Tag: mach

The field near the Earth’s surface accelerates towards the Earth and rotates around with it thereby providing a local inertial frame of reference that both accelerates towards the ground and moves with the surface. Dropped objects will fall ‘vertically’ as a consequence; they are moving vertically with respect to the (rotating) gravitational field and hence with the ground.

No appeal can be made to either linear or angular momentum as as fundamentals of this framework – they need to be ‘derived from’ the framework not ‘added to’ it.

The mass of the Earth is stationary within this inertial framework which takes upon the aspect of a cosmic vortex within the larger vortex of the sun’s gravitational field.

If there happen to be perturbations in the vortex field then these are transferred to the Earth and will account for the variations in day length (20 mins a day with Venus!). No ‘force’ is needed here to move an entire planet, merely a modulation of the gravitational field which necessarily influences the whole planet regardless of its ‘mass’ (another Newtonian concept).

The atmosphere of the Earth is not dragged around by friction as some claim but is actually stationary (on average) relative to the inertial field at the surface of the planet. Atmospheric pressure is created by the inward acceleration of the vortex as a whole; the ‘vortex principle’. The gravitational field at the surface of the planet provides a frame of reference which is stationary with respect to the surface and the whole weather system operates within this frame of reference.

The centripetal nature of the vortex accounts for the spherical shape of the sun which shows no no significant equatorial bulge.

Gravitational acceleration of objects is merely the behaviour of such objects that are stationary with respect to the accelerating inertial field. Geo-stationary objects are actually accelerating upwards with respect to the inertial field.

Objects acquire inertia according to local field conditions only and so the rotational speed of the Earth around the sun is irrelevant, as is the speed of the sun through space and the properties of distant galaxies.

The field at the Earth’s surface provides an inertial frame of reference. The water in Newton’s bucket rotates with respect to this frame and the effect needs no further explanation.

The field is electromagnetic in nature and permeates all matter. Matter itself consists of electromagnetic field modulations. Inertia arises from the interaction between the two fields and consists of a sort of ‘field drag’.

Imagine that, as a force is applied to a stationary object, the movement of matter interacts with the gravitational field to produce some sort of eddy currents. This ‘electromagnetic friction’ opposes the movement initially but once the currents are established, they will tend to persist and serve to preserve the constant velocity of the object with respect to the field. This is interpreted as ‘momentum’ in classical physics; it will take another force to slow the object down. Momentum, velocity and kinetic energy are all relative to the local field conditions.

Conversely, if a gravity field accelerates past (through) an object, then electromagnetic eddies are formed and the object is dragged along with the field in a manner somewhat analogous to a river dragging a boat or maybe a sponge, downstream.

The concept of absolute space is not particularly useful in this respect as all free movement is relative to the local gravitational field. Konstantin Meyl goes further and claims, with good reasons, that the local field conditions also determine length, time, the speed of light and even geometry.

Q; What happens outside of a gravitational field?
A: There is no such place.

Each planet of the solar system is at the centre of a gravitational vortex, with interaction with neighbouring or enclosing vortices being complex and according to the laws of electrodynamics. We should expect, from the point of view of Newton’s gravity, to see odd relationships between the planetary orbits and to suspect the existence of hidden (‘dark’?) energies influencing heavenly bodies.

Newton’s theory of gravity does not even have a consistent System of Measurements:
https://library-of-atlantis.com/2025/09/24/gravity-debunked/

An idea for a non-Cartesian geometry for the Universe as a whole:
https://library-of-atlantis.com/2025/06/13/a-vortex-topology-for-the-universe/

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The Earth’s atmosphere

The problem

Our atmosphere remains in a thin layer around the planet owing to gravitational attraction, but how does it maintain an identical rotational speed and why are there not 1000 mile an hour winds at the equator?

The most common explanation from AI searches and physics forums is that the atmosphere is dragged around by friction with the Earth’s surface. This is not credible and is contradicted by everyday observations and common sense.

Some explanations describe a non-slip condition at the Earth’s surface surmounted by a shear layer rising away from the surface, but weather balloons rise vertically and con-trails can be seen stationary above us for many minutes; there is no shear layer.

Others say that, over the millennia, the whole atmosphere has acquired sufficient angular momentum to spin with the Earth, and will maintain such synchrony in the future. There are many problems with this:

The air does not maintain synchrony with the Earth’s surface. Cyclonic structures are the norm, with the wind travelling both slower and faster than, the spin of the Earth, and from both west to east and east to west. Moreover, we see wind travelling north to south and vice versa. In all these cases, the wind is not moved by friction with the surface, but by the laws of aerodynamics.

The eye of a hurricane moves at relatively slow speeds (10-15 mph) with respect to the surface of the Earth. This speed is determined by the dynamics of the hurricane as a whole and not by local friction between the air and the surface, so the hurricane as a whole is somehow attuned to, or cognizant of, the rotational speed of the ground. We have winds with huge speeds in most of the hurricane with parts blowing with the rotation and others against the rotation. Is it really credible, amongst this mayhem, that friction with the ground somehow stabilises the whole system to move approximately in alignment with the Earth’s rotation? Surface friction is clearly irrelevant to most of the cyclone.

A vast amount of kinetic energy is surely lost in storms and converted to heat but after the storm is over, the wind is seen to be travelling in synchrony with the surface again; there is no need for a millennium of readjustment to take place for this to happen.

The (moderate) wind outside my window has abated to leave a remarkably still garden. I did not see a slow return to normality caused by shear stress. How does the air know what ‘stillness’ is? There appears to be some atmospheric frame of reference to which all air returns whenever it is not being pushed around by other pieces of air. What is this frame of reference?

A few mild gusts and eddies now appear in my garden. The air is being pushed around locally by neighbouring masses of air. I see the air move the trees a bit, but I don’t see the trees moving the air at all. The eddies die down, but not because of friction with the ground. The kinetic energy of the eddies has been dissipated by friction within the airflow itself which, depleted of such energy, has then become motionless relative to some local frame of reference. The air ‘knows’ its place.

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The solution

The gravitational field of the Earth forms a roughly isotropic field of inertia at the surface of the planet which acts as a frame of reference for all physical laws and all observable activity.

The field accelerates towards the ground, giving rise to gravitational acceleration, weight and atmospheric pressure. If we factor out the acceleration, then the field gives rise to the same inertial resistance in all directions. The vertical (accelerative) component of the field drops off with the inverse square of the distance, but there is also an inertial component which exists both in the vertical and horizontal directions.

The field rotates with the Earth at all latitudes and so the air moves locally as if there were no rotation, as if the Earth were stationary.

Newton’s bucket

In the case of Newton’s bucket, the water will be dragged around to form a dip in the middle but when the bucket stops rotating, the water will settle down to a level surface. Once again there is a sense of a (local) ‘frame of reference’. A rotating solid object will rotate indefinitely owing to conservation of momentum, but fluids and gases behave differently in an inertial field as inertial drag, having a vortex nature, will promote eddies in the molecules of fluid or gas which will lead to internal friction and eventual stabilisation with respect to the frame of reference.

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Coriolis forces

The above hypothesis makes quite a powerful prediction which is that there are no such things as Coriolis forces at the planetary scale.

This idea came both as a surprise and shock whilst writing the article and needs addressing. Scientists are adamant that the behaviour of gases, fluids and solid objects are affected by Coriolis forces that deflect the motion objects from a straight line relative to the surface of the Earth and cause pendulums to swing in a plane relative to the ‘fixed stars’.

We need at least to account for:

• The claimed Coriolis forces affecting the weather
• The motion of a Foucault pendulum

A ball thrown in a rotating room will appear to follow a curved path because it is really moving in a straight line relative to an inertial frame of reference which seems to follow the rotation of the Earth. However, if such a frame of reference really does rotate with the Earth, then any projectile or stream of air at the surface of the Earth will travel in a straight line where ‘straight’ is, by definition, aligned with the Earth’s rotation.

This is said not to happen, with both streams of air and large pendulums claimed to align, not with the Earth’s rotation but with some other frame of reference, either an ‘absolute’ frame (mechanism not supplied) or with respect to the ‘distant stars’ (mechanism not supplied).

The Earth’s gravitational field seems locally almost identical at each point on the surface, but we cannot rule out that there may be slight variations in the horizontal component that may vary slightly across latitudes and be responsible for meaningful variations in movement over long distances or time intervals.

Before thinking about this, however, we need to check what sort of variations we are required to explain.

Coriolis forces and the weather

A Coriolis force is assumed to arise from the phenomenon of ‘momentum’ which in turn is a derivative of inertia and if the whole gravitational field is stationary with respect to the Earth’s rotation, then ‘inertia’ is also aligned with the surface movement.

I made some attempt to find out if there really are such things as a Coriolis forces affecting the weather, but got bogged down in circular arguments, ‘arguments from assumption’ and downright contradictions.

I asked AI to explain whether Coriolis forces really did affect the weather. The answers look like they are drawn straight from discussions on physics chat forums.

Cyclones (low-pressure systems) rotate counter clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. This rotation is not due to wind patterns alone—it directly results from the Coriolis effect acting on large-scale air movements.

But there are cyclones near the equator and both clockwise and anti-clockwise systems exist in the northern hemisphere.

The Coriolis effect is necessary to explain the direction of rotation; without it, wind would flow directly from high to low pressure.

This is just not true. Stir a cup of tea and you will create a vortex. The pressure gradient goes from high at the periphery to low at the centre but the flow of water is almost at right angles to the pressure gradient and never along it. The same is true of cyclonic structures in the atmosphere.

Trade winds blow from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere—again, due to Coriolis deflection.

They may well do this but where is the proof that is is caused by Coriolis forces?

Jet streams—fast-moving air currents high in the atmosphere—also follow curved paths influenced by the Coriolis effect.

Again, we would like some sort of argument to show that the Coriois effect is causal here. An air current cannot just be influenced to follow a curved path; the air either side of it must have somewhere to go to and wherever it goes to must also move the air somewhere else to make room for the new air. The system is organised globally as a series of vortices, this being a necessity for the preservation of topological continuity. The vortex structure dominates the flow patterns and it will be hard to discern or quantify any Coriolis influences within this pattern, particularly when the vortices go round the ‘wrong’ way.

Rotating tank experiments simulate Earth’s rotation and show how fluids (like air or water) develop spiral motion due to Coriolis-like forces.

Yes, but these are rotating tanks within a stationary frame of reference (gravitational field). The whole point of the above arguments is that the Earth’s inertial field rotates of itself, is stationary with respect to the surface of the Earth and therefore not rotating at all for the purposes of laboratory experiments.

The statement “Rotating tank experiments simulate Earth’s rotation” pretty much assumes the thing that is to be proved, which is that small scale experiments can be scaled up to the size of the Earth; they can’t. However, it isn’t the scale that is the problem but the nature of the gravitational field; it cannot act both as a reference frame for laboratory experiments and for the whole planet itself at the same time.

These experiments reproduce cyclonic patterns similar to those in Earth’s atmosphere.

Yes, but cyclonic patterns are produced by the laws of fluid flow and need no rotational impulse to get started; just try preventing water forming vortices and see how far you get.

Major ocean currents (e.g., the Gulf Stream, the Kuroshio Current) follow curved paths and rotate in large gyres consistent with Coriolis deflection.

The movement of ocean currents are very heavily influenced by the shape of the land masses, convection currents and the laws of fluid dynamics.

The Coriolis force is described mathematically in the equations of motion for rotating systems (e.g., the Navier-Stokes equations).

This is theory, not observational evidence, and the whole point of the argument on this post is that the theory is inapplicable, as the Earth is evidently not a ‘rotating frame of reference’, but a ‘stationary frame that rotates’ (within the solar system).

Reminder: Classical theory has yet to explain just what a ‘rotating system’ is rotating relative to; ‘absolute space’ doesn’t really suffice as a get-out clause any more.

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Foucault’s pendulum

The rotating plane of swing of a Foucault pendulum is often cited as a triumph of scientific achievement and is claimed to prove:

A single experiment clearly cannot prove all these things at once.

Furthermore, from the Wikipedia article and associated Talk tab, we have:

• No pendulum has been seen to complete a single revolution in a single day
• A pendulum at the equator is claimed to not rotate at all but this experiment has never been performed
• An experiment at the South Pole initially showed the Earth rotating the wrong way round: [link]
• A second experiment gave a rotational period of 12 hours instead of 24
• Further experiments achieved a rotational period of 24 hours ± 50 minutes
• Results deemed to be incorrect were discarded and ‘refinements’ (unspecified) made to ‘improve’ the results
• Experiments appear to be ‘goal oriented’
• The results they are aiming for assume a spherical Earth, but the Earth is ‘oblate’
• The only data claiming to be accurate at other latitudes comes from Foucault himself and he can hardly be said to be impartial.
• Only a single latitude was attempted
• The swing of the weight is heavily influenced by air currents and initial conditions
• An attempt to reproduce Foucault’s experiment demonstrated an initial planar swing degenerating to an elliptical pattern after only an hour
• No pendulum will swing all day without ‘help’
• There is no quality control on the manufacture of the equipment and one pendulum simply snapped and fell to the ground
• A pendulum at the equator would provide a good control but nobody has tried this
• A series of precise and reproducible experiments using the same equipment at multiple latitudes is required but never even attempted
• Publicly displayed pendulums are made to knock down skittles (see image above) which allows the possibility of controlling the precession to some degree
• We frequently see theoretical predictions masquerading as experimental results. For example: “A Foucault pendulum at 30° south latitude, viewed from above by an earthbound observer, rotates counter clockwise 360° in two days.” How do you know this if it has never happened?
• “Heike Kamerlingh Onnes performed precise experiments and developed a fuller theory of the Foucault pendulum for his doctoral thesis (1879). He observed the pendulum to go over from linear to elliptic oscillation in an hour. By a perturbation analysis, he showed that geometrical imperfection of the system or elasticity of the support wire may cause a beat between two horizontal modes of oscillation.” – Wikipedia
• The plane of swing is affected by an eclipse
• The amplitude of swing is affected by an eclipse
• The eclipse effect is ridiculed on the Talk page but without further explanation
• The ‘fixed frame of reference’ with respect to which the pendulum is assumed to maintain its plane of swing is never clearly identified, nor any mechanism by which a pendulum might interact with it.

Conclusions from experimental evidence of Coriolis forces

The arguments for Coriolis forces at the planetary scale and the scant evidence from Foucault pendulum experiments are insufficient to support the historic claims made for them and at the same time do not contradict the idea of a gravitational field acting as an inertial frame of reference which is stationary with respect to the surface of the Earth.

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Gravity as an electromagnetic field

The nature of the field can be largely derived from everyday observations as above, but we can consider the idea that it is in fact an emergent property of an electromagnetic field and equivalent to the sum of all the magnetic dipoles of all the spinning charge comprising the planet. This will provide further insights.

If this is true then the gravitational field is continuous with all the atomic charge fields and hence its movement must necessarily be continuous with the rotation of the Earth. Such a field will have complex, fine grained structure and although diminishing according to radius in the manner of a Newtonian field, will not consist of a simple radial field but will have meaningful horizontal components which give rise to inertia.

Konstantin Meyl posits such a field with his Theory of Objectivity and allows for nothing else existing in reality apart from such a field. A ‘field’ in physics is described by differential equations and obeys the Locality Principle, meaning there is no action at a distance and that all behaviour is determined completely by strictly local field interaction.

It follows from this that the behaviour of water in a spinning bucket is determined solely by local (gravitational) field conditions and is unrelated to any influence from the distant stars or from any such thing as ‘absolute space’. There is no provision within the field equations for any external influence and no need for an independent frame of reference as the field itself provides its own reference frame which is usually of a toroidal geometry.

Newton claims that a body will move in a straight line unless acted upon by a force, but singularly fails to define what is meant by a straight line. From the perspective of a field theory then, we can now invert this proposition and actually define an ‘inertial trajectory’ as that of an ‘unimpeded solid object in an inertial field’. So even geometry is now defined by an observation as opposed to an abstraction.

This formulation has the added attraction that it defines things in terms of observable and hence measurable reality, with no need for the assumption of superfluous variables or entities. Passive gravitational mass is not measurable and the assumption of an ‘absolute’ frame of reference is not only unprovable, but now necessitates an additional explanation as to how such a reference frame should influence physical reality.

A further advantage of the adoption of the description of reality in terms of a single field structure is that it narrows down the possibilities, thereby restricting speculation and discouraging the unrestrained invention of novel and often inconsistent mechanisms.

A complex gravitational field

If we accept the general idea of a field model then there is no such thing as an absolute frame of reference and there is no such thing as action at a distance. All influences are via local field conditions only and so a pendulum is moving with respect to a frame of reference created by the gravitational field itself.

The gravitational field can be seen as an extension of the electromagnetic field of all the matter in the planet and as such will rotate with the Earth and will obey the laws of electromagnetism, which are complex, asymmetric, non-linear. The underlying equations are nothing like the simple radial field of Newtonian gravity but will produce something like a radial field on large scales thereby giving the illusion of something much simpler.

The temptation to imagine these laws operating within some Euclidean space should be resisted. The field at the surface of the Earth operates within the much larger vortex structure of the Earth’s sphere of influence and it is this larger vortex that actually determines the global geometry and no doubt contributes to the local field conditions at the surface.

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A self-consistent paradigm

From one point of view, if a pendulum has an apparent deviation from the ‘straight’, then it is subject to some acceleration. However, if we define ‘straight’ as the path actually taken, then no ‘real’ acceleration takes place. ‘Physical straight’ and ‘geometric straight’ are now quite different concepts. Acceleration is ‘the action of an inertial field‘ as opposed to ‘a change in motion‘.

This makes perfect sense and leads to an improved and self-consistent science.

Newtonian and other theories claim matter, mass, distance, position and time as ‘fundamentals’ of the framework, but mass is unmeasurable, the idea of a straight line is undefined, time is ambiguous and even the idea of ‘position’ is unclear (position with respect to what, exactly?). In all cases, quantities are assumed to be relative to some absolute framework that can never be directly measured and is merely imagined.

To use a field construct as a reference frame, however, leads to a self-consistent theory consisting of a theoretical equation for the behaviour of the field and a set of measurements taken from actual reality.

Free movement (free-fall) is that which takes place according to the laws of an inertial frame and is driven by such a frame. A straight line is that followed by a free falling object. The parabolic path taken by a thrown object is inertially straight but geometrically curved because the observer is continually accelerating against the inertial field. The laws of geometry and movement are those of a local electromagnetic field shaped by an enclosing vortex structure.

Applied forces can ‘accelerate’ objects against against the inertial frame. Geometric movement is that which is determined by relative distances, where such distances are themselves determined by the intensity of the field. Geometry itself is determined by the field structure and ‘mass’ is a simplified way of quantifying a vortex; a single metric for a complex structure.

Movement and acceleration are now described in terms of actual physical processes as opposed to deriving from an abstract geometry that resides in some other-worldly realm of ideal forms.

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Newton’s first law

A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless it is acted upon by a force.

The weakness of the law is now easily seen. The concepts of ‘straight line’ and ‘constant speed’ are ill-defined and so the law makes no sense.

To define these concepts we need some frame of reference by which to compare ‘speed’ or ‘straight’ and no such frames have been adequately described. Newton advocated for some ‘absolute’ frame of reference whilst Mach preferred to compare the local motion of objects to the distant or ‘fixed’ stars, but neither of these is really satisfactory from a practical point of view since neither reference frame is available for direct measurement. Both are simply ‘terminology’ without any real meaning.

As for empirical verification, we can try to find an experiment demonstrating the truth of the First Law; we can look for an object travelling though space in a straight line forever, but no such experiment exists. All objects in space are observed to travel in curved orbits of some sort and all are therefore inferred (from the first law) to be subject to the ‘force’ of gravity.

The reasoning is circular and the idea of an object travelling in a straight line, free from force, is redundant, since no such thing can ever occur in a universe permeated by gravitational fields.

The frame of reference must be the local gravitational field itself; this is by now ‘obvious’.

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The Tamarack mines experiment

A wire was measured at the surface of the Earth and again at the bottom of some mineshafts where it was found to be considerably shorter. The reason given by Meyl is that the horizontal component of the magnetic field grows stronger for a small distance towards the centre of the Earth and it is this phenomenon that literally shrinks the wire by manipulation of the physical geometry.

Gravity is therefore more complex than a simple radial field emanating from the centre of a mass.

Tamarack mines experiment

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The gravity field of the sun

The sun is said to have very little equatorial bulge despite its large size and gaseous composition and rotates at different speeds according to latitude. This seems at odds with classical physics but makes perfect sense when viewed through the lens of vortex physics.

The sun is the centre of a rotating gravitational field and the surface of the sun is continuous with such a field. The field accelerates inwards and forms one ‘radius’ at the surface and possibly another at the chromosphere. The shape of the sun is determined by the overall configuration of such a vortex which obeys the laws of electrodynamics. Meyl gives a description of an electron as being stabilised by the weight of the whole universe compressing inwards and points out that the sphere is the most stable shape that could possibly result from this.

The same no doubt holds for larger objects and the sun, being gaseous and hence more easily shaped by a gravitational field than a solid planet, ends up being more spherical instead of less.

The gravitational field of the sun rotates with the surface and hence forms a stationary inertial frame of reference with respect to the surface, as with the Earth. There is a big difference here, however, which is that there is no solid body rotation on the sun but a differential rotation that varies with latitude. The question then arises: “What is the behaviour of a Foucault pendulum at the surface of the sun?”. Exercise for the reader!

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The Moon and Jupiter

Jupiter has a fast spin and a large equatorial bulge and so this bulge is attributed to the rapid spin. However, the moon has a large equatorial bulge but no spin and so the bulge is attributed to something else other than the spin. The sun has a large mass and size and significant spin but no equatorial bulge but nobody understands this. An obvious inference is that the equatorial bulge is simply unrelated to the mass or spin of the planet in question.

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Variation in day length of the Earth and Venus

The rotational speeds of both the Earth and Venus vary from day to day, with the day length of Venus varying by up to 20 minutes. How does this happen?

One explanation is that there is an exchange of angular momentum between the interior of the planets and their surface. In other words, molten iron sloshes around and alters the rate of spin as an ice skater might do by changing her moment of inertia. This is hardly credible, it would mean the transference of angular momentum by mechanical means which would surely lead to all sorts of stresses in the crust of the planets, with tidal waves and earthquakes being an inevitable consequence?

It must be the case that the planets are affected in every single atom at the same time and this implies an inertial field. Each planet is at the centre of an extended gravitational vortex with the vortex having slight fluctuations of rotational speed. Again, this sort of thing is visible in the eddies in river currents. This requires some explanation in Newtonian physics but is to be regarded as default behaviour in vortex systems.

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‘Oumuamua

‘Oumuamua and other objects are observed to accelerate away from the sun, apparently against the (Newtonian) gravitational field and various hypotheses are put forward to explain this. A better way to proceed might be to consider a more complex version of the gravitational field as described above and a more complex form of interaction than merely ‘attraction’. It has already been hypothesised that gases may interact differently to solids in a gravitational field and we may be seeing, with these objects, a different form of behaviour again.

Many of these visitors to our solar system have the appearance of energetic field vortices akin to a ball lightning phenomenon. A spinning vortex of pure electric field accumulates energy and matter continually according to the vortex principle and propels itself through space in a manner similar to a smoke ring. Once close to the sun, the dynamic electromagnetic field structure interacts strongly with the gravitational field of the sun and the resulting forces now dominate the movement of the ‘object’. The local gravitational field conditions and the dynamic field structure of the object itself will both contribute towards the movement and again, an analogy with ball lightning is appropriate.

These objects use their internal electrodynamics as an ‘engine’ to drag themselves through a gravitational field. Energy is dissipated in the form of light and matter but they are, nevertheless, at the centre of a larger vortex structure and will continue to accumulate energy as they move through the cosmos. If they did not continually ‘refuel’, then how are there any of them left in the universe?

How do these objects arise in the first place? They arise as spontaneous concentrations of vortex ‘energy’ much the same way that a local vortex may form in a flowing river from the spontaneous confluence of global currents.

Very likely many unidentified aerial phenomena are of this nature and will exhibit complex behaviour in the vortex wake of an aeroplane.

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The Michelson Morley experiment

In the Michelson Morley experiment, two perpendicular beams of light were found to travel at the same speed despite the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the sun. This result is consistent with the idea that the gravitational field at the surface of the Earth is not only inertially stationary with respect to the Earth but also forms a locally isotropic reference field for electromagnetic propagation.

This isn’t too far fetched. A gravitational field is hypothesised to be essentially electromagnetic in nature and photons are some sort of propagating electromagnetic field. The gravitational field therefore acts as a sort of carrier wave for the photons which adjust their speed according to the local environment.

If this is true then gravitational lensing effects are to be expected and these are indeed observed. The gravity in these effects is not acting as an inertial field upon ‘mass’ but as an electromagnetic ‘medium’ which determines the speed of propagation of the photons.

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The Lense-Thirring effect

The Lense-Thirring effect is usually described in terms of general relativistic ‘frame dragging’ where a rotating body such as the Earth will ‘drag’ some space-time around with it (how?), thereby affecting the movement of objects and the propagation of light.

This can obviously be reformulated in terms of a pure vortex structure where both Earth and its inertial (gravitational) field rotate as a single body and give us the effects described. In terms of Newtonian or Einsteinian physics, the Earth has angular momentum because of its rotation and this is no doubt the instigator of the dragging. However but the frame of reference with respect to which the rotation is defined is never specified and so we ought not to be assuming that it exists.

We are not therefore able to say with any certainty that it is the frame that is being ‘dragged’, but only that the inertial field and surface movement are continuous with each other. The two move as a whole and it is quite wrong to attribute cause to one or the other when there is no need to do so and no evidence for such a phenomenon.

Summary

An alternative way of thinking about gravity has been described, first in layman’s language and derived from simple everyday observations and experience.

Next, a hypothesis for a gravitational field based upon an electromagnetic field has been shown to be consistent with the theory and to provide additional insights.

Thirdly, multiple known ‘anomalies’ which are incompatible with classical theory are given plausible explanations with respect to this new theory.

The idea of Coriolis forces at the planet’s surface is contested and the evidence from pendulum experiments found to be insufficient to prove anything either way.

The local gravitational field has horizontal components as well as radial and forms a defining frame of reference for the local movement of matter and indeed the propagation of light.

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