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arXiv · 2301.07657

Gravity's Creative Core

Julian Barbour
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Abstract

I argue that the essence of gravity can be understood only in the context of the universe and that unrecognised implicit retention of Newtonian absolute scale and the impact of thermodynamics have obscured it. Typical attempts to resolve the conflict between maximal matter entropy in the early universe and the second law of thermodynamics illustrate my case. Rovelli, for example, argues that the scale factor, and with it the overall state, was out of equilibrium. He illustrates subsequent entropy-increasing interaction with other degrees of freedom in two models: particles in a box interacting with a piston initially out of equilibrium and Newtonian gravitating particles. However, the piston's position and momentum, like the particles", are defined relative to the box, while unobservable absolute space defines those of the gravitating particles. Their representation using observable scale-invariant variables shows that the box and gravitational statistics differ greatly: in the latter a single degree of freedom, gravity's creative core, drives the system in every solution from entropic-like disorder to ever increasing ordered structure. Since in many ways such particles are a good approximation to general relativity, this may also be true for our universe.

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Julian Barbour. 2023-01-18. Gravity's Creative Core. https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07657

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