# Is gravitation faster than light?

by CarstenDierks
Tags: faster, gravitation, light
P: 8,430
 Quote by Schneibster The variations in the gravity field caused by linear motion will of course result in a continuous "update" of the gravity field of an object, but they do not create "waves" of gravity. To create a wave from any motion requires an oscillation; this is a general fact of physics, not limited to gravity fields but also true (as my example showed) of the electromagnetic field. You cannot use the analogy of water waves, like from the prow of a boat, which is what it sounds like you are trying to do; water waves are transverse waves, but light and gravity waves are longitudinal, and furthermore while water presents resistance to the movement of objects, space does not.
In electromagnetism, it is acceleration of charges which causes electromagnetic waves, it doesn't necessarily have to be oscillation. For a charge moving at constant velocity, other charges will act as though they are always attracted to its current position with no light-delay; if the charge accelerates, though, other charges will continue to be attracted to a "linear extrapolation" of the charge's position (where it would have been if it had not accelerated) until an electromagnetic wave travelling at the speed of light reaches them.

For gravity, it's a bit more complicated, Steve Carlip says here that it depends on the quadrupole term in a multipole expansion rather than the dipole term as in electromagnetism, so gravity can "anticipate" the orbits of planets as well as linear motion--see this page for more info:
 Quote by CarstenDierks What happens physically, if real gravitons of a gravitational wave are kept inside a black hole? Will they come across the same point in space more than once? Will they thus curve space stronger? Will they accumulate behind the event horizon? Will they fall back into singularity? Will the gravitational waves interfere with each other? I know, I am still curious… Carsten
 Quote by Schneibster Hee hee, nobody knows the answers to any of these questions. Remember Hawking: "A black hole has no hair."
Actually it was Wheeler who coined that phrase. And Steve Carlip addresses these questions here, both in the case of classical gravitational waves and gravitons:
 D.09 How can gravity escape from a black hole? In a classical point of view, this question is based on an incorrect picture of gravity. Gravity is just the manifestation of spacetime curvature, and a black hole is just a certain very steep puckering that captures anything that comes too closely. Ripples in the curvature travel along in small undulatory packs (radiation---see D.05), but these are an optional addition to the gravitation that is already around. In particular, black holes don't need to radiate to have the fields that they do. Once formed, they and their gravity just are. In a quantum point of view, though, it's a good question. We don't yet have a good quantum theory of gravity, and it's risky to predict what such a theory will look like. But we do have a good theory of quantum electrodynamics, so let's ask the same question for a charged black hole: how can a such an object attract or repel other charged objects if photons can't escape from the event horizon? The key point is that electromagnetic interactions (and gravity, if quantum gravity ends up looking like quantum electrodynamics) are mediated by the exchange of *virtual* particles. This allows a standard loophole: virtual particles can pretty much "do" whatever they like, including travelling faster than light, so long as they disappear before they violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The black hole event horizon is where normal matter (and forces) must exceed the speed of light in order to escape, and thus are trapped. The horizon is meaningless to a virtual particle with enough speed. In particular, a charged black hole is a source of virtual photons that can then do their usual virtual business with the rest of the universe. Once again, we don't know for sure that quantum gravity will have a description in terms of gravitons, but if it does, the same loophole will apply---gravitational attraction will be mediated by virtual gravitons, which are free to ignore a black hole event horizon. See R Feynman QED (Princeton, ???) for the best nontechnical account of how virtual photon exchange manifests itself as long range electrical forces.
 P: 81 Thanks for the detailed clarifications, Jesse.
P: 95
 Quote by Nereid In a few words - if that's possible - how does your idea differ from GR?
(a) It is not mathematical, only intuitive.
(b) It provides an idea for actual cause for gravity.
(c) It quite unashamedly assumes an aether, not just letting one creep in by the back door.

Of couse it is not much use as a "theory" because of its lack of equations, but it does make a few qualitative predictions. For more see my web site. I have been cautioned not to try and introduce personal theories on this forum, otherwise I'd say more here.

Caroline
http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/
PF Patron
Emeritus
P: 3,940
 In a few words - if that's possible - how does your idea differ from GR?
 Quote by Caroline Thompson (a) It is not mathematical, only intuitive. (b) It provides an idea for actual cause for gravity. (c) It quite unashamedly assumes an aether, not just letting one creep in by the back door. Of couse it is not much use as a "theory" because of its lack of equations, but it does make a few qualitative predictions. For more see my web site. I have been cautioned not to try and introduce personal theories on this forum, otherwise I'd say more here.
Thanks.

I think you started posting here after the big discussion we had on the extent to which we would encourage, support, or even allow qualitative personal ideas in the 'science' parts of PF (the Theory Development section used to be one of the most active parts of PF!). Never mind; the decision was to strongly discourage these, unless they are 'nearly ready for prime time' (e.g. been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal).

On the other hand, critiques of 'mainstream' physics - especially in the form of penetrating questions and showing (apparent) internal and external inconsistencies - is very much to be encouraged!
P: 36
Well, thank you all for your posts!

I will no be able to answer quickly to all of them, but here is the most important one for me:

 Quote by JesseM Once again, we don't know for sure that quantum gravity will have a description in terms of gravitons, but if it does, the same loophole will apply---gravitational attraction will be mediated by virtual gravitons, which are free to ignore a black hole event horizon. See R Feynman QED (Princeton, ???) for the best nontechnical account of how virtual photon exchange manifests itself as long range electrical forces.
So this leads back to post # 1:

At least virtual gravitons are able to move faster than c to escape the event horizon.

Is this also true for virtual photons in an EM field?

That implies, that information can leave a black hole, correct?

Carsten
P: 8,430
 Quote by CarstenDierks Well, thank you all for your posts! I will no be able to answer quickly to all of them, but here is the most important one for me: So this leads back to post # 1: At least virtual gravitons are able to move faster than c to escape the event horizon. Is this also true for virtual photons in an EM field?
Yes, that page I quoted said that in terms of the "virtual particle" picture, a charged black hole's electromagnetic attraction would be explained in terms of virtual photons escaping the event horizon.
 Quote by CarstenDierks That implies, that information can leave a black hole, correct? Carsten
No, FTL virtual particles apparently don't imply FTL information transfer. This is discussed in this FAQ on virtual particles:
 Do they go faster than light? Do virtual particles contradict relativity or causality? In section 2, the virtual photon's plane wave is seemingly created everywhere in space at once, and destroyed all at once. Therefore, the interaction can happen no matter how far the interacting particles are from each other. Quantum field theory is supposed to properly apply special relativity to quantum mechanics. Yet here we have something that, at least at first glance, isn't supposed to be possible in special relativity: the virtual photon can go from one interacting particle to the other faster than light! It turns out, if we sum up all possible momenta, that the amplitude for transmission drops as the virtual particle's final position gets further and further outside the light cone, but that's small consolation. This "superluminal" propagation had better not transmit any information if we are to retain the principle of causality. I'll give a plausibility argument that it doesn't in the context of a thought experiment. Let's try to send information faster than light with a virtual particle. Suppose that you and I make repeated measurements of a quantum field at distant locations. The electromagnetic field is sort of a complicated thing, so I'll use the example of a field with just one component, and call it F. To make things even simpler, we'll assume that there are no "charged" sources of the F field or real F particles initially. This means that our F measurements should fluctuate quantum- mechanically around an average value of zero. You measure F (really, an average value of F over some small region) at one place, and I measure it a little while later at a place far away. We do this over and over, and wait a long time between the repetitions, just to be safe.  . . . ------X ------ X------ ^ time ------X me | ------ | you X------ ---> space After a large number of repeated field measurements we compare notes. We discover that our results are not independent; the F values are correlated with each other-- even though each individual set of measurements just fluctuates around zero, the fluctuations are not completely independent. This is because of the propagation of virtual quanta of the F field, represented by the diagonal lines. It happens even if the virtual particle has to go faster than light. However, this correlation transmits no information. Neither of us has any control over the results we get, and each set of results looks completely random until we compare notes (this is just like the resolution of the famous EPR "paradox"). You can do things to fields other than measure them. Might you still be able to send a signal? Suppose that you attempt, by some series of actions, to send information to me by means of the virtual particle. If we look at this from the perspective of someone moving to the right at a high enough speed, special relativity says that in that reference frame, the effect is going the other way:  . . . X------ ------ ------X you X------ ^ time ------ | ------X me | ---> space Now it seems as if I'm affecting what happens to you rather than the other way around. (If the quanta of the F field are not the same as their antiparticles, then the transmission of a virtual F particle from you to me now looks like the transmission of its antiparticle from me to you.) If all this is to fit properly into special relativity, then it shouldn't matter which of these processes "really" happened; the two descriptions should be equally valid. We know that all of this was derived from quantum mechanics, using perturbation theory. In quantum mechanics, the future quantum state of a system can be derived by applying the rules for time evolution to its present quantum state. No measurement I make when I "receive" the particle can tell me whether you've "sent" it or not, because in one frame that hasn't happened yet! Since my present state must be derivable from past events, if I have your message, I must have gotten it by other means. The virtual particle didn't "transmit" any information that I didn't have already; it is useless as a means of faster-than-light communication. The order of events does not vary in different frames if the transmission is at the speed of light or slower. Then, the use of virtual particles as a communication channel is completely consistent with quantum mechanics and relativity. That's fortunate: since all particle interactions occur over a finite time interval, in a sense all particles are virtual to some extent.
It should also be noted that I have seem a number of physicists argue that we shouldn't really think of virtual particles as real physical entities at all--they are just graphic representations of terms in a perturbation series, and thus have no more physical reality than terms in a Taylor series used to approximate the value of some physical function (the electromagnetic field, perhaps) near some point. Arnold Neumaier's physics FAQ discusses this argument in detail:
 ----------------------------------------------- 3b. How meaningful are single Feynman diagrams? ----------------------------------------------- The standard model is a theory defined in terms of a Lagrangian. To get computable output, Feynman graph techniques are used. But individual Feynman graphs are meaningless (often infinite); only the sum of all terms of a given order can be given - after a process called renormalization - a well-defined (finite) meaning. This is well-known; so no-one treats the Feynman graphs as real. What is taken as real is the final outcome of the calculations, which can be compared with measurements. ------------------------------------- 3c. How real are 'virtual particles'? ------------------------------------- All language is only an approximation to reality, which simply is. But to do science we need to classify the aspects of reality that appear to have more permanence, and consider them as real. Nevertheless, all concepts, including 'real' have a fuzziness about them, unless they are phrased in terms of rigorous mathematical models (in which case they don't apply to reality itself but only to a model of reality). In the informal way I use the notion, 'real' in theoretical physics means a concept or object that - is independent of the computational scheme used to extract information from a theory, - has a reasonably well-defined and consistent formal basis - does not give rise to misleading intuition. This does not give a clear definition of real, of course. But it makes for example charge distributions, inputs and outputs of (theoretical models of) scattering experiments, and quarks something real, while making bare particles and virtual particles artifacts of perturbation theory. Quarks must be considered real because one cannot dispense with them in any coherent explanation of high energy physics. Virtual particles must not be considered real since they arise only in a particular approach to high energy physics - perturbation theory before renormalization - that does not even survive the modifications needed to remove the infinities. Moreover, the virtual particle content of a real state depends so much on the details of the computational scheme (canonical or light front quantization, standard or renormalization group enhances perturbation theory, etc.) that calling virtual particles real would produce a very weird picture of reality. ... The figurative virtual objects in QFT are there only because of the well-known limitations of the foundations of QFT. In a nonperturbative setting they wouldn't occur at all. This can be seen by comparing with QM. One could also do nonrelativistic QM with virtual objects but no one does so (except sometimes in motivations for QFT), because it does not add value to a well-understood theory. Virtual particles are an artifact of perturbation theory that give an intuitive (but if taken too far, misleading) interpretation for Feynman diagrams. More precisely, a virtual photon, say, is an internal photon line in one of the Feynman diagrams. But there is nothing real associated with it. Detectable photons are always real, 'dressed' photons. Virtual particles, and the Feynman diagrams they appear in, are just a visual tool of keeping track of the different terms in a formal expansion of scattering amplitudes into multi-dimensional integrals involving multiple propaators - the momenta of the virtual particles represent the integration variables. They have no meaning at all outside these integrals. They get out of mathematical existence once one changes the formula for computing a scattering amplitude. Therefore virtual particles are essentially analogous to virtual integers k obtained by computing log(1-x) = sum_k x^k/k by expansion into a Taylor series. Since we can compute the logarithm in many other ways, it is ridiculous to attach to k any intrinsic meaning. But ... ... in QFT, we have no good ways to compute scattering amplitudes without at least some form of expansion (unless we only use the lowest order of some approximation method), which makes virtual particles look a little more real. But the analogy to the Taylor series shows that it's best not to look at them that way. (For a very informal view of QED in terms of clouds of virtual particles see http://groups.google.com/groups?sel...%40univie.ac.at and the later mails in this thread.) A sign of the irreality of virtual particles is the fact that when one does partial resummations of diagrams (which is essential for renormalization), many of the virtual particles disappear. A fully nonperturbative theory would sum everything, and no virtual particles would be present anymore. Thus virtual particles are entirely a consequence of looking at QFT in a perturbative way rather than nonperturbatively.
P: 95
 Quote by Schneibster Caroline, all waves have energy, and take energy to make; they are all made by oscillation. They dissipate this energy into the environment continuously. Fields, on the other hand, represent static energy; there is a difference in the energy of the vacuum with the field and without the field; but fields do not disspate energy. It doesn't matter whether you are talking classically or in QM terms. Thus, your idea would violate mass/energy conservation.
The waves from which forces are formed are the self-same waves in the aether that, when carrying a different modulation, form radiation. Radiation is, I understand, a wave that does not dissipate in a vacuum. I don't see the problem.

Incidentally, surely light does dissipate just a tiny bit, otherwise the night sky would be bright (Olbers' paradox)? What experimental evidence do we have that forces don't dissipate similarly over similar distances? In my Phi-Wave-Aether theory, the high-level patterns get smudged out so that radiation and the forces lose their effectiveness. The net intensity of the phi-waves, though, almost certainly stays the same. On the scale of the whole universe, there is conservation of "phi-energy".

Caroline
http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/
P: 81
 Quote by Caroline Thompson The waves from which forces are formed are the self-same waves in the aether that, when carrying a different modulation, form radiation.
Forces aren't formed from waves. A force is the action of a field; and a field is apparently a basic entity (I had thought until very recently that fields were "made up" of virtual particles, but it turns out that this is merely a convenient way of representing fields that gives some correct results in regard to certain mensurables if not pushed too far. In fact, the virtual particles have no real existence, and cannot be relied upon as anything but a mathematical contrivance that allows some, but not all, of the properties of the field to be described. Apparently, fields and dimensions are the fundamental entities making up our universe; and if string physics turns out to be correct, it may turn out that the fields are all due to the distortion of dimensions, so dimensions may turn out to be the single fundamental entity).

(Even more interestingly, it appears that while a field is not made up of anything, a wave can be considered to be made up of something, specifically quanta; and these quanta reveal their presence by the contrafactuality of the "violet catastrope," and by the reality of the photoelectric effect, at least in the case of the quanta of the electromagnetic interaction. I have still not finished considering the implications of this with regard to the field, nor the implications with regard to string physics.)

A wave is not a field, but the variation of a field. In order for a field to vary, the source of the field must accelerate (not merely move, but accelerate). In the absence of acceleration, there is no wave. In the absence of expenditure of energy, there is no acceleration. Thus, for a wave to be formed, an object that is the source of a field must accelerate; and for an object to do this in the absence of a source of energy is, as I said, a violation of the conservation of mass/energy.

 Quote by Caroline Thompson Radiation is, I understand, a wave that does not dissipate in a vacuum. I don't see the problem.
Then you do not know the difference between a wave and a field. See above. Radiation is a wave made up of the variation of the field of the vacuum, which is all fields at their minimum potential in the absence of any field associated with an object, and that minimum potential plus the potential of the object's field in the presence of a field associated with an object.

 Quote by Caroline Thompson Incidentally, surely light does dissipate just a tiny bit, otherwise the night sky would be bright (Olbers' paradox)?
That would violate the conservation of mass/energy as well. Light is energy in one of its forms, specifically the variation of the electromagnetic field of the vacuum. As I previously stated, that variation is caused by the acceleration of some object, and acceleration is a phenomenon that implies the application of a force, which requires energy.

In regard to Olbers' paradox, there are several different possible solutions, and the most widely accepted one is that the universe is not infinite in time. This solution has the advantage over your proposed solution that it does not contradict well-known experimental results.

 Quote by Caroline Thompson What experimental evidence do we have that forces don't dissipate similarly over similar distances?
The evidence of the conservation of mass/energy. No experiment has ever been observed that violates this law; the discoverer of such an experiment would be sure to report it and accept their inevitable Nobel Prize.

Brightness observations on stars conform to the inverse-square law, which is the result of the geometry of spacetime. These brightness observations are consistent for particular types of stars, and the distance to the stars is established using simple geometric techniques (see Hipparcos and Tycho data, which establish the distances to millions of stars geometrically with error bars indicating accuracies better than ten significant figures). If the electromagnetic force were to dissipate over distance, we would observe that stars of a given type that were further away would be uniformly less bright than stars of the same type that were closer, and we do not observe this. The Herzsprung-Russell diagram is proof of this fact.

Rotation observations of the planets in the Solar System would be affected by any dissipation of gravity over distance, requiring an ever-increasing correction for each planet successively further from the Sun; this correction is not observed.

Therefore, the electromagnetic and gravity fields are not affected by any "dissipation" of their strength over spatial distances, and there is observational evidence to supplement laboratory experiment evidence that this is true.

 Quote by Caroline Thompson In my Phi-Wave-Aether theory, the high-level patterns get smudged out so that radiation and the forces lose their effectiveness. The net intensity of the phi-waves, though, almost certainly stays the same. On the scale of the whole universe, there is conservation of "phi-energy".
I'm sorry, I have not studied your proposal enough to comment on it.
P: 36
Hi Schneibster,

May I still continue to “bug you” with a couple of questions?

 Quote by Schneibster Forces aren't formed from waves. A force is the action of a field; and a field is apparently a basic entity
If a gravitational wave curves space and space curvature is a gravitational field, isn´t a gravitational field a gravitational force? Thus the wave would have formed the force…

 Quote by Schneibster Radiation is a wave made up of the variation of the field of the vacuum, which is all fields at their minimum potential in the absence of any field associated with an object, and that minimum potential plus the potential of the object's field in the presence of a field associated with an object.
Hm, that was a little complicated. I must admit I did not fully understand it.

 Quote by Schneibster In regard to Olbers' paradox, there are several different possible solutions, and the most widely accepted one is that the universe is not infinite in time.
Yes. And there is dark matter absorbing light. And moreover, the universe might not be infinite in space.

Carsten
PF Patron
Emeritus
P: 3,940
 Quote by CarstenDierks If a gravitational wave curves space and space curvature is a gravitational field, isn´t a gravitational field a gravitational force? Thus the wave would have formed the force…
A gravitational wave does indeed 'create it's own gravity', but it is extraordinarily weak.
 Yes. And there is dark matter absorbing light. And moreover, the universe might not be infinite in space.
Just to nitpick one thing ... 'dark matter' (as in non-baryonic matter) does not absorb photons; what does absorb photons is 'dark baryonic matter', e.g. dust. However, in equilibrium, all such baryonic absorbers also emit photons (e.g. light is absorbed, heating the dust, so it emits more in the IR/microwave region).

There have been several good discussions on gravitation and its speed in the Special & General Relativity section of PF; do readers feel this thread should be moved there (it'd get the attention of folk who are very familiar with GR).
P: 36
Hi Nereid,

Thanks for the details!

 Quote by Nereid There have been several good discussions on gravitation and its speed in the Special & General Relativity section of PF; do readers feel this thread should be moved there (it'd get the attention of folk who are very familiar with GR).
Maybe we should move on with the discussion involving those guys. Would you move this thread there or would we start a new thread in that section? How would it work?

Carsten
P: 95
 Quote by Schneibster Forces aren't formed from waves. A force is the action of a field; and a field is apparently a basic entity ....
I know this is what is generally thought, but I think it is holding back understanding. The assumption that there are no underlying waves -- that the field is an intrisically static phenomenon -- held back Einstein and Lorentz, preventing them from seeing how to link macroscopic forces with "quantum-level" ones.

At the quantum level, we know that everything is constantly changing. We know that "interference" phenomena are important. To me, this implies that at that level there are high-frequency waves, underlying all the forces and causing everything that we see.

 I'm sorry, I have not studied your proposal enough to comment on it.
I've afraid I have not time now to read all your comments, but perhaps in any event it would be more profitable to discuss my hypothesis after reading one of my papers, e.g.:
"The Phi-Wave Aether: a Wave Theory of Everything", http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thomp...colApeiron.pdf or html version: http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thomp...WA.Apeiron.htm
Cheers
Caroline
P: 36
 Quote by Caroline Thompson I know this is what is generally thought, but I think it is holding back understanding. The assumption that there are no underlying waves -- that the field is an intrisically static phenomenon -- held back Einstein and Lorentz, preventing them from seeing how to link macroscopic forces with "quantum-level" ones. At the quantum level, we know that everything is constantly changing. We know that "interference" phenomena are important. To me, this implies that at that level there are high-frequency waves, underlying all the forces and causing everything that we see.
Dear Caroline,

with all respect to your theory, but first of all, I would like to understand how science explains our universe. And secondly I would like to understand where it still has frontiers in explaining it.

Can you help us/me in the questions of this thread? But I would like to hear no speculations at this time but only the widely accepted theories. Everything else is confusing at this point.

I am very open to new ideas, but let us first understand the facts. And afterwards, I am happy to open a new thread on speculations.

Best regards,
Carsten
P: 11
 Quote by dextercioby The short answer is:NO.What do you mean,"gravitation can (escape a blackhole)"...???Gravitation IS a black hole (too)...A singularity in the gravitational field,that is...If u want to,a particular solution to the Einstein equations... Daniel.
Modestly, a black hole is not formed or comprised of any gravitational force. I've copyright on my first book on a logical examination of the universe. Quantum mechanics to black holes and antimatter. a black hole i call FSA, force to siphon acceleration. To have a gravitational force there must be a great density of reactions for short. After the supernova explodes the gravitational force is dispersed. Also, planetary and nova gravitational force is faster than light.
P: 81
 Quote by CarstenDierks Hi Schneibster, May I still continue to “bug you” with a couple of questions?
Of course, and I will explain the answers as best I can.

 Quote by CarstenDierks If a gravitational wave curves space and space curvature is a gravitational field, isn´t a gravitational field a gravitational force?
Well, the gravitational field is the amount of gravitational force that an object at each different point within the field would experience. So the field can vary from one point to another, and the value it varies to at a particular point is the magnitude of the force at that point.

 Quote by CarstenDierks Thus the wave would have formed the force…
No. The curvature of space itself can either be smooth and continuous, which is the presence of a gravitational field, or it can have waves in it, which is the presence of gravitational radiation. Even being smooth, it can still have dips in it; those dips are gravity wells, places where as you get closer and closer to a certain point, the force gets stronger and stronger. But they are smooth, with no waves. Waves are only created when an object accelerates.

 Quote by Schneibster Radiation is a wave made up of the variation of the field of the vacuum, which is all fields at their minimum potential in the absence of any field associated with an object, and that minimum potential plus the potential of the object's field in the presence of a field associated with an object.
 Quote by CarstenDierks Hm, that was a little complicated. I must admit I did not fully understand it.
OK, we were talking about how fields manifest themselves.

All around our planet is the vacuum. Move far enough away from suns, and planets, and everything else, and it's pretty empty. There isn't much in it. What a field is, is some kind of warping or curving of that flat, empty vacuum. Warp it this way, you get gravity; warp it that way, you get an electric field. It doesn't really matter whether you're out in space or on the surface of the earth; that vacuum field exists everywhere, and it has all the warpings of all the different fields in it; each field that is actually present in a particular part of the vacuum will have its own field strength in it, and fields that are not present will have field strengths too, but they will be zero. It is easier to think of the simple case out in the middle of space first, then about the possible complications.

Now, these warpings or curvatures are continuous; they aren't periodical in space, like a water wave is periodical. There aren't peaks and troughs; there are just levels of strength in this particular... direction (although it isn't any direction you can imagine) that aren't zero, or aren't as close to zero as they could be. And they vary from one little piece of vacuum to the next only the tiniest bit. And as you move closer to the origin of the field, that energy level gets higher and higher from one little piece of the vacuum to the next. That is a field. (That is actually a spherical field; there are other types, but they are not relevant to this discussion.)

Now, let's suppose that instead of being smooth, there are waves in this field. That is, instead of increasing smoothly as you get closer to a source, they increase to a peak, and then decline to a trough, and then increase and decline again, over and over. This is different from the smooth increase. And this is the difference between a field, and a wave.

 Quote by Schneibster In regard to Olbers' paradox, there are several different possible solutions, and the most widely accepted one is that the universe is not infinite in time.
 Quote by CarstenDierks Yes. And there is dark matter absorbing light. And moreover, the universe might not be infinite in space.
Well, now, there's no proof one way or the other on whether the universe is finite or infinite in space; but there is more evidence that it is infinite than there is that it is finite, although that evidence is not as compelling as the evidence for the universe's finity in time.

On the other hand, the statement that there is dark matter absorbing light has no supporting evidence at all, and a considerable amount of controverting evidence; as a result, I cannot concur with your statement.
 P: 11 The universe does have walls or dropoff points. Simple example, if the universe is a vacuum or an area of CNP constant negative pressure, or the darkness or nothing visually percieved. At a point the pressure becomes of such a great negative pressure qualities that atomic operations would not be allowed, or universe wall. CNP respectively -17,-18,-19to the 3rd or actual pressure and not molecular compression. A black hole or force to siphon is formed when the nova explodes and create a weakness -15to the third of the surrounding environment. A universe of a greater negative pressure -27to the 3rd also a vacuum forces a siphon on our universe. The Logic of Negativity copyright 2004. Logical examination of the universe tying all sciences to single science. PHYSICS. It may be percieved that gravity is responsible for a black hole, thats only because any gravitational force remaining is trapped and cannot escape. Along with a substance in chemistry that was deemed missing. Anthony Giguere 1979