"The increase of mass in matter is equal to the increase of energy divided by the square of the velocity of light. In a dynamic sense the work which resting matter can perform is equal to the energy expended in bringing its parts together from Paradise minus the resistance of the forces overcome in transit and the attraction exerted by the parts of matter on one another." (474)

Regardless of whether one labels the above statement from The Urantia Book as metaphysical nonsense, it remains a fact that, in 1935, few human beings were equipped with the necessary knowledge to write such "nonsense." The statement indicates that the authors (the Revelators) were familiar with Einstein's relativity theories. Nevertheless, in the book they persisted in referring to Newtonian concepts such as the "pull" of material gravity. For example--a body of large mass may exert sufficient gravity pull on a lesser body to start disruptive tidal convulsions in that body. (170) They even state the Newtonian gravitational law that the force acting between two bodies is proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the distance separating them, but add the proviso that this law may be modified by intervening space forces such as anti-gravity. (482)

Does this mean that the Revelators are refuting Einstein's proposal that the supposed attractive force of gravity merely reflects the curvature of space-time and that inertia and gravity are indistinguishable? Or are the Revelators doing what so many physicists do in practice--using the Newtonian concepts as an adequate simplification in many instances, such as, for example, for placing a satellite in orbit around the earth?

The Urantia Book states that energy, as light or in other forms, traverses space in straight lines except as acted upon by superior forces and in obedience to the linear gravity pull inherent in material mass. (461)  It also states that gravity-responding energy is the ancestor of all universe matter (470), and that no measurable linear gravity pull is exerted on free, unattached, and uncharged electronic energy particles. (476) Would that last statement indicate that a neutron star would exert no gravitational effects?

A recently publicized theory appears to be consistent with all of these statements in the book, as well as being in line with Newtonian gravitational concepts rather than the curved space-time postulates of Einstein's relativity. It proposes that there is no such thing as mass, only electric charge and energy which together create the illusion of mass. The physical universe is made up of massless electric charges immersed in a vast, energetic, all-pervasive electromagnetic field. The interaction of those charges and the electromagnetic field creates the appearance of mass.

Modern physics recognizes an electromagnetic force and a weak force involved in radioactive decay. These two forces have been shown to be manifestations of a single force, appropriately named the electroweak force. The hope of modern physics is that a way will be found to unite this force with the strong force that holds atomic nuclei together to give a unified field theory. Until now, gravity has resisted all attempts at unification with these other fundamental forces. If the new view is correct, gravity would not need to be separately unified. Just as mass would arise from the electromagnetic force, so would gravity.

Early in this century, Lorentz, Poincare, and Abraham suggested that inertial mass might arise from an effect, the electrostatic self-energy, through the equation E=MC². However, the theoretical mass derived from their equation was orders of magnitude larger than observed mass. The more recent ideas suggest inertia is a property arising out of an all-pervasive electromagnetic field called the zero-point field (ZPF). This field is held to exist in a vacuum--even at the temperature of absolute zero. It can be thought of as a sea of electromagnetic radiation that is both uniform and isotropic (the same in all directions). It differs from the cosmic microwave background radiation in that the energy of ZPF rises sharply with the frequency of the radiation---in fact, is proportional to the cube of the frequency. There are two differing views as to its origin, one via orthodox concepts of quantum theory, the other from an updated concept termed stochastic electrodynamics proposed earlier by Einstein, Planck, Nernst, Hopf, and Stern.

In contrast to the 19th century concept of "ether," ZPF has the property of  being Lorentz invariant and is only detectable when a body is accelerated through space. In the mid 70's, Paul Davies and William Unruh showed that, as a moving observer accelerates through the ZPF, the ZPF spectrum becomes distorted. A recent analysis showed that when an electromagnetically interacting particle is accelerated through the ZPF, a force is exerted on the charge in direct proportion to the acceleration but acts in the opposite direction. In other words, the charge experiences an electromagnetic force as resistance to acceleration. This resistance is interpreted as the very inertia that Newton regarded as an innate property of matter. Hence, in Newton's second law, F=ma, the term 'm' simply becomes the coupling constant between acceleration and an external electromagnetic force. Thus Newton's second law can be derived from the laws of electrodynamics provided one assumes an underlying zero-point field.

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From this new viewpoint what we formerly called mass, having the property of inertia, comes about because an electromagnetic force acts upon the charge lurking inside matter.

A more parsimonious view is not even that there is charge lurking inside matter, but that there is only charge. The presence of charge and its interaction with ZPF creates the forces we all experience and attribute to the existence of matter, even for an apparently electrically neutral particle such as the neutron which, at a deeper level, consists of charged quarks.

According to Einstein, inertia and gravitational mass are indistinguishable. If so, then ZPF, which gives rise to inertia, must in some way generate gravity. This idea was proposed in 1968 by Russian physicist, Andrei Sakharov, and developed by another Russian, H.E. Puthoff within the framework of stochastic electrodynamics. The underlying principle is remarkably intuitive. If a charged particle is subjected to ZPF interactions, it will be forced to fluctuate in response to the random jostlings of the electromagnetic waves of the ZPF (is this the Lamb effect?). Fluctuating charge emits an electromagnetic radiation field, the result of this being that all charges in the universe must emit secondary electromagnetic fields in response to their interactions with the primary field, the ZPF.

The secondary electromagnetic fields turn out to have a remarkable property. Between any two particles they give rise to an attractive force, regardless of whether the charges are positive or negative. This attractive force may be identified with gravity. The fluctuations are relativistic, moving at, or close to, the speed of light. The energy associated with them is interpreted as the energy equivalent of gravitational rest mass. Gravitational mass is not the source of gravitation, its source is the driven motion of a charge, not the attractive power of mass. To interpret Einstein's equation, E = mc², we need to say that mass is not equivalent to energy, mass is energy.

ZPF is treated as real, not virtual. The real force seen in the Casimir force between two parallel plates would be attributable to it. In quantum theory, the Casimir force is attributed to virtual particles. In the Sakharov--Puthoff model, the ZPF does not itself gravitate. The gravitational force results from perturbations of the ZPF, and the uniform ZPF does not contribute to the curving of the universe.

How can this new theory of Newtonian-like gravity be reconciled with 20th century measurements of effects predicted only from general relativity? Sakharov suggested accounting for the effects of general relativity by introducing the concept of an elasticity of space analogous to the curvature of space-time. (Urantia Book, p.123: "we do not know the actual mechanism of space respiration; we merely observe that all space alternately contracts and expands.")

It is early days yet and time only will tell whether these ideas will be verified. Its authors submit that a theory that offers new insights with such elegance and simplicity is a compelling approach to reality. A similar argument was put forward by Paul Dirac when he proposed to account for a solution involving the negative root of a quadratic equation by attributing it to antimatter. At the time, many thought that Dirac's proposal was quite preposterous. Nowadays, antimatter is manufactured as a matter of course. No doubt the progress of these ideas will be followed by Urantia Book readers and compared with what appeared to be a somewhat naive treatment of gravity, relativity, and quantum theory in the Urantia Papers.

Reference:

B. Haisch, A. Rueda, and H.E. Puthoff. (1994) "The Sciences," 34, 26-31 (New York Academy of Sciences, N.Y.)