Speed of Gravity

We show how one can measure the speed of gravity only using gravitational phenomena. Our approach offers several ways to measure the speed of gravity (light) and checks existing assumptions about light (gravity) in new types of experiments. The speed of light is included in several well-known gravita-tional formulas. However, if we can measure this speed from gravitational phenomena alone, then is it the speed of light or the speed of gravity we are measuring? We think it is more than a mere coincidence that they are the same. In addition, even if it is not possible to draw strong conclusions now, our formulations support the view that there is a link between electromagnet-ism and gravity. This paper also shows that all major gravity phenomena can be predicted from only performing two to three light observations. There is no need for knowledge of Newton's gravitational constant G or the mass size to complete a series of major gravity predictions.

Readers are advised that an up-to-date discussion of the author's fundamental thesis (’The Idea’), on the origin, operation, and destiny of the World, is now found at the top of the main page under the rubric, Thematic Evolution and Prospect of 'The Idea.'

A substantial part of our work attempts to construct an adequate Theory of the Face. See 'The Soul of Life' (below) and other studies on the page, some of which remain in draft and others merely projected. (Five papers on this difficult subject are planned.)

Progressive and substantial concretion of the thesis has been recently demonstrated through focused studies (2018-2020), whose URLs are conveniently grouped below:

'The Spirit of War'
https://www.academia.edu/36536128/The_Spirit_of_War

'Carlyle and the Idea'
(https://www.academia.edu/37362600/Carlyle_and_the_Idea)

'The Last Day (Illustrated Essay)'
(https://www.academia.edu/41144933/The_Last_Day_Illustrated_Essay_)

'How the German Spirit Died (A History)'
(https://www.academia.edu/41745763/How_the_German_Spirit_Died_A_History_)

'How the Human Spirit Died (Meta-Analysis)'
(https://www.academia.edu/41985864/How_the_Human_Spirit_Died_Meta-Analysis_)

'Three Malefactors of the Communist Idea (Meta-Analytical Note)'
(https://www.academia.edu/42052811/Three_Malefactors_of_the_Communist_Idea_Meta-Analytical_Note_)

Our gradual (and still incomplete) conceptualization of absolute cosmogony, cosmology, and eschatology in its modern (often microphysical) aspects, which has arisen quite organically over several years of detailed study, may be briefly encapsulated and characterized (A-T) for the reader as follows:

A. The Idea is the fundamental reality of the World, whose existence was clearly intuited (as “hypodoche”) by Plato, operationally defined by Boehme (first as “das Rad Gottes” and subsequently as “Eternal Nature”), organically articulated by Hegel (as “the Idea”), and finally discovered to be the locus of proto-being and foundation of living motion by means of 20th century microphysics (and accurately named by it “the color vacuum”). The electron is its projection into the finite. Field theory is its "physical" basis.

B. This definition of “substance” as a completely immaterial and literally infinite, self-related, hebdomadic-triadic system of actuality within the Idea at the fundament or basis of reality constitutes the greatest discovery of the human mind which, before the end of the 21st century, upon full comprehension, will completely revolutionize religion and therefore geopolitics, as well as pedagogy, paleontology, and biophysics.  The seat of the animating principle in organisms can now be described and explained.

C. Briefly, the research for this book involves the cosmology, cosmogony, and eschatology (destiny) of the world as the finite projection of the Eternal Idea. The Idea itself was created by the Triune Absolute Spirit as a finite-infinite field to manifest, reward, and punish moral, aesthetic, and intellectual performances in a Living Matrix.

D. Through the vast and distributed powers of its microphysical basis, the Idea as the created conduit of Absolute Power has autonomously generated a pseudo-history in geology and astronomy. The powers of Light and Darkness guided by Eternal Life deep within the fundament sustain the finite living motion of which we are aware through biology and empower conscious awareness in animals. Biopsychological functioning and all positive intellectual achievement in Mankind have their roots in the Idea.

E. Moreover, though unseen, the silent workings of a vast cosmological Absolute Hebdomad (deduced through study of the Idea in the 17th century) mercifully overarch and limit the Inchoate Life of the Sinister Itself--a Cosmic Disruptor also previously unsuspected that is responsible for the nocturnal Dream Life of animals. Is this a conceptual solution to the mysterious phenomena of telepathy and clairvoyance?

F. Biological and psychic life thus have always been suspended between two great cosmological powers representing a generalized War Between Infinite and Finite Life that began with King Lucifer, and which in its present form continually tests, through Contention, War, and Worldly Contrariety, the whole of Living Being as it follows a tortured and fateful course between Life and Death according to the much-lamented plan chosen by the Mind ("Gemüt") of Adam.

G. Finally, the hidden existence of the Idea necessarily implies a universal negative unity as the ideal origin of all gravitational and inertial phenomena, offering to science a solution at last to storied and continuing, completely beguiling conundrums (e.g., "Dark Matter" and "Dark Energy") involving the ultimate structure of the cosmos.

H. By tracing the Idea's manifold determinations of physical, biological, and psychic being, then, the present study seeks to explicate the final, and heretofore unsuspected, links in the fabled Great Chain of Being for the edification of Mankind. Inherently opposing it, pathetically and even insanely, is guileless materialism.

I. The war of materialism against idealism eventually culminated in the death of the German Spirit (1918). The main intellectual cause of German spiritual morbidity, however, is traceable to events within the Reformation (1517-1546). This did not prevent a period of optimism within Prussian education and science (1800-1840).

J. The theft of Silesia (1946) was an intentionally demoralizing spiritual crime against Germany with major consequences for the spiritual life of the world. The German Spirit's whole turbulent career constituted a vacillation on renunciation of self-will, and this latter always was the essential content of the Absolute Mind in Germany.

K. Germany's fatal spiritual debility can be considered to be a world "contagion" that spread centrifugally from the center of Europe to the whole Human Race which, therefore, is itself now in the throes of an analogous spiritual death, self-contemplation, and deliverance from the finite. The Zero-Hour is imminent.

L. Each of the Six Days (in Moses) is now fundamentally understood to mean a thousand-year period. Thus, Creation has all along been continuous and--after 6,000 years--will soon be completed (the argument proposes a means to confirm or deny the asserted beginning of 3,970 B.C.). Thus, the Day of Rest (for the Community of Heaven) will soon arrive for the self-elect of Mankind.

M. This tortured path was, of course, divinely foreseen but nevertheless represents an accommodative posture which was not at first understood. The Creator's response achieves a wise and just outcome despite the wreck and pain arising from myopic creatural assertion and pathetic gratification, as recounted in the mosaic story of old.

N. In fact, Talmudic commentators reached this conclusion in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.--amending (in 'Sanhedrin 97a') the original mosaic interpretation of once-and-for-all Creation in favor of Continuous Creation with a clear Limit or End, specified as 6,000 years (each "day of creation," as mentioned above, being 1,000 years).

O. Thus, Moses (properly cogitated) was right but his dicta were for a long period taken wrongly--perforce leading the Christians astray through an accident of church history that remains a stumbling block up to the present day. See the author's 'The Last Day (Illustrated Essay).'

P. We know from modern physics that the "physical" world at the fundament is sustained by completely immaterial field relations that never cease, or else creation-in-process would not maintain itself. The creative motion is mathematically and physically infinite but disguises its own infinity--the chief insight, credited to Dirac, supporting Absolute Physics.

Q. Hence, it is now clear that the Creation--continuous since the beginning--is approaching its End and Goal. The Last Day is thus imminent and will arrive within the present decade, according to the wisest Christian view, this actually having been announced four centuries ago in German idealism.

R. The Eternal Word's role has always been to Shine Divinely (inwardly) in the gloom and darkness of the outward finite (the "Field of the Reprehensible") for salvation's sake (see 'Carlyle and the Idea'). It is this that Jesus of Nazareth spoke of, and it is this his followers embody, when they speak of the "true bread from heaven," etc..

S. This is why Christians can claim that the finalized ("Third") Temple of God is already in existence and is composed of living stones (minus the winnowed Condemned and Damned) whose essence will endure forever in God.

T. Our thesis is only now emerging in its final form. This is because the horizon of knowledge keeps receding as the true depth is revealed--the world is a set of nested dolls and the innermost doll is God, who is unknowably deep (but friendly, since we are Him in disguise when we abandon our finite wills).

We have determined the relativistic light deflection of the quasar J0842+1835 as Jupiter passed within 3.7 arcminutes
on 2002 September 8, by measuring the time delay using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) and
Effelsberg radio telescopes at 8.4 GHz. At closest approach, general relativity (GR) predicts a radial (static)
deflection of 1190 microarcseconds and a tangential (retarded due to the speed of gravity) deflection in the direction of Jupiter’s motion of 51 microarcseconds. Our
experiment achieved an rms position error of
< 10 microarcseconds and measured this retarded deflection to be 0.98+/-0.19 (rms error) times that predicted by GR. The increased positional accuracy for this VLBI phase-referencing
experiment was achieved by using two calibrator sources. Comments on the interpretation of this experiment
are given.

It is shown that the finite speed of gravity affects very long baseline interferometric observations of quasars
during the time of their line-of-sight close angular encounter with Jupiter. The next such event will take place
in 2002 September 8. The present Letter suggests a new experimental test of general relativity in which the effect
of the propagation of gravity can be directly measured by very long baseline interferometry as an excess time
delay in addition to the logarithmic Shapiro time delay.

We present a method by which we can determine directly the propagation speed of the sun gravitational field. We propose as to attain this objective, to compare the
lengthiness of two cosmic distances through direct measurements. The first distance is given by the length between a planet and the sun, while the other distance is caused by the movement of the Solar System, including the sun and planet, within its trajectory around the galactic center of the Milky Way. Since cosmic distances have to be crossed by the gravitational field of the sun and planet as well we show that one of them has to be neglected. This fact creates a retarded gravitational field of the sun which falls at an acute angle on the planet. This angle is determined by the fact that the gravitational field suffers a composed movement in two directions simultaneously and transport phenomenon occurs. We show that the measured angle aperture depends directly on the speed of gravity
of the sun. Further investigation is made regarding the identification of the “Privileged directions” in the solar system, which probably shape the planetary elliptic movement due to the motion of the whole solar system around the galaxy on the galactic circle.