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Talk to a Scientist: A New Approach to Gravity

743 views · Published 26 August 2017 · 25:55 · Indexed 18 October 2026

Channel: Doug Sweetser · 2017 · Science & Technology

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The "Talk to a Scientist" program is run by Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder from her most excellent blog "Back Reaction", https://backreaction.blogspot.com/. I paid my $50 to have a 20 Skype conversation with someone who knows general relativity and quaternions (it was not Dr. Hossenfelder). This video was my "pitch" for my new (since Spring 2015) quaternion space-times-time invariance as gravity.

Space * space is an area or axial vector.

Space / space is an angle.

Space / time is a velocity.

Space * time is ... not used by physicists at this time. The scientist I discussed this with thought maybe Nature does not use space-times-time. I find that position absurd. Yes, we do not use it today, but Nature does not have an option to ignore information. There was a conference called Convergence organized by the Perimeter Institute in June of 2015 that hoped to find such a very simple expression that would have wide impact to physics. This is a crazy rare bird, at least in my opinion!

I showed two material contributions I have made to doing physics with quaternions: how to derive the Maxwell equations and write the Lorentz group using real-valued quaternions - despite claims to the contrary in the literature.

Reimannian space-time has more structure than quaternion space-time. But with quaternion space-time, space has an algebraic relationship with time.

The square of a quaternion has the Lorentz invariant interval as the first term. The other three form space-times-time. If two inertial observers agree on the interval, that is the world of special relativity. If two non-inertial observers agree on the space-times-time, I argue that may be what gravity is all about.

I finish with two slides that show how the proposal could be consistent with Newton's gravity and current weak field tests of general relativity.

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