broader question is whether increased solar variability, magnetic field variation, and long-term cycles could signal the approach of a more substantial geomagnetic transition.

At present, definitive conclusions remain elusive. What is clear is that Earth’s climate and magnetic systems are dynamic, and solar influences form an integral part of that complexity.