Geometry, Medium, Aether
I have been thinking about gravitational waves lately. The evidence for their existence is compelling, but what is waving? The physics guru at Medium (an ironic website name for his posting) claimed that it was “the fabric of space” that was waving. So I asked: “What exactly is the “fabric of space”? Do you mean pure geometry?” Of course, the guru did not respond. Ask a question like that or “What exactly is the electromagnetic field” and the physicist will probably ignore you or say that the relevant equations answer your questions. But the mathematics is model of how the particular field behaves, not the intrinsic nature of the field. Pursuing the discussion further is usually fruitless.
Being impressed with Einstein’s understanding of nature and his experimental success over more than 100 years, it seems to me that we should take seriously his dictum that ‘without matter there is no space or time’. Think of it: space is the distance between objects and time is inextricably linked to their movement. Take away all the matter, i.e. the objects, and you have nothing, with no distances, or space or time or geometry.
One should also consider that given the amount of mass/energy it takes to deform space in General Relativity, space is more rigid that the strongest steel! I have a problem imagining something as ephemeral as pure geometry being more rigid than steel.
My intuition strongly suggests that if you have a wave, then you need a medium to “carry” it. Water is made up of molecules and it can have the geometry of waves, vorticies, and chaotic/fractal turbulence. But remove all molecules and you again have nothing.
I am hoping that Discrete Scale Relativity might come to the rescue here. I think it might provide a physical medium, or field to use a less pejorative term, that does not involve the old static aether that was ruled out by the Michelson-Morley experiments. A field composed of objects with mass and charge moving with speeds up to that of light might provide a modern aether that would be a more comprehensible physical explanation for the gravitational and electromagnetic fields.
Discrete Scale Relativity proposes that that there are an infinite number of discrete (well-stratified) Cosmological Scales, of which we are mostly aware of the Atomic, Stellar and Galactic Scales. The Scales are strongly self-similar to each other such that for any object on one Scale there is a self-similar analogue on every other Scale. The self-similar analogues differ in size by 5.2 x10^17, and mass by 1.7 x 10^56. Scaling for other parameters can be found at https://rloldershaw.people.amherst.edu .
DSR predicts that the Dark Matter composing ~ 90% of the matter on the Stellar Scale is in the form of Kerr-Newman black holes that are fundamental objects of nature, sometimes called primordial black holes. They are Stellar Scale analogues to atomic nuclei, mostly protons, electrons and alpha particles. They obviously have mass, and they also have rotation and charge. They could be bound in galactic halos and move at relativistic velocities between galaxies. It is known that relativistic and non-relativistic plasma particles (mostly protons and electrons) constitute 90% of the mass of the Atomic Scale. They are clearly detected in the solar wind during an eclipse and in extremely high energy cosmic rays. DSR proposes that a self-similar phenomenon occurs on the infinite number of Cosmological Scales.
If DSR is correct then what appears to be near vacuums in interstellar and intergalactic space are actually full of a hierarchy of relativistic plasmas on an infinite number of Scales. Only a minuscule fraction of them are currently observable. This might provide a plenum of objects that could potentially provide the objects that seem to be required for gravitational waves, and the electromagnetic medium that would provide a comprehensible physical explanation for the EM field.
Here is a quick and rough calculation that gives one the feeling for what DSR proposes for the infinite self-similar field that might underlie what we think of as the near vacuum intergalactic space-time. Physicists estimate that on average a typical cubic centimeter in the cosmos contains (momentarily, of course) on the order of 800 neutrinos and CMB photons. When you add in cosmic rays and other particles, the total may be more like 10³ particles. DSR claims that within this typical cm³ there are on the order of 10⁵³ almost infinitessimal “cm³”s on the next lower Cosmological Scale, each containing 10³ self-similar particles. So within the original typical cm³ we go from 10³ particles to 10⁵⁶ particles. If there are an additional infinite number of lower Cosmological Scales then the total number of particles within the original cm³ goes up to infinity by very large discrete jumps. If true, then there truly is no space-time without objects — anywhere in the cosmos.
This is all very speculative, and conventional wisdom would reject the whole DSR paradigm as a non-starter. My response is that if it turns out that DSR has correctly predicted the Dark Matter identity and solved a problem that no other theory or paradigm has come close to solving, then conventional wisdom needs to be revolutionized.