Musings on Physics

Musings on Physics Jed Margolin 4/5/2025

A. At the center of mass of an object the gravity is zero.

1. Earth

If you take an object the size of Earth but which is perfectly spherical and homogeneous, at the very center of the object the gravity is zero because there is equal mass all around it and it all cancels. If the object is not perfectly spherical and/or is not perfectly homogeneous it will have a center of mass and gravity will be zero at the center of mass. The maximum compression of mass will be a relatively thin shell around the center of mass.

This applies to any object but I am starting with Earth.

When the Earth was entirely molten the heavier elements would sink toward the center because of gravity but as they approached the center of mass they would stop sinking. Therefore, they would not be compressed and therefore they would not become solid. There would be a sphere (of sorts) that would remain molten. And will still be molten now.

That’s fortunate because Uranium is one of those heavy elements and Uranium-235 constitutes about 0.720% of the Uranium on Earth. If the Uranium-235 had sunk to the very center of the Earth it would probably have reached critical mass and there would either be an ongoing fission reaction at the very center of mass of the Earth or it might have caused Earth to explode, thereby keeping the Earth from coalescing. There will still be radioactive decay for a long time but it will not be a chain reaction. Thus the Earth should be safe from exploding unless we do it ourselves.

[Theoretically, all elements will eventually undergo fission, even hydrogen (¹H), but the half-life of ¹H is estimated to be greater than 3.6×10²⁹ years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_hydrogen) which is longer than the estimated remaining life of the Universe (maybe 100 Trillion years which is 10¹⁴ years). ]

2. The Sun

The Sun will also have a center of mass, and gravity will also be zero there so there will not be fusion reactions going on there. How does the current model of the Sun account for that?

3. Black Holes

Gravity at the center of mass of a Black Hole must also be zero.

a. When energy/mass passes the Event Horizon of the Black Hole, General Relativity requires time and space dilation so large that once energy/mass passes the Event Horizon it will be frozen in space and time (space-time). Also, once energy/mass passes the Event Horizon it will “stick”. Energy/mass near the center will be the energy/mass that came to the Black Hole when the Black Hole first formed. If this were a star it would be when it first lit-up. Since it is a Black Hole it would be when it first went dark. Energy/mass that has recently passed the Event Horizon will be stuck just inside the Event Horizon. The Black Hole would be a kind of onion. I will call it a Black Onion (of sorts).

However, at the center of mass, space-time will be normal (or “proper”) which is space-time at a distance sufficiently far enough away from the Black Hole or other mass. (You can decide for yourself how far away it needs to be to be proper.) There will be an Inside Shell of proper space-time. Therefore, a Black Hole is not a singularity.

How does energy/mass get into this Inner Shell of proper space-time if it is frozen?

b. I agree with Dr. Stephen Hawking that Black Holes are subject to quantum fluctuations. Just as energy/mass can leak away from the surface of the Event Horizon it can leak into the inner shell of proper space-time.

It has got to be a real shock to the energy/mass when that happens, when it suddenly wakes up. Would that be detectable somehow, maybe in gravity waves?

There is also the issue that the energy/mass at the Inner Shell will build up over the billions of years that many Black Holes have existed, especially the Super-Massive Black Holes. What happens to it? I will address that presently.

B. Temperature of a Black Hole

1. Temperature is a measure of the movement of atoms/molecules. In gases and liquids the atoms/molecules are zooming around colliding and bouncing off each other, the walls of the container, and the surface of a thermometer (if there is one). In a solid the atoms/molecules are vibrating. The vibration produces friction, and the friction produces heat which is measured by a thermometer whose surface is being vibrated. The atoms/molecules also give off Blackbody Radiation which is caused by the movement of charged particles (electrons and protons) within the object’s atoms and molecules. Max Planck’s work on Blackbody Radiation in 1900 led to the development of quantum theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck’s_law

2. Because the energy/mass inside a Black Hole is frozen in space-time (except in the Inside Shell) there is no movement of anything. The temperature of the Black Hole would be absolute zero except for quantum fluctuations. A Black Hole is the ultimate Blackbody Radiator. I think the Blackbody Radiation emitted by a Black Hole, which is caused solely by quantum fluctuations, is what we call Hawking Radiation. But the Blackbody Radiation in the Inner Shell does not seem to have any way to dissipate. What happens there?

C. But first, where did the Big Bang happen?

It happened wherever you are when you read this.

It happened in the Virginia City Highlands, Nevada, in my house, in my chair, as I write this.

It happened wherever the Moon is right now. And where the Sun is right now.

It happened where Sagittarius A (the supermassive black hole at the galactic center of the Milky Way) is.

And where the supermassive Black Hole at the galactic center of the Andromeda Galaxy is (and wherever Kevin Sorbo happens to be).

The Universe is expanding but it is not expanding into what had been empty space. It is space itself that is expanding. Frankly, I have a problem wrapping my brain around that but I don’t see an alternative.

Space started at the Big Bang so that every place now in the Universe was right there at the Big Bang.

D. Back to the Inner Shell of a Black Hole and what happens to energy/matter that accumulates there.

I will take a wild leap and suggest that it would be a good place for one end of a wormhole. Wormholes are more than science fiction. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole. And from that article:

Einstein–Rosen bridges Einstein–Rosen bridges (or ER bridges),[21] named after Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen,[22] are connections between areas of space that can be modeled as vacuum solutions to the Einstein field equations, and that are now understood to be intrinsic parts of the maximally extended version of the Schwarzschild metric describing an eternal black hole with no charge and no rotation. Here, "maximally extended" refers to the idea that the spacetime should not have any "edges": it should be possible to continue this path arbitrarily far into the particle's future or past for any possible trajectory of a free-falling particle (following a geodesic in the spacetime).

If a wormhole has one end in a Black Hole Inner Shell, where does the other end go?

It could go to the Inner Shell of another Back Hole, and all of the Black Holes in the Universe are connected (maybe in pairs) to each other by wormholes.

But then the energy/mass still has to go somewhere. I can see several ways for that to happen.

Method 1

The particles in wormholes, as Einstein-Rosen bridges, can go into the past. The Black Holes at the end of each wormhole are in the past.

They are so far in the past that they all converge at the Big Bang.

They created the Big Bang and are continuously creating the Big Bang which created the Black Holes which are creating the Big Bang. All of the Universes in the Multiverse might have started at the same Big Bang.

The Universe is a closed loop, a closed time loop. That explains what caused the Big Bang but not how this closed time loop came about.

As the legendary Starfleet Captain Kathryn Janeway used to say, and still says, and will say in the future:

Time travel. Since my first day on the job as a Starfleet captain I swore I'd never let myself get caught in one of these godforsaken paradoxes - the future is the past, the past is the future, it all gives me a headache.

Method 2

The energy/matter in the wormhole interacts with the walls of the wormhole and throws out Casimir Particles. After all, the walls of the wormhole are made of exotic matter where gravity repels instead of attracting.

Method 3

The wormholes go back in time to the Big Bang and also continuously throw out Casimir Particles and the Casimir Particles continue their path going back in time so they are time-reversed from us. Casimir Particles are the Tachyons that everyone(?) is looking for. For the Casimir effect See Reference 1 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect (11/11/2019)

Dutch physicists Hendrik Casimir and Dirk Polder at Philips Research Labs proposed the existence of a force between two polarizable atoms and between such an atom and a conducting plate in 1947; this special form is called the Casimir–Polder force. After a conversation with Niels Bohr, who suggested it had something to do with zero-point energy, Casimir alone formulated the theory predicting a force between neutral conducting plates in 1948 which is called the Casimir effect in the narrow sense.

Predictions of the force were later extended to finite-conductivity metals and dielectrics, and recent calculations have considered more general geometries. Experiments before 1997 had observed the force qualitatively, and indirect validation of the predicted Casimir energy had been made by measuring the thickness of liquid helium films. However it was not until 1997 that a direct experiment by S. Lamoreaux quantitatively measured the force to within 5% of the value predicted by the theory.[14] Subsequent experiments approach an accuracy of a few percent.

In practice, pairs of particles appear spontaneously as anti-particles of each other, quickly annihilate each other and disappear, leaving a small puff of energy behind. (Casimir particles are often called “virtual particles” even though they are obviously very real.)

When the experiments confirming the existence of Casimir particles were first announced it was considered that Casimir particles only appear in empty space. I thought that would be odd. It turns out that Casimir particles pop up everywhere, even inside atoms. From the article in Scientific American in February 2014 You Would Be Forgiven For Assuming That We Understand the Proton by Jan C. Bernauer and Randolf Pohl:

Pohi's group was using a new approach. The group was examining subtle shifts in the energy levels of an exotic, electron-free form of hydrogen—shifts that depend critically on the size of the proton. These shifts were first detected in regular hydrogen back in 1947 by the late Willis E. Lamb, Jr. Even though physicists refer to the phenomena by the singular name "Lamb shift," they have come to understand that two distinct causes are at play.

The first contributor to the Lamb shift comes from so-called virtual particles, phantoms that pop up inside the atom before quickly vanishing again. Scientists can use QED to calculate how these virtual particles affect atomic energy levels to an astonishing precision. Yet in recent years uncertainties in the second contributor to the Lamb shift have begun to limit scientists' predictive powers. This second cause has to do with the proton radius and the bizarre quantum-mechanical nature of the electron.

{Emphasis added}

Since Casimir particles appear everywhere it is likely that they are responsible for KT noise in electronic circuits. For an explanation of KT noise See Reference 2 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_temperature . Since the energy produced by Casimir particles is small, when they appear inside atoms the event only shakes the atom a little. It would explain why the power produced by KT noise in a resistor is not infinite. Otherwise, since PN = K*T * Bandwidth, the power produced by KT noise in a pure resistor would be infinite (or at least very large). It would also explain why space is expanding but matter isn’t.

When time runs forward, two particles appear with each one the other’s anti-particle. They quickly find each other and annihilate each other producing a puff of energy. When time runs backwards, first there is a puff of energy, then it is converted into two particles (each the other’s anti-particle), then they continue to go back in time.

Why should the energy convert into matter?

When time runs forward, space is expanding. When time runs backwards, space is contracting. That means the energy field is becoming more dense. At some point it becomes so dense (at a point) that it converts into matter. E = γ m c²

For those not familiar with ‘γ’ in E = γ m c²

For a particle at rest, v = 0, so v²/c² = 0, so γ = 1.

It also shows why a particle with mass cannot go at the speed of light. The energy would be infinite.

But it does not rule out a particle going faster than light, such as 2 * C. The only problem is that γ would be 1/[SQRT(1-4)] = 1/[SQRT(-3)]

In physics the square root of a negative number is represented as i * SQRT(the absolute number). where i = SQRT(-1). There is a field of math called “Complex Numbers”. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number . A complex number has the form a + bi where a is called the real part and bi is called the imaginary part. The real part and the imaginary part are at right angles to each other.

In Electrical Engineering we represent the letter i as the letter j. With a combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors, the impedance of resistors is real, the impedance of capacitors and inductors (reactance) is imaginary but there is nothing imaginary about it. It represents an impedance that is 90 degrees out of phase with the Real part of the impedance. With inductors the current lags the voltage by 90°. With capacitors the current leads the voltage by 90 degrees. When you add everything up the result is a + bi. The magnitude is the hypotenuse, the square root of the sum of the squares. See https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/alternating-current/chpt-3/ac-inductor-circuits/ and https://www.pearson.com/channels/physics/learn/patrick/alternating-current/phasors-for-inductors .

If an inductor and a capacitor have the same reactance they will cancel each other. However, actual inductors are not a pure inductance because they are made with wire and wire has a finite (and thus real) resistance which has to be included in the calculation. (Unless it is superconducting wire.)

This directly affects the design of the power grids. Most customers’ loads are inductive because of the many motors and transformers that people use. The power utility’s generators must produce the voltage and the current required by customers’ loads even if the current is out of phase with voltage but they can only charge for real power. That is why you frequently see large capacitors on the utility poles. They are there to cancel (or at least reduce) the out-of-phase inductive current, which is the so-called imaginary current. As I have said there is nothing imaginary about it and I think the mathematicians who invented complex numbers made a poor choice of terms.

Let’s take a short diversion back to E = γ m c². When I went to The University of Michigan College of Engineering in the late 1960s to get my BSE(EE) degree it was considered important that engineers be exposed to a lot of different things so I had:

1. Several math courses including Partial Differential Equations. I learned that with Partial Differential Equations it is easy to get the answer if you already know the answer. Otherwise, no way. And it is why harpsichords sound so different from pianos. Harpsichord strings are plucked while piano strings are struck. These different initial conditions give rise to different solutions, hence the different sound.

2. A course in Materials Engineering taught by Professor Lawrence Van Vlack who wrote the book on materials science. He literally wrote the book: Elements of Materials Science and Engineering. See https://mse.engin.umich.edu/undergraduate/facilities/vvul/about

3. A course in Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics. I don’t know how my classmates and I got through that one (but we did). I remember that steam (from water) does not follow the Ideal Gas Law (Boyle’s Law) very well so there are Steam Tables that were determined experimentally. See https://www.thermopedia.com/content/1150/ (The Ideal Gas Law is pV= nRT) I also remember that the Probability of an event happening is based solely on the information you have about the event. If you don’t have any information about a future event the probability of it happening is 50%. Either it will happen or it won’t.

4. Physics For Engineers taught by Professor Gabriel Weinreich. Professor Weinreich was an excellent teacher, really excellent. One day at the beginning of class when he was teaching us Relativity one of my classmates raised his hand, was recognized, and said he had noticed something interesting about γ. Professor Weinreich asked him to come up to the whiteboard and show us. He didn’t do this, as some professors might, in order to embarrass the student. Professor Weinreich was genuinely curious.

My classmate started with γ and expanded it as a Maclaurin series. It showed that for v<<c it reduces to Newton. Nowadays you can see it on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor (Scroll down aways):

In this Wikipedia entry β is v/c so when v<<c

γ ≈ 1 + ½ v²/c²

E = γ m c² = (1 + ½ v²/c²) m c² = m c² + ½ m v²

so E = m c² + ½ m v²

That is the energy of its rest mass (E = m c²) and the energy from its (relatively slow) motion (½ m v²). Newton!

Professor Weinreich was impressed. So was I, which is probably why I remember it these many years later.

Here is The University of Michigan’s entry for Professor Weinreich. https://lsa.umich.edu/physics/people/in-memoriam/weinreic.html

5. Since I was in the EE program I also had courses in electrical engineering. One of best ones was Introduction to Electronics (or something like that) taught by Professor E. Lawrence McMahon. He was also a truly excellent teacher. https://record.umich.edu/articles/obituary-15/

Now let’s get back to a particle going faster than the speed of light. Its energy would be “imaginary” mathematically. In real life it would be in a spatial dimension that is at right angles to the three spatial dimensions that we experience in our normal space-time. Particles traveling faster than light would still produce gravity so gravity would be a vector in four spatial dimensions, not just three. It might be the elusive Dark Matter. In that case it would be imaginary in both meanings. It would be “imaginary” mathematically and it would be “imaginary” in the minds of physicists.

This fourth spatial dimension might also be the solution to the problem of the Planck length and the Planck time. The Planck time is the time it would take a photon travelling at the speed of light to cross a distance equal to the Planck length. This is the 'quantum of time', the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 5.4 x 10^-44 seconds. The Planck length is the smallest measurement of length with any meaning and is roughly equal to 1.6 x 10^-35 m (1.6 x 10^-26 nm). There is a problem reconciling the Planck length and Planck time with Special Relativity. The Planck length and Planck time are derived from several fundamental constants of nature so they should also be invariant and not subject to time dilation and length dilation taught by Special Relativity. See The Planck scale: relativity meets quantum mechanics meets gravity at:

https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/einsteinlight/jw/module6_Planck.htm (mirrored here as Reference 3).

Perhaps the Planck length is the length of a vector with four spatial dimensions. As the Planck length approaches the speed of light its magnitude veers into the fourth spatial dimension. It is its projection onto our three spatial dimensions that is subject to length dilation. And because the fourth spatial dimension is at right angles to the first three spatial dimensions it is not subject to space-time dilation in our three dimensions. (Motion in the fourth spatial dimension would be subject to space-time dilation if something was going through it fast enough. If it was, would it leak into ours or leak into a fifth spatial dimension?)

Now back to Black Holes.

People are mostly interested in converting mass into energy but energy can also be converted into mass. That is what happened after the Big Bang. The Big Bang was all energy. Then it converted some of it into matter. Theoretically, it converted into equal amounts of matter and anti-matter. Fortunately, the amounts of matter and anti-matter were not equal or we wouldn’t be here.

But when Casimir particles are created they are equal. It’s kind of like an atto-Big-Bang reversed in time.

So Casimir particles might be related to the expansion of space but in reverse, as Tachyons.

If Casimir particles are Tachyons maybe we could modulate them and, with a sensitive high-bandwidth receiver, send messages back in time. If you develop the receiver first, you will immediately start receiving messages from the future telling you how to build the transmitter. And giving you some winning lottery numbers so you will be able to pay for it. Note, and this is important. There are bound to be people in the future who think communicating with the past is a really bad idea. So when you receive the instructions for building the transmitter make sure you understand them completely. The instructions you receive might be for building a self-detonating bomb.

E. Why does Earth have a magnetic field? The explanation is generally that the magma is mostly iron, as the Earth rotates it moves the magnetic field through the iron which produces an electrical current which produces the magnetic field. Ok, but how did it get started? Did it get started with a magnetic field or did it start with an electrical current? Did it get started with a magnetic field from the Sun? Or did it get started from the solar wind? Maybe both?

If that is how it got started then Mercury should have a very strong magnetic field, Venus a little less. But they don’t. Mercury has a magnetic field that is about 1.1% of Earth’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury%27s_magnetic_field Venus doesn’t produce its magnetic field. It is produced by the solar wind and is very weak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Magnetic_field_and_core

1. That’s not it so let’s look at the example of Saturn’s moon Titan.

a. Titan has a nice dense atmosphere that has not been blown away by the Sun’s solar wind.

b. Saturn has a very strong magnetic field.

c. For most of Titan’s orbit it is close enough to Saturn that Saturn’s magnetic field is strong enough to protect Titan’s atmosphere from the solar wind. It also ”charges” Titan with a magnetic field so its atmosphere is not blown away during the time Titan’s orbit takes it farther away from Saturn so Saturn’s magnetic field is weaker. See https://astroblog.cosmobc.com/why-does-titan-have-a-dense-atmosphere/

What does this have to do with Earth’s magnetic field?

2. Jupiter is reputed to have had a very odd history. They call it the Grand Tack Hypothesis. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_tack_hypothesis

In planetary astronomy, the grand tack hypothesis proposes that Jupiter formed at a distance of 3.5 AU from the Sun, then migrated inward to 1.5 AU, before reversing course due to capturing Saturn in an orbital resonance, eventually halting near its current orbit at 5.2 AU. The reversal of Jupiter's planetary migration is likened to the path of a sailboat changing directions (tacking) as it travels against the wind.[1]

The planetesimal disk is truncated at 1.0 AU by Jupiter's migration, limiting the material available to form Mars.[2] Jupiter twice crosses the asteroid belt, scattering asteroids outward then inward. The resulting asteroid belt has a small mass, a wide range of inclinations and eccentricities, and a population originating from both inside and outside Jupiter's original orbit.[3] Debris produced by collisions among planetesimals swept ahead of Jupiter may have driven an early generation of planets into the Sun.[4]

That’s a little disheartening, that Jupiter might have driven an early generation of planets into the Sun. I would prefer that it had ejected early planets from the solar system. Some day (with warp drive) we might find a rogue planet that came from our solar system.

The Grand Tack Hypothesis explains why Mars is a runt. Jupiter swept up the material that would have gone into it. Earth is also a runt. Most of the exoplanet candidates for Earth 2.0 are from 2 - 10 times the mass of Earth.

Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere_of_Jupiter:

The magnetosphere of Jupiter is the cavity created in the solar wind by Jupiter's magnetic field. Extending up to seven million kilometers in the Sun's direction and almost to the orbit of Saturn in the opposite direction, Jupiter's magnetosphere is the largest and most powerful of any planetary magnetosphere in the Solar System, and by volume the largest known continuous structure in the Solar System after the heliosphere.

During Jupiter’s trip to the inner solar system it could have charged up Earth’s magnetic field just as Saturn does to Titan. I guess we should thank Jupiter for his gift. Too bad he didn’t give it to Venus, too. With a good magnetic field Venus might be habitable today instead of being the Hell it has become because its atmosphere was blown away by the solar wind.

F. Earth 2.0

Most of the exoplanet candidates for Earth 2.0 are from 2 - 10 times the mass of Earth. That means the gravity will be higher. How much higher?

For this discussion we will assume that the new planet (Earth 2.0) has the same density as Earth. It is made from the same stuff as Earth, is uniformly distributed, and we will not take into account that the increased gravity will cause compression which would increase the density and reduce the radius. Therefore, the volume will be linear with the mass of Earth 2.0 .

First we will calculate the radius of Earth 2.0 . The radius of Earth is r1 = about 3,963 miles. The radius of Earth 2.0 is r2.

The Volume of a sphere: V = 4/3 π r³

Remember that the volume is linear with the mass.

The radius of Earth 2.0 = 3,963 * [(m2/m1) ** (1/3)] or in Excel it is 3,963 * [(m2/m1) ^ (1/3)] . (the cube root)

Mass	Radius (miles)
1.0 (Earth)	3963
2.0 (Earth 2.0 #1)	4993
5.0 (Earth 2.0 #2)	6776
10 (Earth 2/0 #3)	8538

Now gravity.

Force of Gravity:

Fgrav = G * m1 * m2

r²

G = the Gravitational Constant

m1 is the mass of the planet

m2 is the smaller mass, maybe a good-sized piece of iron.

We are comparing the gravity of two planets so Earth is m1[1] and Earth 2.0 is m1[2]. m2 is the same for both planets.

The ratio of Fgrav2/ FGrav1 is: m1[2] / m1[1] / [(r2/r1)**2] .

The result is:

Mass	Radius (miles)	Gravity
1.0 (Earth)	3963	1.00
2.0 (Earth 2.0 #1)	4993	1.26
5.0 (Earth 2.0 #2)	6776	1.71
10 (Earth 2/0 #3)	8538	2.15

The increase in mass (volume) is moderated somewhat by the increase in the radius.

We could go the other way, like for the Moon, except that the density of the Moon is only 0.606 the density of Earth. See https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html

That’s odd. I thought that the Moon came about from the collision of a planet the size of Mars (Theia) with Earth so the Moon should have the same density as Earth. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theia_(planet)

Maybe it’s all the water on Earth except that the Moon has water, too, only it’s underground.

I have always had a problem with the Theia theory. If Earth started out in a more-or-less circular orbit, a collision with Theia would have left Earth in a decidedly elliptical orbit. It doesn’t matter what angle Theia hit Earth. The odds that Earth started out with an elliptical orbit and the collision with Theia made it circular are vanishingly small.

Earth’s orbit has an eccentricity of 0.0167 which is almost a perfect circle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_orbit

Actually, it’s the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system that orbits the Sun.

If someone asks you “How far above the surface of the Earth is the Earth-Moon barycenter?” it is a trick question. The Earth-Moon barycenter is about 2,900 miles from the center of the Earth so it lies below the surface of the Earth (whose radius is about 3,963 miles).

There is also the theory that the Moon is hollow. Maybe it is an engineered Spaceship Moon. Or maybe it is hollow from natural process. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon It could have lots of old hollow lava tubes and spaces from when it was molten. But I don’t think it explains why the Moon “rang like a bell” when seismometers installed on the Moon by the Apollo missions recorded moonquakes. Earth has lots of hollow lava tubes and spaces from Earth being molten and we don’t ring like a bell, do we?

Back to Earth 2.0 . Since the gravity is higher it has several important consequences.

1. First we will assume that all of the elements on Earth are present everywhere else and that life would be made from these elements. For example, bones would probably be made of Calcium salts (mixtures of calcium with other minerals) and not metallic Iron. Calcium bone is living tissue, metallic Iron is not. (I wouldn’t mind having bones made from Titanium if it could form living tissue.) In any event, Calcium bones will have the same physical properties everywhere else, too.

The physical properties of bones are characterized by the strength, stiffness, and energy required to fracture the bone as an organ.

If you evolve on a planet with higher gravity there is more weight on your bones so you have to be shorter and/or have thicker bones in which case you will be wider. That’s the difference between a horse and an elephant. Actually, you know what they say, a camel is a horse designed by a committee and an elephant is a horse designed to Mil Spec.

Referring back to my calculations, on Earth 2.0 #1 (2 x the mass of Earth) gravity is 1.26 that of Earth. If you weighed 175 lbs on Earth you would weigh 220 lbs on Earth 2.0 #1. You could live that way although it would be harder on your joints.

On Earth 2.0 #2 (5 x the mass of Earth) gravity is 1.7 that of Earth. If you weighed 175 lbs on Earth you would weigh 299 lbs on Earth 2 #2. You could probably live that way although it would be really hard on your joints and your heart.

On Earth 2.0 #3 (10 x the mass of Earth) gravity is 2.2 that of Earth. If you weighed 175 lbs on Earth you would weigh 377 lbs on Earth 2 #3. You could probably live that way although it would be really really hard on your joints and your heart.

If your species evolved on an Earth 2.0 you would be able to handle the higher gravity just fine but you would not be mistaken for a member of homo sapiens. And if you came to Earth you would be stronger than Earthlings but you would not be able to “leap tall buildings in a single bound” which Superman is reputed to do. (He came from Krypton which has a higher gravity.) And you certainly couldn’t fly like Superman. If you tried, you would fall like a rock.

If you went to an Earth 2.0 and survived long enough to reproduce, your children would develop to handle the higher gravity. But they would not grow up to be the same size and shape as you.

If Earth 2.0 has lower gravity than Earth’s your bones would be thinner and/or you would be taller. If you came to Earth your bones would break easily and you probably wouldn’t even be able to walk. So if you go live on Mars for a few years you probably won’t be able to come back. And your children born on Mars will never be able to come to Earth. How many people would it take to maintain a technological society? Remember you have to be able to make everything you need starting from the raw materials available on Mars.

When people report being abducted by extraterrestrials the extraterrestrials are generally greys (who are short and have big eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_alien) and other species like the Nordics who are slightly taller than is average for humans but are within the range of human size. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_aliens . That means they either evolved on a planet with Earth gravity (which there appear to be very few of) or they might be time travelers from our future trying to make sure we have a future so they can exist. If that is the case they are doing a very poor job of it.

Many of our world leaders act like Reptilian Aliens. They must actually be Reptilian Aliens and their plan is to kill off the human race (or as many of us as they can) and make Earth more comfortable for them. They like it hot.

2. A technological civilization on an Earth 2.0 would not be able to get into orbit with a chemical rocket. We are barely able to get into orbit with our chemical rockets. They would have to wait until they knew a lot more physics than we have figured out yet. In the meantime they would not have communications satellites. They would not have weather satellites. They would not have orbiting telescopes to explore the Universe. They would not be able to send probes to the other planets in their solar system. And they would not get themselves off-planet. The lack of these things would slow down their progress in science and technology.

G. Space-time

Remember that the Universe is expanding but not into what had been empty space, that space itself is expanding? Since space and time are intrinsically linked it is likely that it is space-time that is expanding. In that case, not only is space expanding but time is expanding (thereby slowing down) as well. It would explain why the expansion of the Universe appears to be accelerating. It isn’t, it only appears to be accelerating because time is slowing down. If time is slowing down how would we know?

I. The Higgs Field

Empty space is not empty and not just because of Casimir Particles. Space is filled with the Higgs Field. See Reference 4 (from Wikipedia) and Reference 5 (from CERN). It is the Higgs Field that gives particles such as electrons, protons, and neutrons their mass. Although it is generally stated that since photons do not have mass they do not interact with the Higgs Field, that might not be exactly true. Photons have no rest mass. Photons either travel at the speed of light or they do not exist. But when they exist (traveling at the speed of light) they have Energy E = h*f where h is Planck's constant and f is the frequency. There is also E = M*C² (for the mass at rest) so that the effective mass of a photon due to its energy comes from h*f = M*C² so that the effective mass of a photon is M = h * f / C². It isn’t very much but it is enough to cause the phenomenon of gravitational lensing where light passing by a large mass such as a star or indeed, a galaxy, is bent. See Reference 6 (from Wikipedia). Since photons are subject to the effects of gravity (due to their energy), they must interact with the Higgs Field and therefore it is the Higgs Field that gives the electromagnetic field its energy. And thus the Higgs Field manifests the four fundamental forces of nature: Gravity, the Weak Force, and Strong Force, and the Electromagnetic Force. The theory of the Higgs Field (of which much more work needs to be done) is the Unified Field Theory.

Since the Higgs Field permeates all of space, and space is expanding, is the Higgs Field also expanding or is it staying the same? If the Higgs Field is expanding along with space then the Higgs Field is becoming weaker and the four fundamental forces of nature are becoming weaker. Planetary orbits will increase until the planets are no longer bound to their star and moons will no longer be bound to their planets. With less gravity stars will increase in size (such as when they become red giants because they are now burning helium which produces more energy than burning hydrogen and overwhelms gravity until it reaches a new equilibrium as a red giant) until they simply go out completely because the weak force no longer supports nuclear fusion. And atoms will ionize more easily until they also fly apart. But if the Higgs Field is staying the same then it is effectively becoming more dense (more lines of force per cubic meter) in which case the four fundamental forces of nature are becoming stronger. At some point planetary orbits will decay, stars will implode, and even atoms will collapse. And Stephen Hawking’s Higgs Field Doomsday Prediction will come true. With an increase in the strength of the Higgs Field it will inevitably seek a lower energy level. It will start in a bubble that will expand at the speed of light. From Reference 7:

Here's how Hawking describes this Higgs doomsday scenario in the new book: "The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become metastable at energies above 100 [billion] gigaelectronvolts (GeV). … This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light. This could happen at any time and we wouldn't see it coming."

Or, if it is spacetime that is expanding (and not just space) then there shouldn’t be anything to worry about since with the expansion of spacetime everything remains in scale.

Jed Margolin

Virginia City Highlands

Nevada

April 4, 2025, April 5, 2025

.end